Bringing together cutting-edge research from a group of international scholars, this innovative volume examines how people with dementia interact with others in a variety of social contexts, ranging from everyday conversation to clinical settings. Drawing on methods from conversation analysis, it sheds light on how people with dementia accomplish relevant goals in interaction, as well as how changes in an individual's discursive abilities may affect how conversationalists negotiate a world in common and continue to build their social relationships. By exploring interaction, this book breaks new ground in challenging the commonplace assumptions about what constitutes typical or atypical interactions in communication involving people with dementia, and further demonstrates the unique and creative strategies all speakers employ to facilitate better and more collaborative communication. It is essential reading for academic researchers and advanced students across sociolinguistics, interactional linguistics and conversational analysis, as well as health care practitioners.

‘As more and more people learn to live with dementia, there is an increasing need to identify and build on their communication and social skills rather than merely to describe what they cannot do or the errors they make. This book, examining conversations involving people with dementia in a broad range of clinical and everyday scenarios, should not only be of great interests to scholars of language, communication and social interaction but also to the many different health and care professionals who try to connect with the identity and views of the individuals with dementia they work with.’

Markus Reuber - Professor of Clinical Neurology, University of Sheffield

‘Muntigl, Jones, and Plejert, with their all-star cast of authors, draw on the rigorous methods of Conversation Analysis (CA) to offer readers an illuminating journey through a fascinating range of understudied clinical and everyday interactions involving persons living with dementia. Their thoughtful and critical engagement with the binary notions “normal versus abnormal, typical versus atypical, competency versus incompetency, deficit versus ability” will energize all who seek to understand the particularities and complexities of lived experiences at the intersection of language and dementia.’

Heidi E. Hamilton - Professor Emerita of Linguistics, Georgetown University

‘This book is one that is relevant to researchers, clinicians, and even families, for it explores a host of themes that are relevant to all: diagnosis, interaction, everyday life, and domains of knowledge and control. It is not a book that only addresses decline and deficit; it also highlights adaptation and adjustment on the part of those with the syndrome and those with whom they are in relationships. Read this book, learn, and be richly rewarded!’

Douglas W. Maynard - Hallinan Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Garfinkel Faculty Fellow Emeritus, University of Wisconsin—Madison