Suspended constructions and conversational turn management in the assessment of aphasia

Abstract

Suspensions of an already initiated syntactic construction are very frequent events in everyday conversations. Suspended constructions are in many cases associated with turn-taking negotiation. This situation can be described as a particular transformation, by which a literal deficit in expression is intentionally re- evaluated by conversational partners as a symbolic procedure to perform specific communicative functions or to express specific meanings. Different contexts for these functions and meanings are here explored by taking into consideration conversational interactions between aphasic individuals and normal (i.e. non-aphasic) speakers. It is proposed in this paper that suspended constructions play a significant role in the assessment of aphasia. They contribute to conversational dynamism by stimulating interaction. Their scaffolding role has however, as a counterpart, a possible masking effect for the syntactic deficit that could also stifle the process of recovery.