ABSTRACT
We turn now to look in detail at samples of conversation, some of which involve at least one aphasic participant. Discussion of these is organized round several topics, each being viewed as a procedure by means of which participants jointly achieve orderliness along a particular dimension of conversational structure. Several relevant questions for aphasiologists are suggested by this approach. We can ask first whether orderliness is achieved at all by aphasic patients — that is whether their conversations can be said to have structure. If they do, we can then ask whether it is of the same kind as is revealed by conversation analytic methods in non-aphasic conversations. If it is not, we can try to find out how aphasie speakers and their partners succeed in achieving order, a key question being whether they routinely use particular strategies in a different way from non-aphasic conversationalists in pursuit of particular interactional goals. We can also ask whether (and why) any of the management procedures outlined in this chapter are likely to present particular difficulty for aphasie conversationalists and their partners.
