Language Incompetence: Learning to Communicate through Cancer, Disability, and Anomalous Embodiment

This book is framed as a memoir of the author’s journey through a cancer diagnosis and resulting impairments, as he continued his teaching and research activities during and after medical procedures. The narrative weaves together theoretical debates, textual analyses, and ethnographic data from communicative practices to redefine language competence.

The book demonstrates:

• the generative and resistant value of human vulnerability
• the importance of vulnerability in motivating engagement wit...