ABSTRACT
In Chapter 3 we offered a broad definition of conversation as discourse produced by at least two persons. To point up the contrast between different types of interactive discourse, we shall now define conversation more restrictively as the kind of everyday discourse which takes place between persons with equal rights to speak, where no participant overtly controls the proceedings. Conversation in this sense is the commonest type of interactive discourse, and as such is a basic site for the study of spoken interaction. Yet, until relatively recently little has been known of the way people converse in everyday contexts when they are not using language self-consciously or transactionally - that is, to attain some independently specified goal. Recall also that we relied very little on naturalistic data in our account in Chapters 6 and 7 of the 'underpinnings' of coherent conversation. Even less is known about aphasic discourse outside the clinic, despite the high premium placed by clinicians on the everyday interactions of patients with family, friends and acquaintances. Most current research utilizes material collected in clinical contexts with the investigator firmly in control of the proceedings, and we saw in Chapter 6 (p. 120f. above) that Chapman and Ulatowska were critical of these rather artificial frameworks. The purpose of this chapter and Chapter 9 is to explore other frameworks which might grant some insight into the everyday conversational behaviour of both normal and aphasic speakers.
