Conversation: the sharing of information, reflection and emotions through alternating utterances. It’s one of those activities that everyone assumes we know how to do. What’s so difficult about conversation? It’s just talking, after all. Tell that to George, one of the participants in my study, who spent hours on the phone with his father, who was worried about events that had happened decades ago. Tell it to anyone who cares for someone with dementia. The tendency of memories to surface in unexpected circumstances, together with impaired short-term memory and the inability remember words and facts in a contextually-appropriate way, often leads to a communicative disruption between persons with dementia and even their most intimate and loving family members.
Actually, conversation is pretty complex. Philosopher Paul Grice argued that even the loosest conversation tends to follow certain unwritten rules. According to Grice, exchanges do not consist of a string of disconnected remarks; they are cooperative efforts, in which each participant accepts a common purpose, or at least a mutually accepted direction. Grice produces 4 maxims that, if followed, generally ensure that this cooperative effort is taking place:
1. Quantity: make your contribution as informative as required; don’t go over.
2. Quality: don’t say what you believe to be false, or something for which you lack sufficient evidence
3. Relation: be relevant
4. Manner: be orderly and brief; avoid obscurity or ambiguity
Many who have talked with a person living with dementia know what it’s like when these maxims are not observed. (In fact, a lot of people without dementia break those rules all the time.)
So, how do we cope? I’ll be dealing with that in successive posts, but here’s one idea I’ve found useful. The Russian linguist and theorist Roman Jakobson argued that language works on many different levels, one of which is “contact”: saying things, not for their informative content, but for the sake of interaction. When we say “hello” to people we pass on the street, when we “Like” a friend’s posts on social media, when we say “mm hmm” when listening to others, we’re not saying anything special. We’re simply “touching” them, reminding them that we’re there, and we’re listening.
Sometimes, that’s a useful way of interacting with a loved one who’s battling dementia. Cathy Borrie, in The Long Hello, describes immersing herself in her mother’s fractured language, learning to enjoy conversation that may have made little sense, but which possessed a whimsical rhythm that provided its own unique satisfactions.
Sometimes, conversation is less about content, and more about contact.
