Correction and turn completion as collaborative repair strategies in conversations following Wernicke’s aphasia

ABSTRACT

This study explores repair practices deployed by the interlocutor of a speaker with Wernicke’s aphasia, their relationship to types of aphasic difficulty, and how mutual understanding and the progression of talk is maintained. A 75-year-old woman with Wernicke’s aphasia of 16 months duration and her friend video recorded 36 minutes of conversation at home. Using conversation analytic methods two patterns of other-repair by the non-aphasic interlocutor were identified. The first practice was turn completion, which occurred in the context of self-initiated word search by the person with aphasia. The second was correction in the context of trouble with reference to person or place, manifested as an erroneous word, mis-selection of a gendered pronoun, or use of a pronoun where a person’s name was expected. This correction was mainly overt, completed via a short side sequence dealing with the repair, although a few examples were embedded, where a word or phrase was replaced with a corrected form without overtly drawing attention to the correction. None of the examples included an account for the error. Unlike in typical talk, the person with aphasia did not repeat or use the corrected form in subsequent talk. For this dyad, correction and completion function as interactionally acceptable collaborative repair strategies, maintaining progressivity and a focus on topic development rather than on repair itself. There is no evidence that other-correction is dispreferred, which accords with recent findings for typical interaction but differs from other studies of aphasic talk. Correction should not be dismissed out of hand as a negative interactional practice when talking to someone with Wernicke’s aphasia.

KEYWORDS:

• Wernicke’s aphasia
• conversation
• repair
• correction
• completion
• progressivity

Acknowledgments

This paper reports data collected by authors 2 and 3 and extends analysis completed for their separate MSc dissertations at UCL, supervised by author 1. Authors 2 and 3 contributed equally to the writing of this paper, supported by author 1 who led on writing and on extending the analysis. We are grateful for the analytic insights of the two anonymous reviewers, which strengthened the analysis. Any remaining shortcomings are our own. We thank the participants for taking part in this study.

Declaration of interest statement

The authors report no conflict of interest.

Notes

¹ Candidate understandings were also present though less prevalent, and are not discussed here.