Abstract
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This longitudinal study of therapeutic discourse, focused on communication of trauma and PTSD (posttraumatic stress disorder), examines the link between trauma and social interaction. The study builds on clinical studies and literature which highlight the importance of examining discourse used by trauma clients (e.g. Foa, Malnar, and Cashman 1995) and the role of social and cultural context (e.g. Moro et al. 1998; Miller et al. 2002) in understanding the dynamics of the condition and the process of recovery, as well as studies that call for a dialogic approach to trauma and posttraumatic reactions (Buttolo 2000). Using the theoretical notion of voices and dialogue (Bakhtin 1984) and the method of interactional sociolinguistics, in this study I examine thirteen therapy sessions between a therapist and a client in Bosnia-Herzegovina spanning the period of eight months. More specifically, I suggest a dialogic approach to trauma that relies on micro-level investigations of reported speech as an important tool in uncovering the link between trauma and social interaction. In focusing on both the client's and the therapist's reported speech, I examine the forms and functions of introducers used to construct the voice of self and the voice of another. I examine tense alternation in verbs of saying, the choice of lexical verbs and pragmatic markers used as quotatives, and zero quotative. I also address the role of unsaid speech in the client's discourse and the construction of habitual and hypothetical voices in the therapist's speech. I demonstrate how these choices contribute to a construction of different kinds of evidence (Chafe 1986) and alignments (Goffman 1981) in therapeutic discourse. It is in these ways, I suggest further, that a study of reported speech contributes to an understanding of how the experience and meaning of trauma and the process of recovery are both aided and complicated by a variety of discourses and contexts (e.g., communal, societal, and institutional). The study highlights the importance of understanding the dynamics of trauma and recovery through micro-level analyses of language in context and makes a contribution to research on trauma and social interaction, diagnostic assessment and therapy, and discourse studies.
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