Abstract The article identifies and describes conversational practices used by persons with dementia and their interlocutors to account for the former’s lack of knowledge in cases where information about their personal experiences is made relevant and expectable at a specific point in a conversation. First, they may seek to normalize the lack of knowledge by claiming that it would be difficult for anyone to know or remember the information in question. Second, they may exceptionalize it by claiming that their cognitive or communicative impairment incidentally and temporarily disables them from accessing the information. Finally, they may justify their failure to provide information by claiming that it is not important, relevant or expectable that they should know. Such accounts dissociate the social character from the forgetfulness and thus constitute an attempt to avoid the loss of face associated with not remembering personal experiences. By specifying these conversational accounting practices, the study thus adds to existing knowledge on how participants handle the social sensitivity of typical dementia symptoms.

中文翻译：

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解释痴呆互动中的健忘

摘要本文确定并描述了痴呆症患者及其对话者在谈话中的某个特定点使有关其个人经历的信息具有相关性和可预期性的情况下，用来解释前者缺乏知识的对话做法。首先，他们可能声称声称任何人都很难知道或记住所讨论的信息，从而试图使知识的缺乏正常化。其次，他们可能会声称自己的认知或交流障碍是偶然的，从而暂时使他们无法访问信息，从而使之例外。最后，他们可以声称自己应该知道的信息不重要，不相关或无法预期，从而证明未能提供信息是有道理的。这样的叙述使社会性格与健忘分离开来，因此是避免与不记得个人经历有关的面子丧失的一种尝试。通过指定这些会话性会计惯例，该研究因此增加了有关参与者如何处理典型痴呆症状的社会敏感性的现有知识。