A moving, patient-centered portrait of the social importance of speech, from a medical expert known for his humanizing explorations of health. Language comes to us through culture, environment, and family. Words embed over time, as we use our minds to comprehend them and then our mouths to say, mean, and own them. Without the ability to speak, or when talking becomes difficult, we face a challenge like few others, forced to reconnect with a world that assumes its communicators are eloquent vocally. In
Hard Talk, Jonathan Cole takes a necessary look at the privilege of speech so we can better accommodate those for whom it presents problems.
Cole creates space for people with a variety of conditions, including cerebral palsy, vocal cord palsy, cleft palate, Parkinson's, and post-stroke aphasia, to describe in their own words what the experience of difficult speech is like. No struggle is the same. Each develops along its own axis of factors--cognitive, social, and physical--that lead to unique vulnerabilities as well as extraordinary moments of adaptation and resilience. One person finds social chatter becoming more problematic than work speech. Another grows alarmed as changes in speech begin to constrain inner thoughts. Some lose the ability to find or make words though they retain awareness, while others lose self-awareness but maintain fluent speech bereft of meaning. One even loses the ability to speak with family while continuing to interact at work.
Hard Talk reacquaints us with the social power of speech while affirming the humane value of listening. Cole also reflects on the neuroscientific advances we've made in understanding barriers to speech and how we might reduce them.
一幅感人的、以病人為中心的肖像，展現了語言在社會中的重要性，作者是一位以人性化探索健康而聞名的醫學專家。
語言透過文化、環境和家庭進入我們的生活。隨著時間的推移，詞語在我們的心智中嵌入，然後由我們的嘴巴來表達、意義化和擁有它們。沒有說話的能力，或當說話變得困難時，我們面臨的挑戰是少數幾個，必須重新與一個假設其溝通者口才流利的世界建立聯繫。在《Hard Talk》中，喬納森·科爾（Jonathan Cole）必要地檢視了語言的特權，以便我們能更好地照顧那些面臨語言問題的人。
科爾為各種情況的人創造了空間，包括腦性麻痺、聲帶麻痺、唇顎裂、帕金森病和中風後失語症，讓他們用自己的話描述困難言語的經歷。每個掙扎都是獨一無二的。每個人都沿著自己的因素軸線發展——認知、社會和身體——這導致了獨特的脆弱性以及非凡的適應和韌性時刻。一個人發現社交閒聊比工作中的言語更具挑戰性。另一個人則因為言語的變化開始限制內心的想法而感到驚慌。有些人雖然仍然保持意識，但失去了找到或組織詞語的能力，而另一些人則失去了自我意識，但仍然能流利地說話卻缺乏意義。甚至有一個人失去了與家人交談的能力，但在工作中仍能互動。
《Hard Talk》讓我們重新認識語言的社會力量，同時肯定了傾聽的人性價值。科爾還反思了我們在理解語言障礙方面所取得的神經科學進展，以及我們如何可能減少這些障礙。
Jonathan Cole is a consultant in Clinical Neurophysiology at University Hospitals, Dorset, and Professor at Bournemouth University. He has written six narrative books, most recently Chekhov's Sakhalin Journey: Doctor, Humanitarian, Writer.
喬納森·科爾（Jonathan Cole）是多塞特大學醫院（University Hospitals, Dorset）臨床神經生理學的顧問，並且是伯恩茅斯大學（Bournemouth University）的教授。他已撰寫六本敘事書籍，最近出版的作品是《契訶夫的薩哈林之旅：醫生、人道主義者、作家》（Chekhov's Sakhalin Journey: Doctor, Humanitarian, Writer）。
