"And the right wants to hang and relax”: Some features of impairment talk

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.