Co-constructing negotiated meanings in interactions using aided communication : an exploration in the framework of relevance theory

Individuals with significant speech impairments may face unique challenges in becoming understood in everyday life. This doctoral dissertation explores, within the framework of relevance theory, communicative interactions between children and adolescents who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) and their communication partners who use natural speech. The participating nonspeaking children and adolescents had severe motor and speech impairments and used aided communication – a form of external communication (e.g., spelling or graphic symbols displayed in communication books or speech-generating devices) – as their primary mode of communication. This study aimed to identify and describe strategies of the aided communicators and their speaking communication partners in co-constructing, negotiating, and interpreting meaning in interactions using aided communication. Through the framework of relevance theory, the focus was on extending understanding of the meaning construction and utterance interpretation of multidimensional and potentially ambiguous aided utterances. The data was drawn from a large international study project, Becoming an Aided Communicator (BAC). The data for the current study comprised transcribed video event descriptions from 48 participating aided communicators (aged 5–15) and their speaking communication partners. The context of the interactions was a task where the aided communicators conveyed information about video events to the communication partners who had not seen the event and had no prior clues regarding the context. The study applied qualitative analyses supported by quantitative measures. Each of the three original studies of this dissertation focused on different perspectives, varying regarding the number of dyads and the focus of the investigation. First, the study explored how the aided communicators construct messages with the communication means, how they attempt to overcome potential limitations in the available vocabulary, and what factors could affect their performance in conveying meaningful information. Second, the focus was on identifying and exploring strategies of the speaking communication partners in co-constructing, negotiating, and interpreting aided utterances. The findings of this study illustrate achievements and complexities in achieving an agreed-upon understanding within the multidimensional and multimodal aided interactions. The aided communicators used a range of linguistic and multimodal strategies in describing events unknown to their communication partners. These communicators portrayed creative and generative strategies in expressing meaning and overcoming potential limitations in their communication aids. The speaking communication partners utilized various strategies in negotiating and interpreting the meaning of aided utterances. Most strategies in negotiating for meaning were targeted at solving lexical and structural ambiguities. The speaking communication partners experienced challenges, particularly when the produced utterances were deemed imprecise, and the contextual information was sparse. The visual-graphic mode of communication and the potential for the ambiguity of graphic symbols decisively impacted the comprehensibility of messages. Relevance theory provided a framework to identify and explain how specific patterns in communicative interactions involving aided communication may (or may not) contribute to the understandability of aided utterances. Many of the communicative disruptions reflected the speaking communication partners’ challenges in constructing the gap between the aided communicators’ intended meaning and the explicit utterance meaning. In these instances, they appeared to balance the accuracy of resolutions and the efforts involved in processing potential interpretations. The study demonstrates that participants in aided interactions benefit from efficient strategies in negotiating for meaning and repairing communicative disruptions to achieve mutual understanding. The findings imply that the awareness of features of aided language, the comprehension of the potential for ambiguity, and the loose use of aided language can support successful meaning-making in aided conversations. The findings also led to implications for practice in supporting the communicative competence of aided communicators and their communication partners in various interaction contexts in everyday life.