Negotiating Communicative Access in Practice: A Study of a Memoir Group for People With Aphasia

Written Communication Apr 2019

Negotiating Communicative Access in Practice: A Study of a Memoir Group for People With Aphasia

Elisabeth L. Miller University of Nevada, Reno

Abstract

Resulting from stroke or brain injury, aphasia affects individuals’ ability to produce and comprehend language, but it also creates profound social changes, limiting individuals’ opportunities to communicate or to be seen as capable of communication. To address these challenges, the field of communicative sciences and disorders (CSD) has sought to ensure “communicative access” by reducing barriers to communication. This article, through an analysis of the communicative practices of participants in a memoir group for people with aphasia, develops a nuanced conception of communicative access as a process of negotiation across individuals and modes and not just as a process of reducing barriers. The study shows, specifically, that rather than the mere presence of multiple semiotic resources enabling communicative access, individuals enact access by flexibly shifting between modes to take advantage of various kinds of affordances that best suit their needs. This willingness to use modes in atypical or nonnormative ways importantly challenges the very idea of “normal” communication. The theory of communicative access developed in this article melds (a) a CSD understanding of communication as social and tied inextricably to identity with (b) a disability studies conception of access as an ongoing, negotiated process and with (c) a writing studies emphasis on literate, communicative activity as complexly layered, distributed, negotiated, and (multi)semiotic.

Journal: Written Communication
Published: 2019-04-01
DOI: 10.1177/0741088318823210
Open Access: Closed
Topics: multimodality disability studies affect and writing

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

Lindenman et al. (2024)

A Taxonomy of Life Writing: Exploring the Functions of Meaningful Self-Sponsore…

Written Communication
Olinger (2020)

Visual Embodied Actions in Interview-Based Writing Research: A Methodological A…

Written Communication
Vieira (2019)

What Happens When Texts Fly

College English

Cites in this index (7)

Clayson (2018)

Distributed Cognition and Embodiment in Text Planning: A Situated Study of Coll…

Written Communication
Kerschbaum et al. (2017)

Forum: Centering Disability in Qualitative Interviewing

Research in the Teaching of English
Alexander et al. (2015)

DMAC After Dark: Toward a Theory of Distributed Invention

Computers and Composition
Leonard (2015)

Writing Through Bureaucracy

Written Communication
Laquintano (2010)

Sustained Authorship: Digital Writing, Self-Publishing, and the Ebook

Written Communication

Show all 7 →

Haas et al. (2001)

Writing as an Embodied Practice

Journal of Business and Technical Communication
WITTE (1992)

Context, Text, Intertext

Written Communication

Also cites 23 works outside this index ↓

10.1080/02687030544000128

↗
10.3998/mpub.9708722

↗
10.1207/s15327973rlsi2803_4

↗
Goodwin C. (2004). A competent speaker who can’t speak: The social life of aphasia. Journal of Linguistic Ant…

↗
Hamraie A. (2013). Designing collective access: A feminist disability theory of universal design. Disability …

↗
10.1057/9780230250628_5

↗
10.1080/02687039808249578

↗
10.1080/02687039808249575

↗
10.1111/j.1467-9337.2010.00473.x

↗
10.2511/rpsd.26.1.1

↗
10.1080/02687039508248197

↗
10.1080/02687039808249579

↗
10.1057/9780230250628

↗
10.37514/PER-B.2003.2317.2.06

↗
10.1515/9783110220674.31

↗
10.1080/02687930444000697

↗
10.1097/00011363-200407000-00005

↗
10.1097/01.TLD.0000299887.24241.39

↗
10.3998/mpub.309723

↗
10.1080/13682820701437245

↗
10.3102/00346543071001133

↗
10.1177/030802260306600403

↗
10.1515/9780804773720

↗

CrossRef global citation count: 4 View in citation network →