Third-party turns and shared knowledge: Supports and challenges to disabled people in social care and research settings

Abstract

Adopting a conversation analysis (CA) perspective, this paper explores data which include disabled people in three-party contexts, where the institutional goal is to focus on the wishes, voice and agency of the disabled person. It explores 274 occasions where a third party self-selects for a turn, during social care planning meetings and research interviews. Five broad action patterns are discussed, showing how third parties used their epistemic closeness to the disabled person in order to (1) clarify, (2) respond, (3) prompt, (4) expand and (5) challenge. The sequential consequence of these turns depended on how they were heard and taken up by other parties in the talk. The vast majority of third-party turns could be glossed as supportive to the disabled person. Third parties displayed their sensitivity towards the precise moment that they were ‘needed’ in the talk. Occasionally, there were challenges and counterinformings done by the third party, which could be analysed as ‘epistemic traps’. These moments signaled tensions between the best interests of the disabled person and the imperative to foreground their voice.

Couples living with dementia managing conflicting knowledge claims

“…Although such other-corrections may occur regularly in close relationships, in our data, it is the partners who initiate and carry out most of the corrections, suggesting an asymmetric distribution of epistemic rights. This is in line with what has been found in other asymmetrical relations (Antaki and Chinn, 2019; Drew, 1981; Kurhila, 2001; Macbeth, 2004; McHoul, 1990; Williams and Porter, 2015). Since the spouses here do not display other forms of asymmetry, the relevant source of their asymmetric rights thus seems to be their status (at least with respect to their roles in these interactions) as cognitively healthy versus challenged.…”

“…Other-corrections are claimed to be rather uncommon in everyday interaction among peers (Schegloff et al, 1977). They seem more common (and acceptable) in certain contexts involving clear asymmetries of knowledge, such as teacher-student interaction (Macbeth, 2004; McHoul, 1990), conversations between children and adults (Drew, 1981) first and second language speakers (Kurhila, 2001) as well as in conversations involving persons with disabilities (Williams and Porter, 2015; Antaki and Chinn, 2019). Of special relevance to the current study, Haakana and Kurhila (2009) found that other-corrections occur regularly and without modulation in conversations between parties in close relationships, such as spouses and friends, and suggest that such unmitigated other-correction may be an index of such a relationship.…”

The Meaning of ‘choice and control’ for People with Intellectual Disabilities who are Planning their Social Care and Support

“…In the observed sessions (Williams et al . in press), as well as the interviews, it was evident how a family member acted as a very strong advocate, and routinely took on the role of prompting, clarifying and repairing the conversation, as they all too often knew beforehand exactly what their relative was about to say! However, when there was any type of conflict between their views, family members definitely had the advantage in arguing the case, as they knew so intimately the circumstances of their family member.…”

“…The nine people in the current analysis were chosen because they all took part at least in sections of interviews on their own behalf, giving us a sense of what they wanted from their lives and what was important to them. Family carers were present in four cases, and we were very interested in their contribution and viewpoint, having focused on that elsewhere (Williams et al ., in press). However, for the purposes of this paper, we have tried to bracket the carer voice, focusing instead only on passages where the person with disability was contributing, even if that was done jointly with their family carer.…”

Disability and consumption: A state of the art

“…These studies suggest practical solutions to facilitate interviews, considering the importance of the environment, duration, type of questions and even the body language of the interlocutor (Atkinson, 1988; Heal and Sigelman, 1995; Jen-Yi et al, 2015). The linguist Williams uses the conversational analysis method described by Williams and Porter (2016) to provide highly detailed descriptions of the interactions between a researcher and the person with a disability when assisted by a caregiver. This method is designed to help researchers identify points when the caregiver may go beyond his or her supporting role by ‘confiscating’ the assisted person’s right to speak.…”