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Extended turn construction and test question sequences in the conversations of three speakers with agrammatic aphasia.

Beeke, S; Beckley, F; Best, W; Johnson, F; Edwards, S; Maxim, J; (2013) Extended turn construction and test question sequences in the conversations of three speakers with agrammatic aphasia. Clin Linguist Phon , 27 (10-11) 784 - 804. 10.3109/02699206.2013.808267. Green open access

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Abstract

The application of Conversation Analysis (CA) to the investigation of agrammatic aphasia reveals that utterances produced by speakers with agrammatism engaged in everyday conversation differ significantly from utterances produced in response to decontextualised assessment and therapy tasks. Early studies have demonstrated that speakers with agrammatism construct turns from sequences of nouns, adjectives, discourse markers and conjunctions, packaged by a distinct pattern of prosody. This article presents examples of turn construction methods deployed by three people with agrammatism as they take an extended turn, in order to recount a past event, initiate a discussion or have a disagreement. This is followed by examples of sequences occurring in the talk of two of these speakers that result in different, and more limited, turn construction opportunities, namely "test" questions asked in order to initiate a new topic of talk, despite the conversation partner knowing the answer. The contrast between extended turns and test question sequences illustrates the effect of interactional context on aphasic turn construction practices, and the potential of less than optimal sequences to mask turn construction skills. It is suggested that the interactional motivation for test question sequences in these data are to invite people with aphasia to contribute to conversation, rather than to practise saying words in an attempt to improve language skills. The idea that test question sequences may have their origins in early attempts to deal with acute aphasia, and the potential for conversation partnerships to become "stuck" in such interactional patterns after they may have outlived their usefulness, are discussed with a view to clinical implications.

Type: Article
Title: Extended turn construction and test question sequences in the conversations of three speakers with agrammatic aphasia.
Location: England
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.3109/02699206.2013.808267
Publisher version: http://dx.doi.org/10.3109/02699206.2013.808267
Language: English
Additional information: © 2013 Informa UK Ltd. File made available with kind permission of Informa Healthcare
Keywords: Adult, Aphasia, Broca, Communication, Humans, Language Tests, Linguistics, Male, Middle Aged, Speech, Speech Perception
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Language and Cognition
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1406595
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