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“And the right wants to hang and relax”

Some features of impairment talk

ORCiD logo with link | University of Southern Denmark
 | University of Southern Denmark
Published online: 12 November 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.25046.nic
Abstract
This study explores impairment talk in robot-assisted walking involving young adults with mobility impairments, drawing on Ethnomethodology, Conversation Analysis, and Membership Categorization Analysis. We define impairment talk as descriptions and evaluations of performance in relation to an impairment visible to all participants, addressing either bodily abilities or appearance. The study shows that impairment talk is a recognizable phenomenon that the participants treat as a delicate matter that shapes the social identities of young adults. A central feature of impairment talk is its indirect nature. Based on video recordings from two settings, this study analyzes how participants design and respond to impairment talk, and what this accomplishes in the interaction. We suggest that the indirect nature of impairment talk results from embodied actions, sequential organization, and spatiotemporal contingencies being reflexively entwined with participants’ category work which invokes the overall activity and its categories.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: Indirectness in interaction
  • 2.Social categories and social identity
    • 2.1Self-descriptions and diagnostic labels
    • 2.2Categorization through assessments
  • 3.Data and settings
  • 4.Approaching the participants’ indirect category work
  • 5.Initial observations of the environments of impairment talk in the overall sequential organization of the test
  • 6.Analysis: Addressing bodily abilities in more or less (in)direct ways
    • 6.1Direct addresses — direct responses
    • 6.2Direct address — indirect response
    • 6.3Indirect addresses — indirect responses
  • 7.Addressing appearance in more or less (in)direct ways
    • 7.1Indirect addresses
    • 7.2Direct addresses
  • 8.Discussion and conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
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