Elisabeth Ahlsén

On the Semantics and Pragmatics of Linguistic Feedback

This paper is an exploration in the semantics and pragmatics of linguistic feedback, i.e., linguistic mechanisms which enable the participants in spoken interaction to exchange information about basic communicative functions, such as contact, perception, understanding, and attitudinal reactions to the communicated content. Special attention is given to the type of reaction conveyed by feedback utterances, the communicative status of the information conveyed (i. e., the level of awareness and intentionality of the communicating sender), and the context sensitivity of feedback expressions. With regard to context sensitivity, which is one of the most characteristic features of feedback expressions, the discussion focuses on the way in which the type of speech act (mood), the factual polarity and the information status of the preceding utterance influence the interpretation of feedback utterances. The different content dimensions are exemplified by data from recorded dialogues and by data given through linguistic intuition. Finally, two different ways of formalizing the analysis are examined, one using attribute-value matrices and one based on the theory of situation semantics.

Speech Management—on the Non-written Life of Speech

This paper introduces the concept of speech management (SM), which refers to processes whereby a speaker manages his or her linguistic contributions to a communicative interaction, and which involves phenomena which have previously been studied under such rubrics as “planning”, “editing”, “(self-)repair”, etc. It is argued that SM phenomena exhibit considerable systematicity and regularity and must be considered part of the linguistic system. Furthermore, it is argued that SM phenomena must be related not only to such intraindividual factors as planning and memory, but also to interactional factors such as turntaking and feedback, and to informational content. Structural and functional taxonomies are presented together with a formal description of complex types of SM. The structural types are exemplified with data from a corpus of SM phenomena.

A neurolinguistic analysis of morphological deficits in a Finnish-Swedish bilingual aphasic

A bilingual aphasic with phonological dyslexia produced morphological paralexias when reading inflected Finnish and Swedish words. In both languages, derivatives were read as well as base-form nouns, whereas inflected forms posed difficulties. This suggests that inflected forms require additional processing like morphological decomposition during lexical access. Both Finnish and Swedish error corpora included occasional morphologically illegal stem + affix combinations, indicating that in lexical retrieval she was employing a morphologically decomposed phonological output lexicon. Her oral reading performance was not sensitive to the formal transparency of inflection, but in word elicitation the formally most opaque forms turned out to be most difficult to generate. An interesting finding in oral reading was our aphasics tendency to substitute one affixed form for another in Finnish (a morphologically rich language) but to resort to monomorphemic forms in Swedish (a morphologically limited language). How...

Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorders and Speech-Generating Devices: Communication in Different Activities at Home.

The communication of four children with autistic spectrum disorder was investigated when they were supplied with a speech‐generating device (SGD) in three different activities in their home environment: mealtime, story reading and “sharing experiences of the preschool day”. An activity based communication analysis, in which collective and individual background factors for the activities were outlined, was used as a basis for the discussion of linguistic coding data derived from video‐recordings made before and during SGD intervention. The coded communicative behaviours were engagement in activity, role in turn‐taking, communicative form, function and effectiveness. An increase in communicative effectiveness was more noticeable when the SGDs could be used to fulfil goals and roles within the activity. The instruction to the parents to use the SGDs in their communication with the child had an important influence on the activities.

Assessing high-level language in individuals with multiple sclerosis : a pilot study

This study describes the development of a test battery to assess high-level language function in Swedish and a description of the test performances of a group of 9 individuals with multiple sclerosis (MS). The test battery included tasks such as repetition of long sentences, understanding of complicated logicogrammatical sentences, naming famous people, resolving ambiguities, recreating sentences, understanding metaphors, making inferences, defining words. The MS group included individuals with self-reported language problems as well as individuals without any such problems. Their performances were compared to a group of 7 control subjects with a KruskalWallis one-way ANOVA which indicated significantly different total mean scores. Post hoc analysis with Mann-Whitney Utests revealed that the group with self-reported language problems had significantly lower mean scores when compared to control subjects and to MS subjects without self-reported language problems. None of the language difficulties were detected by a standard aphasia test.This study describes the development of a test battery to assess high-level language functions in Swedish and also the test performances of a group of nine individuals with multiple sclerosis. The test battery included tasks such as repetition of long sentences, understanding of complicated logico-grammatical sentences, naming famous people, resolving ambiguities, recreating sentences, understanding metaphors, making inferences, and defining words. The multiple sclerosis group included individuals with self-reported language problems as well as individuals without any such problems. The performances of these two subgroups were compared to that of a group of seven control subjects using a Kruskal-Wallis one-way ANOVA. Post hoc analysis with Mann-Whitney U-tests revealed that the group with self-reported language problems had significantly lower mean scores when compared to control subjects and to multiple sclerosis subjects without self-reported language problems. None of the language difficulties were detected by a standard aphasia test.

Body communication as compensation for speech in a Wernicke's aphasic—A longitudinal study

This case study describes a Wernickes aphasic who had spontaneously developed a communication pattern involving a large portion of body communication to convey factual information. The study is longitudinal and compares the development of body communication and speech (here: the use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and pronouns) during the 18-month period of rehabilitation. There is a clear development, showing an increased use of nouns, verbs, and adjectives and a decreased use of body communication to convey factual information. This is taken to show that compensatory body communication for factual information can be used by Wernickes aphasics, something that is easily obscured by the finding often reported that most aphasics tend to show body communication patterns that are in accordance with their speech patterns. The role of pronouns and gestures for turnkeeping at an intermediate stage, when the patient is shifting from gestures to words for factual content, is also discussed.

The analysis of embodied communicative feedback in multimodal corpora: a prerequisite for behavior simulation

Communicative feedback refers to unobtrusive (usually short) vocal or bodily expressions whereby a recipient of information can inform a contributor of information about whether he/she is able and willing to communicate, perceive the information, and understand the information. This paper provides a theory for embodied communicative feedback, describing the different dimensions and features involved. It also provides a corpus analysis part, describing a first data coding and analysis method geared to find the features postulated by the theory. The corpus analysis part describes different methods and statistical procedures and discusses their applicability and the possible insights gained with these methods.

Speech-Generating Devices Used at Home by Children with Autism Spectrum Disorders: A Preliminary Assessment.

Three children diagnosed within the autism spectrum between the ages of 5 and 7 years at different stages of communication development were supplied with speech-generating devices (SGDs) in their homes. The parents were taught to introduce the SGDs into home routines and the effects were evaluated naturalistically. Videotapes recorded by the parents before and during SGD use were coded with respect to communication effectiveness, mode, role in turn taking, and engagement in activity. Findings varied among the children and activities, but an increased level of communication effectiveness was seen during SGD use for all children. Variations of outcome among the three children and factors of importance for effective SGD use in the homes of children with autism spectrum disorders are discussed.

Communication aids for people with aphasia

In principle, aphasia is a disability to use language. No wonder therefore, that most aphasiologists both in research and in therapy tend to focus mainly on linguistic function. The most prominent symptom of aphasia usually is a deficiency of speech, and many laymen believe that speech exercises should be the therapy of choice, which is not always correct. However, to those suffering from aphasia their disorder first of all means restricted communication and thereby a risk of becoming isolated. Therefore, besides language and speech therapy, people with aphasia have an urgent need of compensations or substitutes for their loss of communication. The number and variation of available communication aids for aphasia is rapidly increasing, mainly because of almost general use of computerized techniques. The following text wants to draw attention not only to software and hardware useful to aiding communication in aphasia, but also to the large amount of helpful information available from the Internet. Last but not least, access to the Internet as such may become an important tool to breaking isolation. A person with aphasia may need special arrangements and support, however, to be able to use her/his computer to this end, e.g. for e-mailing, web-surfing or chatting. Before the computers came into common use, a number of low-tech devices to aid communication were available. Amongst them may be mentioned letter boards, personal ‘passports’ for presentation of the owner and information about his/her problem, and photo albums used, for example, to raise new topics in a conversation. Comprehensive so-called communication books are described in detail by Millar (1,2). They may contain generalized picture and/or symbol vocabularies, guidance for conversation partners, index pages, etc., besides personal material such as photos, drawings, or newspaper cuttings. For different reasons, well discussed by van de Sandt-Konderman (3), low-tech communication aids for people with aphasia have not become very popular. One reason could be that much of the material is designed to suit mainly children or aims foremost at other types of communication problems than aphasia, such as. dysarthria (see for example (4,5)). Unfortunately this seems to be the case also for a number of high-tech communication aids. These are basically machines that can talk, either by a digitized or by a synthesized speech output. Digitized speech may be used to play back previously recorded entire messages. Synthesized speech has a lower quality but is more flexible, so that new messages may be phrased, as long as the user is able to do this and also to master correct spelling. The input to the aids may be indicated either by text or by graphics such as symbols, icons or pictures. The market abounds with this type of devices and the Swedish Institute for Handicap has listed no less than 36 such electrical speech aids (6 /9). High-tech aids specifically designed for aphasia may be divided in disorder oriented, ‘prosthetic’ systems, aiding specific problems such as those of word finding or sentence construction, and genuine conversation aids aiming at communicative function as a whole (3). Similar to the above mentioned communication books these later aids may be used to fulfil a number of different communicative needs such as presentation, claiming needs, asking questions, raising conversation topics, etc. Typically, these devices consist of a computer showing

Argumentation with restricted linguistic ability: performing a role play with aphasia or in a second language.

The main objective of this study is to illustrate how adaptation to linguistic limitations takes place in a specific activity and is affected by factors pertaining to the social activity or the individuals. A man with aphasia is compared to an adult immigrant L2 learner. An argumentative role play was video‐recorded, transcribed and analysed. Both subjects have a very limited vocabulary and produce short utterances. The L2 learner often uses words that are semantically related to the target word, while the subject with aphasia uses more general and vague words, like pronouns, in combination with adverbs and set phrases. Both subjects use gesturing as strategy, and it is suggested that the semantic specificity of words as well as gestures is important in determining the role of gesture. Apart from gesture, he L2 learner uses mainly simplification and appeal strategies, while the subject with aphasia uses mainly fluency and sociolinguistic strategies.