Staying on the same wavelength: talking about talking in paediatric speech and language therapy sessions

Participants in speech and language therapy sessions engage in talk about talking to accomplish different social actions: identifying and explaining linguistic concepts; correcting language use; and repairing misunderstanding. Different traditions in interaction research have examined the practices of topic management, correction, and repair in instructional and mundane conversation, but the need to disentangle the common thread of 'language' that runs through these practices in speech and language therapy interaction has not been recognized. This paper examines three short extracts from transcripts of clinical interaction involving school-aged children with language disorders in order to see how they manage communication about metalinguistic topics, in face of the significant difficulties that can arise in the interaction. The analysis builds on the method, techniques, and discoveries made by research in conversation analysis, and, using Clark's theory of language use, proposes an explanatory model of how therapists and children manage their talk about talking.