Acknowledgements
I would like to acknowledge the support provided by an Economic and Social Research Fellowship [RES-063-27-0144] which facilitated the planning of this special issue and the writing of this introductory article.
Notes
1. See the special issue of Aphasiology edited and introduced by Wright (Citation2011) for some other, non-Conversation Analytic, approaches to interaction and other forms of “discourse” (a term that can also cover noninteractional data).
2. For another collection of CA and aphasia studies, see Goodwin (Citation2003).
3. “Preference” refers here not to the wishes of participants, but rather is a technical term within CA concerned with certain structural/organisational features of conversation. For our purposes here it can be noted that preferred practices within conversation occur more commonly than those which are dispreferred, and that dispreferred practices are typically treated as noticeable and accountable in conversation whereas those that are preferred tend not to be. Thus, self-repair is both more common and is less likely to be treated as noticeable or accountable compared to other-repair, which is the dispreferred alternative (Schegloff et al., Citation1977). Similarly, it is more common for repairs to be completed quickly than be prolonged, and quickly completed repairs are less likely to be treated as noticeable and accountable compared to repair attempts that are more prolonged.