Communication in Persons with Acquired Speech Impairment

The Role of Family as Language Brokers

Bibliographic Data

ID22961500
AuthorsGema Rubio‐carbonero (0000-0002-5009-8291, Universitat Autonòma de Barcelona, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume32
Issue1
Pages161-181
Publication date2022-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Linguistic Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1055-1360 • E-ISSN: 1548-1395
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/jola.12340
OpenAlexW3212181115
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited31

More than 170 million people in the world have some kind of speech impairment. The lack of professional interpreters in this domain causes their families to need to learn new communicative strategies to interact with them and assist them as interpreters. The aim of this paper is to analyze the role of these non‐professional interpreters for adults with a speech impairment caused by an acquired brain injury. Data come from 13 qualitative interviews and participant observations of 7 persons with acquired brain injury and their families during 18 months. The paper shows the communicative and multimodal strategies these ad‐hoc interpreters use to understand the person with impaired speech and the strategies such persons use to make themselves understandable. It also shows how meaning is negotiated and jointly constructed, the power dynamics that emerge from interpreting practices and the impact this has on the speech‐impaired persons’ agency.

Acquired brain injury · Agency (philosophy) · Interpreter · Linguistics · Meaning (existential) · Sociology · Computer Science · Hearing Impairment and Communication · Interpreting and Communication in Healthcare · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Psychology · Rehabilitation

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access