‘We’ve had a wonderful, wonderful thing’: Formulaic interaction when an expert has dementia

Abstract

This study describes how the participants in a singers’ master class weekend collaborated with their teacher, an internationally renowned former opera singer in her mid-80s, to compensate for the difficulties in communication caused by her dementia. The workshop’s success was due to the teacher’s professionalism and personal dignity; the high esteem and affection in which she was held by the participants; the shared assumption that she had information to impart; her unimpaired musical abilities; the scope for singing, text recitation and gesture to convey complex ideas; and the legitimate formulaicity of the teaching activity. The nature and role of her predominantly formulaic language is examined from the perspective of its function in the very specific context of her teaching, with reference to features from Orange’s (2001) strategy framework for communicating successfully with people with dementia.