Koran, L; (2015) Aphasia in a linguistically diverse population: resources for turn construction and interactional adaptations of Malaysian adults. Doctoral thesis , UCL (University College London).

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Abstract

The central aim of this thesis is to explore resources for turn construction and interactional adaptations in the conversation of adults with aphasia (a language difficulty acquired most commonly after stroke) in the linguistically diverse Malaysian population. Malaysia has a long history of societal multilingualism, necessitating individual bi/multilingualism; the thesis investigates for the first time the impact of aphasia on conversational interactions in this population. As a result, the thesis applies Conversation Analysis (CA), with an emphasis on localised investigation of participants’ turns within particular sequences. The data are from two sources: video recorded natural conversations in the homes of three participants with aphasia and their regular conversation partners, and conversations outside the home with a friend, where languages other than the home language were reportedly used. The data driven procedures of CA reveal turn construction resources of topic-comment structure, co-construction and repetition are deployed by PWAs in conversation with regular and less familiar conversation partners and these resources cross the linguistic boundaries of the languages in their repertoire. These resources also occur in the non-aphasic conversation partners’ turns and exhibit similarities to those documented in studies of the conversations of monolingual English speakers with aphasia. Given that two or more sets of linguistic resources are available for each partnership, code-switching is found to be a compensatory resource for dealing with word finding difficulties as well as a resource for claiming or ascribing identity. A comparison of conversations with a friend indicates that a partnership’s familiarity influences interactional outcomes. However, the relationship between familiarity and interactional success is a complex one which appears to vary for each partnership. The findings of this thesis have theoretical and clinical implications for planning support services for aphasia in societies where bi/multilingualism is the norm. The significance of this contribution becomes evident when global trends in linguistic diversity are taken into consideration.

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