Right hemisphere damage and other-initiated repair in everyday conversation

ABSTRACT

Right hemisphere damage causes communication problems in conversation, but its precise effects have been challenging to study. As such, there are few clinical assessments focused on right hemisphere damage and conversation, and essentially no evidence-based interventions. Other-initiated repair sequences (i.e. moments when a problem of hearing or understanding are indicated and addressed) are a well-described aspect of interaction, with a large body of empirical research evidencing their organisation. Because of the communicative activities they implicate, these sequences may also be a site in which the symptoms of right hemisphere communication disorder become salient. This study explores the organisation of other-initiated repair sequences in interactions involving people with right hemisphere communication disorder using conversation analysis. Two people with right hemisphere communication disorder caused by stroke and four of their familiar conversation partners were recorded in triadic interactions; 104 minutes of recordings were collected, and 28 other-initiated repair sequences were subjected to analysis. This included other-initiations of repair produced by participants with right hemisphere communication disorder, and other-initiations of repair addressed to them. Participants with right hemisphere communication disorder were found to implement efficacious other-initiations of repair, to recognise core aspects of the trouble sources indicated in their own turns, and to design suitable repair solutions. That is, their inferences about communication problems were successful. However, one participant with right hemisphere communication disorder displayed difficulty managing aspects of the repair sequences, with her conversation partners also orienting towards her difficulties. It is argued that her difficulties were driven by problems dealing with multifaceted and ambiguous conversational moments. These observed difficulties suggest that other-initiated repair sequences may be valuable for detecting right hemisphere communication disorder, and highlight the possible role of conversational sampling in clinical assessment.

KEYWORDS:

• Right hemisphere damage
• conversation
• other-initiated repair
• communication disorder

Disclosure statement

The author has no conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

¹ Participants explicitly consented to screenshots of their conversation being used in published materials.

² Transcripts of each other-initiated repair sequence included in the present study can be found on the project’s website: https://osf.io/bmrz6/.

³ There is one instance where an open format was immediately superseded by a restricted one, and it is shown in Extract 4

⁴ One might argue that Carli’s other-initiation is indexing a problem with Bill’s telling in the sense that he has failed to adequately develop or summarise the relevance of the English sailor.

⁵ This turn from Daisy is a pseudo-repair, i.e. it takes the appearance of an other-initiation of repair, but is performing a different action (see Kendrick, 2015, pp. 181–182).

⁶ In Extracts 4 and 5, the problems that develop are initially grounded in the relationship between turn design and action rather than repair. Again, these issues are different, and more general than repair organisation.

⁷ There may be some hint of these differences between Bill and Erin in Erin’s scores on the comprehension sub-tasks of the Narrative Discourse task. However, because of her age and years of education, her scores did not reach the alert point.

⁸ Of course, it might also reflect the sampling practices of the present study. That is, the present study may have decreased the likelihood of other-initiation of repair by sampling conversations that were static, indoors, in a quiet room, with participants seated closely to each other, and who know each other well.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by a Macquarie University Research Development Grant (MQRDG).