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Licensed Unlicensed Requires Authentication Published by De Gruyter Mouton June 22, 2019

Agency and epistemic authority in question-answer sequences between art museum guides and visitors diagnosed with dementia

  • Adrienne R. Isaac EMAIL logo and Heidi E. Hamilton
From the journal Linguistics Vanguard

Abstract

Recent studies documenting the real-time details of human interactions have revealed the way in which artefacts in the immediate physical surround facilitate the display and demonstration of knowledge. The museum setting in which physically present objects prompt and support visitor displays of knowledge is particularly well-suited for individuals managing symptoms related to memory loss as a result of dementia, especially of the Alzheimer’s type. In this paper, we explore question-answer sequences taken from three hour-long guided sessions within an art gallery program involving museum guides who were specially trained to work with visitors with dementia. We investigate representative sequences 1) in which visitors exercise interactional control by posing questions to guides that relate to the visitors’ own interests and 2) in which guides pose questions to visitors regarding topics that relate to the visitors’ personal lives. We argue that these two discursive practices promote interactional meaningfulness, in that the former pattern affords the visitors interactional agency, while the latter pattern allows them to display their epistemic authority. Finally, we consider how insights from this therapeutic model may be translated from the museum to the home setting.

Acknowledgment

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on a previous version of the manuscript.

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Appendix

Transcription Conventions

(.) pause in talk within a turn or lapse in talk between speaker turns
((word)) non-verbal behavior
word emphasis
wo::rd sound stretch
= latched, or continuous talk
[ ] overlapping talk
( ) inaudible talk
(word) approximation of talk; transcriber uncertainty
°word° talk that is spoken softly

Adapted from:

Goodwin, Marjorie H. 1990. He-said-she-said: Talk as social organization among Black children. Indiana University Press.

Received: 2018-05-15
Accepted: 2019-01-16
Published Online: 2019-06-22

©2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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