Care Communication

Peter Backhaus is Associate Professor at Waseda University, Tokyo. His main research interests are sociolinguistics, pragmatics, and writing and orthography. Publications include Linguistic Landscapes: A Comparative Study of Urban Multilingualism in Tokyo (Multilingual Matters, 2007) and Communication in Elderly Care: Cross-cultural Perspectives (ed., Continuum, 2011).

• 1. Introduction2. Background and Previous Research3. Data and Methodology4. Honorifics5. Openings and Closings 6. Talk at Work7. Tempo8. Conclusions

'This fine book elucidates the characteristics of communication in a Japanese residential care institution through the author’s analysis of linguistic interaction between carers and residents during the morning care segment of their day. Its timely and thoughtful approach to the multifaceted linguistic issues involved in caring for residents in a rapidly expanding sector which is also dealing with the introduction of foreign care workers and moves towards robotic care assistants makes a very valuable contribution to the growing literature in this field.' — Emeritus Professor Nanette Gottlieb, School of Languages and Cultures, The University of Queensland'Care Communication is a challenge to all eldercare institutions to take moment-by-moment verbal interactions between staff and residents seriously, if they are to claim care for their residents’ well-being. As Backhaus notes in his closing chapter "...the overall importance of communication to institutional eldercare is by no means as obvious to care professionals as it may be to the linguist or social scientist". But after reading this book, it will be. Care Communication is a methodologically sound, theoretically informed, and clearly written account – from multiple possible angles of analytic perspectives – of the verbal techniques of control and resistance that perfuse the daily talk between caregivers and care recipients at a single Japanese eldercare facility. Its conclusions are compelling and the implications for our understanding of how well-being is (or is not) built in daily micro-encounters between staff and resident make this an indispensable addition to the study of eldercare institutions in particular and of institutional communication in general.' — Professor Emerita Janet S Shibamoto-Smith, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Davis'Backhaus, not surprisingly, elucidates these findings in a delightfully clear expository style, which can easily be followed and enjoyed by experts and nonexperts alike. The book also includes extensive references to relevant previous studies, which provide useful resources for future researchers as well as a good foundation for interpreting the current subject matter the book discusses.' — Contemporary Japan, Volume 30, Issue 2'The book will therefore be of interest to linguists interested in this area who, for example, may be working on care-related study books for non-Japanese workers and/or designing software to be mounted on robots attending to the Japanese elderly in the future.' — Pacific Affairs, Volume 91, Issue 2