This book investigates the ways in which context shapes how cognitive challenges and strengths
are navigated and how these actions impact the self-esteem of individuals with dementia and
their conversational partners. The author examines both the language used and face maintenance
in everyday social interaction through the lens of epistemic discourse analysis. In doing so
this work reveals how changes in cognition may impact the faces of these individuals leading
some to feel ashamed anxious or angry others to feel patronized infantilized or overly
dependent and still others to feel threatened in both ways. It further examines how discursive
choices made by healthy interactional partners can minimize or exacerbate these feelings. This
path-breaking work will provide important insights for students and scholars of
sociolinguistics applied linguistics medical anthropology and health communication.
