Abstract
The focus of this paper is to examine in more detail the nature of conversation between non aphasic adults and adults with Broca's Aphasia using conversational discourse. This study analyzed tum-taking rules within conversations in two married couples (male/female). Each couple comprised normally functioning, non-aphasic individuals. Dementia was ruled out in each spouse. The questions in particular that were asked were (1) What were the total number of turns per person; (2) What was the average gap time between both normal speaking, non aphasic parties when initiating a turn; (3) What was the number of overlapping occurrences; ( 4) What was the number of interruptions; ( 5) What was the average number of words per turn; ( 6) What was the average length of time of overlapping speech and interruptions between both normal speaking, non aphasic parties? Finally, a comparison of groups was also made where normal functioning, non aphasic couples (this study) were compared with couples that included a non-fluent aphasic member (Lesser and Perkins, 1999; Surber, 2007) using the rules and guidelines of turn taking spoken about previously.
Results indicated the couples that included a nonfluent aphasic member struggles with Grice's rules of conversation, including those of quantity and manner. Rule 1 (Quantity) was broken due to the lack of information during the aphasic members tum and Rule 4 (Manner) was broken due to lack of clarity. Interestingly, the spouse with no aphasia also broke Rule 1, Quantity, by giving too much information during his/her tum (Surber, 2007). The results in regards to Grice's rules were very different from the results of the couples studied with no aphasia. All of the individuals in the couples with no aphasia spoke a greater number of words during the 10-minute conversation than the couples with one individual with non-fluent aphasia. Neither individual in the nonaphasic couples gave too much or too little information. With no apparent communication breakdowns, the couples were able to manage a smooth and appropriate conversation.
In conversations between couples with one aphasic member, there were frequent speaker changes, typically one person spoke at a time, and the length of overlap instances were short (less than 1 second) and minimal gap occurred between turns. This was similar to the results in non-aphasic couples, although the number of tums taken, words spoken and number of overlap occurrences in non-aphasic couples were much greater.