Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities

This paper examines ‘imagined constructed thought’: speakers giving voice to the inner world of a non-present other. Drawing on 9 hours of video footage of health-care staff discussing patients with intellectual disabilities during Discovery Awareness sessions, we explored times when the staff prese...

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Main Authors: Webb, Joseph C., Pilnick, Alison, Clegg, Jennifer
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Taylor & Francis 2018
Online Access:https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50718/
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author Webb, Joseph C.
Pilnick, Alison
Clegg, Jennifer
author_facet Webb, Joseph C.
Pilnick, Alison
Clegg, Jennifer
author_sort Webb, Joseph C.
building Nottingham Research Data Repository
collection Online Access
description This paper examines ‘imagined constructed thought’: speakers giving voice to the inner world of a non-present other. Drawing on 9 hours of video footage of health-care staff discussing patients with intellectual disabilities during Discovery Awareness sessions, we explored times when the staff presented a possible version of a patient's thoughts. They used those versions to take a stance on the patient’s inner world, often as a bridge between description of objectively observable phenomena and subjective interpretation of its meaning. It also projected staff's own stance on what the patient was thinking, both in first-position descriptions, and as a competitive resource in those given in second position. The findings suggest that presenting the patients' thoughts from a first-person perspective can be a versatile way of enacting a variety of complex epistemic and empathic actions in this setting. Data are in English.
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spelling nottingham-507182019-03-26T04:30:11Z https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50718/ Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities Webb, Joseph C. Pilnick, Alison Clegg, Jennifer This paper examines ‘imagined constructed thought’: speakers giving voice to the inner world of a non-present other. Drawing on 9 hours of video footage of health-care staff discussing patients with intellectual disabilities during Discovery Awareness sessions, we explored times when the staff presented a possible version of a patient's thoughts. They used those versions to take a stance on the patient’s inner world, often as a bridge between description of objectively observable phenomena and subjective interpretation of its meaning. It also projected staff's own stance on what the patient was thinking, both in first-position descriptions, and as a competitive resource in those given in second position. The findings suggest that presenting the patients' thoughts from a first-person perspective can be a versatile way of enacting a variety of complex epistemic and empathic actions in this setting. Data are in English. Taylor & Francis 2018-03-19 Article PeerReviewed application/pdf en https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50718/1/RoLSI%20ICT%20paper%2021%2003%2018%20FINAL%20VERSION.pdf Webb, Joseph C., Pilnick, Alison and Clegg, Jennifer (2018) Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities. Research on Language and Social Interaction . ISSN 1532-7973 (In Press)
spellingShingle Webb, Joseph C.
Pilnick, Alison
Clegg, Jennifer
Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
title Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
title_full Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
title_fullStr Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
title_full_unstemmed Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
title_short Imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
title_sort imagined constructed thought: how staff interpret the behaviour of patients with intellectual disabilities
url https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/50718/