What discourse analytic approaches contribute to the study of language and autism
A focus on conversation analysis
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.28458Keywords:
Autism, language, discourse analysis, conversation analysis, echolalia, pronoun reversal and avoidance, pragmatic deficitAbstract
In this article, we offer a framework for conceptualizing the contribution of discourse analytic approaches to the study of the verbal communication of children with autism, with an emphasis on conversation analysis. We argue that insights from these approaches serve to complexify traditional deficit interpretations of prototypical features of autistic language, such as pronoun atypicality, pragmatic difficulties, and echolalia. Our framework is presented in three parts, each comprising a theoretical premise about language made by discourse analytic approaches and the premise’s methodological corollary. To illustrate, we analyze extracts from three children with autism, pointing to competencies and interactional processes and that are largely invisible in mainstream research. Finally, we describe how these insights offer fruitful suggestions for clinical intervention.
References
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Fasulo, A. & Fiore, F. (2007). A valid person: Non-competence as a conversational outcome. In A. Hepburn & S. Wiggins (eds), Discursive research in practice (pp. 224–246). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611216.012
Fasulo, A., Liberati, V. & Pontecorvo, C. (2002). Language games in the strict sense of the term: Children’s poetics and conversation. In S. Blum-Kulka & C. Snow (eds), Talking to adults: The contribution of multiparty discourse to language acquisition (pp. 209–237). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ferguson, C. (1977). Baby talk as a simplified register. In C. E. Snow & C. A. Ferguson (eds), Talking to children: Language input and acquisition (pp. 209–235). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, H. & Forrester, M. (eds) (2010). Analysing interactions in childhood. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). New York: Irvington Publishers.
Goodwin, C. (1980). Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of a state of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 272–302. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1980.tb00023.x
Goodwin, C. & Heritage, J. (1990). Conversation analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 283–307. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.001435
Goodwin, M. H. (2007). Occasioned knowledge exploration in family interaction. Discourse and Society, 18(1), 93–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069459
Hobson, P. R., Lee, A. & Hobson, J. A. (2010). Personal pronouns and communicative engagement in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40, 653–664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0910-5
Jefferson, G. (1996). On the poetics of ordinary talk. Text and Performance Quarterly, 16(1), 1–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462939609366132
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcription symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–23). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef
Jefferson, G. & Schenkein, J. (1978). Some sequential negotiations in conversation: Unexpanded and expanded versions of projected action sequences. In J. Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 155–172). New York: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-623550-0.50013-6
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Keenan, E. O. (1974). Conversational competence in children. Journal of Child Language, 1, 163–183. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900000623
Kremer-Sadlik, T. (2004). How children with autism and Asperger syndrome respond to questions: A ‘naturalistic’ theory of mind task. Discourse Studies, 6(2), 185–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445604041767
Lerner, G. H. (1996). On the ‘semi-permeable’ character of grammatical units in conversation: Conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff & S. Thompson (eds), Interaction and grammar (pp. 238–276). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620874.005
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Malinowski, B. (1923). The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (eds) The meaning of meaning (pp. 296–336). New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Maynard, D. W. (2005). Social actions, gestal coherence, and designations of disability: Lessons from and about autism. Social Problems, 52(4), 499–524. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2005.52.4.499
Maynard, D. W. & Marlaire, C. L. (1992). Good reasons for bad testing performance: The interactional substrate of educational testing. Qualitative Sociology, 15, 177–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00989493
Muskett, T., Perkins, M. Clegg, J. & Body, R. (2010). Inflexibility as an interactional phenomenon: Using conversation analysis to re-examine a symptom of autism. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 24(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699200903281739
Ochs, E. (2012). Experiencing language. Anthropological Theory, 12(2), 142–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499612454088
Ochs, E. & Solomon, O. (2005). Practical logic and autism. In C. Casey & R. Edgerton (eds), A companion to psychological anthropology: Modernity and psychocultural change (pp. 140–167). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996409.ch9
Ochs, E. & Solomon, O. (2010). Autistic sociality. Ethos, 38(1), 69–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01082.x
Ochs, E., Kremer-Sadlik, T., Sirota, K. G. & Solomon, O. (2004). Autism and the social world: An anthropological perspective. Discourse Studies, 6, 147–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445604041766
Raymond, G. (2003). Grammar and social organization: Yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review, 68, 939–967. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519752
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.
Schegloff, E. A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70, 1075–1095. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00030
Schegloff, E. A. (1982). Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In D. Tannen (ed.), Georgetown University roundtable on languages and linguistics (pp. 71–93). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (1988). Presequences and indirection: Applying speech act theory to ordinary conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 55–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(88)90019-7
Schegloff, E. A. (1989). Reflections on language, development, and the interactional character of talk-in-interaction. In M. H. Bornstein & J. S. Bruner (eds), Interaction in human development (pp.139–153). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schegloff, E. A. (1995). Discourse as an interactional achievement III: The onmirelevance of action. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28(3), 185–211. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2803_2
Shannon, C. E. & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Sidnell, J. (2010). Questioning repeats in the talk of four-year-old children. In H. Gardner & M. Forrester (eds), Analysing interactions in childhood (pp. 103–127). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sterponi, L. & Fasulo, A. (2010). ‘How to go on’: Intersubjectivity and progressivity in the communication of a child with autism. Ethos, 38(1), 116–142. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01084.x
Sterponi, L. & Shankey, J. (2014). Rethinking echolalia: Repetition as interactional resource in the communication of a child with autism. Journal of Child Language, 42(2), 275–304. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000682
Sterponi, L., de Kirby, K. & Shankey, J. (2015). Rethinking language in autism. Autism, 19(5), 517–526. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361314537125
Stribling, P., Rae, J. & Dickerson, P. (2009). Using conversation analysis to explore the recurrence of a topic in the talk of a boy with an autism spectrum disorder. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 23, 555–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699200802491165
Tarplee, C. & Barrow, E. (1999). Delayed echoing as an interactional resource: A case study of a 3-year-old child on the autistic spectrum. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 6, 449–82.
Urban, G. (1989). The ‘I’ of discourse. In B. Lee & G. Urban (eds), Semiotics, self and society (pp. 27–51). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110859225-004
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. New York: Macmillan.
Woffitt, R. & Holt, N. (2011). Introspective discourse and the poetics of subjective experience. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(2), 135–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2011.567097
Wootton, A. (1999). An investigation of delayed echoing in a child with autism. Language, 19, 359–381. https://doi.org/10.1177/014272379901905704
Beach, W. A. (1993). The delicacy of preoccupation. Text and Performance Quarterly, 13, 299–312. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462939309366059
Briggs, C. (1993). Personal sentiments and polyphonic voices in Warao women’s ritual wailing: Music and poetics in a critical and collective discourse. American Anthropologist, 95(4), 929–957. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1993.95.4.02a00080
Carnap, R. (1952). Meaning postulates. Philosophical Studies, 3, 65–73. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02350366
Du Bois, J. W. (2014). Towards a dialogic syntax. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(3), 359–410. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2014-0024
Du Bois, J. W., Hobson, R. P. & Hobson, J. A. (2014). Dialogic resonance and intersubjective engagement in autism. Cognitive Linguistics, 25(3), 411–441. https://doi.org/10.1515/cog-2014-0025
Fasulo, A. & Fiore, F. (2007). A valid person: Non-competence as a conversational outcome. In A. Hepburn & S. Wiggins (eds), Discursive research in practice (pp. 224–246). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511611216.012
Fasulo, A., Liberati, V. & Pontecorvo, C. (2002). Language games in the strict sense of the term: Children’s poetics and conversation. In S. Blum-Kulka & C. Snow (eds), Talking to adults: The contribution of multiparty discourse to language acquisition (pp. 209–237). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Ferguson, C. (1977). Baby talk as a simplified register. In C. E. Snow & C. A. Ferguson (eds), Talking to children: Language input and acquisition (pp. 209–235). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Gardner, H. & Forrester, M. (eds) (2010). Analysing interactions in childhood. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). New York: Irvington Publishers.
Goodwin, C. (1980). Restarts, pauses, and the achievement of a state of mutual gaze at turn-beginning. Sociological Inquiry, 50(3–4), 272–302. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1475-682X.1980.tb00023.x
Goodwin, C. & Heritage, J. (1990). Conversation analysis. Annual Review of Anthropology, 19, 283–307. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.an.19.100190.001435
Goodwin, M. H. (2007). Occasioned knowledge exploration in family interaction. Discourse and Society, 18(1), 93–110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0957926507069459
Hobson, P. R., Lee, A. & Hobson, J. A. (2010). Personal pronouns and communicative engagement in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 40, 653–664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-009-0910-5
Jefferson, G. (1996). On the poetics of ordinary talk. Text and Performance Quarterly, 16(1), 1–61. https://doi.org/10.1080/10462939609366132
Jefferson, G. (2004). Glossary of transcription symbols with an introduction. In G. H. Lerner (ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 13–23). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.125.02jef
Jefferson, G. & Schenkein, J. (1978). Some sequential negotiations in conversation: Unexpanded and expanded versions of projected action sequences. In J. Schenkein (ed.), Studies in the organization of conversational interaction (pp. 155–172). New York: Academic Press. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-623550-0.50013-6
Kanner, L. (1943). Autistic disturbances of affective contact. Nervous Child, 2, 217–250.
Keenan, E. O. (1974). Conversational competence in children. Journal of Child Language, 1, 163–183. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000900000623
Kremer-Sadlik, T. (2004). How children with autism and Asperger syndrome respond to questions: A ‘naturalistic’ theory of mind task. Discourse Studies, 6(2), 185–206. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445604041767
Lerner, G. H. (1996). On the ‘semi-permeable’ character of grammatical units in conversation: Conditional entry into the turn space of another speaker. In E. Ochs, E. A. Schegloff & S. Thompson (eds), Interaction and grammar (pp. 238–276). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511620874.005
Local, J. & Wootton, A. (1995). Interactional and phonetics aspects of immediate echolalia in autism: A case study. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 9, 155–84. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699209508985330
Malinowski, B. (1923). The problem of meaning in primitive languages. In C. K. Ogden & I. A. Richards (eds) The meaning of meaning (pp. 296–336). New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.
Maynard, D. W. (2005). Social actions, gestal coherence, and designations of disability: Lessons from and about autism. Social Problems, 52(4), 499–524. https://doi.org/10.1525/sp.2005.52.4.499
Maynard, D. W. & Marlaire, C. L. (1992). Good reasons for bad testing performance: The interactional substrate of educational testing. Qualitative Sociology, 15, 177–202. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00989493
Muskett, T., Perkins, M. Clegg, J. & Body, R. (2010). Inflexibility as an interactional phenomenon: Using conversation analysis to re-examine a symptom of autism. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 24(1), 1–16. https://doi.org/10.3109/02699200903281739
Ochs, E. (2012). Experiencing language. Anthropological Theory, 12(2), 142–160. https://doi.org/10.1177/1463499612454088
Ochs, E. & Solomon, O. (2005). Practical logic and autism. In C. Casey & R. Edgerton (eds), A companion to psychological anthropology: Modernity and psychocultural change (pp. 140–167). Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell. https://doi.org/10.1002/9780470996409.ch9
Ochs, E. & Solomon, O. (2010). Autistic sociality. Ethos, 38(1), 69–92. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01082.x
Ochs, E., Kremer-Sadlik, T., Sirota, K. G. & Solomon, O. (2004). Autism and the social world: An anthropological perspective. Discourse Studies, 6, 147–183. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445604041766
Raymond, G. (2003). Grammar and social organization: Yes/no interrogatives and the structure of responding. American Sociological Review, 68, 939–967. https://doi.org/10.2307/1519752
Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. Oxford: Blackwell.
Schegloff, E. A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70, 1075–1095. https://doi.org/10.1525/aa.1968.70.6.02a00030
Schegloff, E. A. (1982). Discourse as an interactional achievement: Some uses of ‘uh huh’ and other things that come between sentences. In D. Tannen (ed.), Georgetown University roundtable on languages and linguistics (pp. 71–93). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
Schegloff, E. A. (1988). Presequences and indirection: Applying speech act theory to ordinary conversation. Journal of Pragmatics, 12, 55–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/0378-2166(88)90019-7
Schegloff, E. A. (1989). Reflections on language, development, and the interactional character of talk-in-interaction. In M. H. Bornstein & J. S. Bruner (eds), Interaction in human development (pp.139–153). New York: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Schegloff, E. A. (1995). Discourse as an interactional achievement III: The onmirelevance of action. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 28(3), 185–211. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327973rlsi2803_2
Shannon, C. E. & Weaver, W. (1949). The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.
Sidnell, J. (2010). Questioning repeats in the talk of four-year-old children. In H. Gardner & M. Forrester (eds), Analysing interactions in childhood (pp. 103–127). Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.
Sterponi, L. & Fasulo, A. (2010). ‘How to go on’: Intersubjectivity and progressivity in the communication of a child with autism. Ethos, 38(1), 116–142. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1352.2009.01084.x
Sterponi, L. & Shankey, J. (2014). Rethinking echolalia: Repetition as interactional resource in the communication of a child with autism. Journal of Child Language, 42(2), 275–304. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000912000682
Sterponi, L., de Kirby, K. & Shankey, J. (2015). Rethinking language in autism. Autism, 19(5), 517–526. https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361314537125
Stribling, P., Rae, J. & Dickerson, P. (2009). Using conversation analysis to explore the recurrence of a topic in the talk of a boy with an autism spectrum disorder. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 23, 555–582. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699200802491165
Tarplee, C. & Barrow, E. (1999). Delayed echoing as an interactional resource: A case study of a 3-year-old child on the autistic spectrum. Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics, 6, 449–82.
Urban, G. (1989). The ‘I’ of discourse. In B. Lee & G. Urban (eds), Semiotics, self and society (pp. 27–51). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110859225-004
Wittgenstein, L. (1953). Philosophical investigations. New York: Macmillan.
Woffitt, R. & Holt, N. (2011). Introspective discourse and the poetics of subjective experience. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 44(2), 135–156. https://doi.org/10.1080/08351813.2011.567097
Wootton, A. (1999). An investigation of delayed echoing in a child with autism. Language, 19, 359–381. https://doi.org/10.1177/014272379901905704
Published
2017-06-15
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Sterponi, L., & de Kirby, J. (2017). What discourse analytic approaches contribute to the study of language and autism: A focus on conversation analysis. Research on Children and Social Interaction, 1(1), 30-54. https://doi.org/10.1558/rcsi.28458
