Collaborative meaning-making in delusional talk as a search for mutual manifestness
A Relevance Theory approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v6i1.53Keywords:
meaning negotiation, schizophrenia, delusions, Relevance TheoryAbstract
Delusional talk may pose predictable challenges to the hearer in identifying what the speaker intended to communicate, particularly if the speaker presumes the hearer to have access to assumptions based on delusional content. This paper explores delusional talk between participants with schizophrenia and an interlocutor, analysing how meaning is negotiated through achieving access to assumptions that are not initially manifest to the conversation partner. A Relevance Theory approach is taken to the analysis of the data revealing two strategies used by the interlocutor to negotiate meaning. The Relevance Theory notion of mutual manifestness emerges as a powerful explanatory factor. The pursuit of mutual manifestness and a mutual cognitive environment explains the interlocutor’s meaning negotiation attempts, allowing the communicators to ‘align’ and engage in conversation. The interlocutor is also exposed as seeking to exit the delusional talk by moving towards topics which are based on assumptions which are clearly mutually manifest.
References
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Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
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Wilson, D. and Sperber, D. (2004). Relevance Theory. In L. R. Horn and G. Ward (Eds), The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Clark, H. H. and Carlson, T. B. (1981). Context for comprehension. In J. Long and A. Baddeley (Eds), Attention and Performance IX. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Georgaca, E. (2004). Talk and the nature of delusions: Defending sociocultural perspectives in mental illness. Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 11(1), 87–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2004.0038
Ghaemi, A. N. (2004). The perils of belief: Delusions reexamined. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, 11 (1), 49–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2004.0040
Givón, T. (2005). Context as Other Minds: The Pragmatics of Sociality, Cognition and Communication. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/z.130
Grice, H. P. (1967). Logic and conversation. William James Lectures. Harvard. In H. P. Grice (1989). Studies in the Way of Words, 269–282. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Harper, D. L. (2004). Delusions and discourse: Moving beyond the constraints of the rationalist paradigm. Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology, 11 (1), 55–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ppp.2004.0041
Jaspers, K. (1913/1997). General Psychopathology (translated edition 1997, J. Hoenig and M.W. Hamilton). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Kovarsky, D., Kimbarow, M. and Kaster, D. (1999). The construction of incompetence during group therapy with traumatically brain injured adults. In D. Kovarsky, J. Duchan and M. Maxwell (Eds). Constructing (In)competence. Disabling Evaluations in Clinical and Social Interaction. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Lijuan, Q. (2010). An empirical study of meaning negotiation from the perspective of task characteristics –Task difficulty and task complexity. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics, 33, 445–463.
MacWhinney, B. (2000). The CHILDES Project: Tools for Analyzing Talk (3rd edn). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
McCabe, R., Heath, C., Burns, T. and Priebe, S. (2002). Engagement of patients with psychosis in the consultation: Conversation analytic study BMJ: British Medical Journal, 325 (7373), 1148–1151. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.325.7373.1148
Mirecki, P. (Ed.). (2005). Misunderstanding: A Starting Point for Successful Communication – A View from the Relevance-theoretic Perspective. Warsaw: The Institute of English Studies, University of Warsaw.
Simmons-Mackie, N. and Kovarsky, D. (2009). Engagement in clinical interaction: An introduction. Seminars in Speech and Language, 30 (1), 5–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1055/s-0028-1104529
Sperber, D. (1994). Understanding verbal understanding. In J. Kalfa (Ed.), What is Intelligence? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sperber, D. and Wilson, D. (1986/1995). Relevance: Communication and Cognition. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.
Tannen, D. (1989). Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge MA: Cambridge University Press.
Walsh, I. P. (2007). Small talk is ‘big talk’ in clinical discourse: Appreciating the value of conversation in SLP clinical interactions. Topics in Language Disorders 27 (1), 24–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/00011363-200701000-00004
Walsh, I. P. (2008). Whose voice is it anyway? Hushing and hearing ‘voices’ in speech and language therapy interactions with people with chronic schizophrenia. International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 43 (1), 1–15.
Wilson, D. (2000). Metarepresentation in linguistic communication. In D. Sperber (Ed.), Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wilson, D. and Sperber, D. (2004). Relevance Theory. In L. R. Horn and G. Ward (Eds), The Handbook of Pragmatics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Published
2015-01-30
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Jagoe, C. (2015). Collaborative meaning-making in delusional talk as a search for mutual manifestness: A Relevance Theory approach. Journal of Interactional Research in Communication Disorders, 6(1), 53-70. https://doi.org/10.1558/jircd.v6i1.53
