Politeness markers as a target for assessing professional communication in persons with traumatic brain injury
Peter Meulenbroek
University of Kentucky
OBJECTIVES: Persons with traumatic brain injury (TBI) present with difficulties pragmatic inference and appreciating social context (Johnson & Turkstra, 2012; Stronach & Turkstra, 2008) affecting a wide variety of social outcomes years out from injury (Dikmen, Machamer, & Temkin, 1993; Douglas, 2017; Meulenbroek & Turkstra, 2015). We examined frequency of politeness markers (PMs) when addressing persons of different social status in the work setting in unstably employed persons with TBI (UE), stably employed persons with TBI (SE), and neuro-typical controls. PMs are strongly linked with workplace discourse as it facilitates cooperativity in verbal problem solving (Holmes & Stubbe, 2003; Koester, 2010; Vine, 2004).
PARTICIPANTS: We recruited 43 participants with TBI, employed in Job Zone 3 (National Center for O*NET Development) before injury and who attempted to return to Job Zone 3 (National Center for O*NET Development) work after injury and 20 neuro-typical controls who were employed in Job Zone 3 for >12 months. The TBI participants included a SE group who maintained work for >1 year after injury (n=23) and an UE group who did not (n=20). There were no statistical differences between groups for age, sex, education, TBI severity, or time post onset.
PROCEDURE: Participants completed a voicemail role-play task, recording messages for two status conditions (boss and subordinate). PM/minute scores were calculated.
ANALYSIS: A mixed between-within ANOVA assessed relationships between groups (UE, SE, and controls) on PM/minute within two status conditions (boss vs. subordinate). Multiple paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction detected direction in PM/minute for status conditions within groups.
RESULTS: There was no significant interaction between group and status. There was a strong main effect for status (p<0.01) and group (p<0.001). Tukey HSD tests demonstrated significant differences in PM/minute between all groups. UE (p<0.05), and SE (p<0.01) groups used significantly fewer PMs/minute for subordinates. The neuro-typical group did not.
CONCLUSIONS: The voicemail task found associations with job stability after TBI in mid-level work and word choice using applied sociolinguistic analysis. Persons with TBI performed fewer PMs than controls at the same job level. Consistent with sociolinguistic analysis of professional talk controls used more PMs for both statuses. (Schnurr, 2013) Persons with TBI used fewer PMs when speaking to subordinates.
