THE ROLE OF UNESTABLISHED REFERENT IN THE CONVERSATIONS OF YOUNG COMMUNICATIVELY IMPAIRED CHILDREN
This study examines the role of unestablished referent in the conversations of young children with a clinical profile involving inappropriateness in verbal interaction, or communicative impairment.
In a small scale pilot study, a comparison is made between the video-recorded conversations of five of these children, and of a child matched to each for age and a child matched to each for verbal comprehension level. On the basis of both quantitative and qualitative comparisons of the instances of failure to establish referent in these conversations, a number of findings are presented in relation to the causes and effects of unestablished referent. The implications for assessment and therapy are discussed.
Chapter One discusses the parameters of pragmatics and argues for the adoption of the organisational framework embodied in Prutting's Pragmatic Protocol and for the pragmatics-as-cause-effect approach on which it is based. The establishment of referent corresponds to the parameter Specificity/Accuracy on the Pragmatic Protocol.
Chapter Two surveys what is known about the establishment of referent from the literature on child language development and on language impairment.
In a small scale group design study, Chapter Three investigates the frequency of use of unestablished referent by the communicatively impaired children and their controls.
In Chapter 4 a qualitative analysis is carried out of how the instances of unestablished referent arise in the conversations recorded for the study and of their communicative effect. As a framework for this detailed analysis, and as a potential clinical tool, a Protocol for the Establishment of Referent (the P.E.R.) has been developed. It is concluded that there are certain features which are characteristic of the failure to establish referent in the communicatively impaired children's conversations. These features, the most important of which are an inappropriate degree of specificity and a lack of relevance to the conversational topic, appear to result from difficulties with the organisation of the discourse.
Further studies are needed to validate this conclusion and to develop the P.E.R. as a clinical tool.
1 THE PARAMETERS OF PRAGMATICS
1.1 INTRODUCTION: THE CLINICAL NEED FOR A DEFINITION OF PRAGMATICS
1.2 PRAGMATICS IN RELATION TO DISCOURSE
1.3 SITUATIONAL DETERMINANTS OF THE USE OF LANGUAGE
1.4 PRAGMATIC ASSESSMENT: THE NEED FOR A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
1.4.1 STANDARDISED TESTS
1.4.2 LISTS OF CLINICALLY IDENTIFIED DIFFICULTIES
1.4.3 SEMANTIC-PRAGMATIC DISORDER
1.4.4 THERAPY
1.5 AN OVERVIEW OF PRAGMATIC COMPETENCE
1.5.1 ORGANISATIONAL FRAMEWORKS
1.5.2 PRUTTING'S PRAGMATIC PROTOCOL
1.6 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PRAGMATICS AND OTHER ASPECTS OF LANGUAGE
1.6.1 PRAGMATICS AS A SET OF SKILLS
1.6.2 THE NARROW AND BROAD VIEW OF PRAGMATICS
1.6.3 PRAGMATICS-AS-CAUSE-EFFECT
1.7.1 THE USE OF THE PRAGMATIC PROTOCOL
1.7.2 THE PRESENT STUDY - A DUAL APPROACH
1.7.3 SPECIFICITY/ACCURACY
2. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF REFERENT
2.3 TYPES OF REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
2.3.1 EXPRESSIONS USED TO ESTABLISH 'GIVEN' REFERENTS
2.3.2 CO-REFERENCE AND CO-CLASSIFICATION
2.3.3 EXPRESSIONS USED TO ESTABLISH A NEW REFERENT
2.3.4 IDENTIFYING FEATURES AND REFERENTIAL COMMUNICATION
2.3.5 CHOICE OF LEXICAL ITEM
2.3.6 NON-LITERAL REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
2.3.6.a Metaphor
2.3.6.b Irony
2.4.1 INFANCY: THE EMERGENCE OF QUASI- REFERENCE
2.4.2 DISPLACED REFERENCE
2.4.3 PRONOMINALS
2.4.4 DEFINITE/INDEFINITE ARTICLES
2.4.5 NON-LITERAL REFERRING EXPRESSIONS
2.4.6 CONCLUSION
2.5 LANGUAGE IMPAIRMENT AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF REFERENT
3.2 THE RECORDING OF UNESTABLISHED REFERENTS
3.3 THE IDENTIFICATION OF UNESTABLISHED REFERENTS
3.4.1 SUBJECTS
3.4.2 ADDITIONAL PARTICIPANTS
3.4.3 MATERIALS
3.4.4 COLLECTION OF DATA
3.4.5 TRANSCRIPTION AND CODING
3.4.5.a CHAT Transcription Coding System
3.4.5.b Method of calculation
3.4.5.c Definition of a turn
3.4.6 RELIABILITY
3.6.1 RELATIVE FREQUENCY OF THE OCCURRENCE OF UNESTABLISHED REFERENT
3.6.2 POTENTIAL CLINICAL RELEVANCE
3.6.3 THE LIMITATIONS OF INVESTIGATING FREQUENCY
4. THE CAUSES AND EFFECTS OF UNESTABLISHED REFERENT
4.2 PROTOCOL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF REFERENT
4.3.1 CHILD A
4.3.2 CHILD B
4.3.3 CHILD C
4.3.4 CHILD D
4.3.5 CHILD E
4.4.1 PRONOMINALS
4.4.1.a Complexity of subject matter: temporal mapping problems
4.4.1.b Failure in presupposition
4.4.1.c Verbal disambiguation
4.4.1.d Gestural disambiguation
4.4.2 DEMONSTRATIVE
4.4.3 DEFINITE ARTICLE
4.4.4 COMPARISON, SUBSTITUTION AND ELLIPSIS
4.4.4.a Comparative reference
4.4.4.b Substitution
4.4.4.c Ellipsis
4.4.5. LEXICAL ITEM
4.4.5.a Meaning not understood
4.4.5.b Inappropriate degree of specificity
4.4.6 IDENTIFYING FEATURES
4.4.6.3 Attributes
4.4.6.b Locating devices
4.4.7 ADVERBIAL OF TIME
4.4.8 NON-LITERAL
4.4.9 VERBAL FANTASY
4.5.1 FACTORS RESPONSIBLE FOR FAILURE
TO ESTABLISH REFERENT
4.5.1.a Introduction
4.5.1.b Features common to the communicatively impaired children and those with normal language
4.5.1.c Features found only in the communicatively impaired children
4.5.2 ORGANISATIONAL SKILLS
4.6.1 GENERAL PRINCIPLES 94
4.6.2 A THERAPY PROGRAM 95
4.6.3 INFERENCING: VARYING THE DEGREE OF EXPLICITNESS
4.6.4 THE ORGANISATION OF CONVERSATION: DISCOURSE DEIXIS
4.6.5 THE CONTEXT OF LANGUAGE AND THE CONTEXT OF EXPERIENCE
6. DIRECTIONS FOR FUTURE RESEARCH
LIST OF FIGURES, TABLES & APPENDICES
TABLES
TABLE 1 MAIN FEATURES OF PRAGMATIC FRAMEWORKS
TABLE 2 COMPARISON OF APPROACHES TO PRAGMATIC ASSESSMENT
TABLE 3 PERCENTAGE OF CHILDREN WHOSE CONTRIBUTION TO THE CONVERSATION WAS JUDGED INAPPROPRIATE
TABLE 5 MEAN NUMBER OF UNESTABLISHED REFERENTS PER TURN
TABLE 8 PROTOCOL FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF REFERENT (P.E.R.)
FIGURES
FIGURE 2, a-j VIDEO STILLS ILLUSTRATING THE USE OF POINTING AND GESTURE IN ESTABLISHING REFERENT (to be provided in due course)
APPENDIX A. Prutting's Pragmatic Protocol.
APPENDIX B. CHAT Transcription Coding System.
APPENDIX D. Introductory Questions.
APPENDIX E. Protocol for the Establishment of Referent (P.E.R.)
I would like to express my appreciation to the many people who assisted me with this study.
My thanks to the Department of Speech and Hearing for the facilities provided by them. and my gratitude to my supervisor, Anne Ozanne, for her helpful advice and for her empathy with the clinical motivation of the study.
Thanks also to the Brisbane Department of Education for permission to record the data; to Helena Smith of the Guidance and Special Services section for her generosity in undertaking part of the psychological testing; to the children who took part and made the recording sessions so enjoyable; and to the children's families and teachers
I am also grateful to Maureen Liddy. Speech Therapist with Guidance and Special Sevices, for her help in establishing reliability. and to Dr. Perry Morrison of the National University of Singapore (formerly of Griffith University, Brisbane) for va1uable assistance with the statistical part of the study
Thanks to Deirdre Russell, Department Head, Speech Pathology, Illawarra Regional Hospital, for her understanding of the difficulties of combining clinical and academic commitments.
Special thanks to Stephen Little for much technical, intellectual and emotional support, which withstood innumerable lost weekends and holidays.
Finally I would like to acknowledge a considerable debt to many colleagues, and to many children and their families, in the Liverpool Language Units in the U.K., where I worked for nine years as Chief Speech Therapist. In particular, I would like to thank Chris Coleman, Language Unit Teacher at the Fazakerley Open Air School. Without the stimulus of her insights and commitment, during the years we worked together with children referred to us as 'odd', this study would not have been written.