The contributors to this volume reference a shared, longitudinal corpus of spontaneous conversation elicited in natural settings from speakers with moderate to late moderate Alzheimer's Disease, utilizing other collections as appropriate, to analyze conversation, discourse and written text by and about Alzheimer's speech. Cross-disciplinary contributions from the USA, Canada, New Zealand and Germany, representing linguistics, gerontology, geriatric nursing, computer science, and communications disorders report on empirically-based investigations of social and pragmatic language competencies and strategies retained by AD patients which could ground communication enhancements or interventions.
B. Davis
communication gerontology language linguistics literary diction
'...this collection is a praiseworthy effort at meeting the challenges of research into dementia from a multi-disciplinary perspective...this is a book I would highly recommend for use by both students and researchers. It provides a useful resource that exemplifies how linguistic approaches can be systematically applied to both written texts and conversational data. Even more importantly, it is underpinned by a concern for integrity of the individual and points to strategies that can be used to improve the communication process in dementia.' - Jackie Guendouzi, Journal of Sociolinguistics