Exploring aphasic grammar. 1: A single case analysis of conversation

This paper uses the methodology and analytical findings of conversation analysis to investigate the notion that aphasic grammar may be understood at least partly in the context of the demands of turns at talk in conversation. An investigation of the conversation of an English-speaking person with aphasia reveals two distinct grammatical phenomena, and it is suggested that their use may be interactionally motivated by the need to take a relatively unproblematic turn at talk despite the constraints of non-fluent aphasia. The grammatical patterns that are revealed by this analysis look considerably different from those elicited by standard methods of data sampling. The possibility that interactional grammatical phenomena are not visible in the language data elicited by clinical assessments is raised. This question is addressed via an in-depth comparison of the same speaker's interactional and elicited grammar in a linked article. It is suggested that the tool of conversation analysis provides researchers with a new and fruitful approach to the study of grammatical abilities in aphasia.