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Language impaired teenagers' comprehension of pragmatic meaning: a focus on ambiguity, implications for practice
Author(s) -
RINALDI WENDY
Publication year - 1995
Publication title -
international journal of language and communication disorders
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.101
H-Index - 67
eISSN - 1460-6984
pISSN - 1368-2822
DOI - 10.1111/j.1460-6984.1995.tb01747.x
Subject(s) - psychology , meaning (existential) , ambiguity , context (archaeology) , comprehension , set (abstract data type) , linguistics , selection (genetic algorithm) , developmental psychology , cognitive psychology , social psychology , paleontology , philosophy , computer science , psychotherapist , biology , programming language , artificial intelligence
In her work as a speech and language therapist with secondary school‐aged pupils, the author became increasingly aware that aspects concerned with the pragmatic domain of language were particularly difficult for this group of youngsters. These aspects concerned not only the use of language but also the comprehension of meaning implied by context (pragmatic meaning). In her PhD research study, currently supervised by the London University Institute of Education, the author set out to explore how well secondary school students with specific developmental language disorders are able to use a pragmatic, contextual strategy to resolve ambiguous communication. She compared this group of youngsters with chronologically aged‐matched and language age‐matched control groups. The two types of ambiguity explored in this study are: (1) Inconsistent messages of emotion (for example, ‘I'm perfectly happy thank you’, said with a facial expression and the voice to convey anger); (2) Multiple meanings in context (for example, ‘I'm sorry I'm late, the road was jammed solid this morning’). Over a two‐year period, 207 youngsters were assessed, by use of new procedures involving audio‐ and videotaped samples and requiring picture selection responses. The results of the pilot study and a preliminary view of the main study data indicated that the language‐disordered youngsters, as a group, have particular difficulty in using meaning conveyed by context to help them resolve ambiguous communication. Statistical analysis applied to the pilot study data (Kruskal‐Wallis analysis of variance) revealed a significantly greater difference comparing the language‐disordered group with both control groups (p>0.01). Observing the types of responses made, there were a number of very interesting findings. For example, there were several instances where language‐impaired youngsters understood the two possible alternative meanings, but were not able to use a pragmatic strategy to ascertain which was the speaker's intended meaning, given the context. The results of this study and the presenter's review of the literature will be used as a basis for discussing the following: (1) What is meant by the term ‘pragmatics’ and ‘pragmatic language disorder’; (2) The notion of pragmatic language ‘at the interface of linguistic, social and cognitive development’; (3) The validity of the semantic‐pragmatic distinction; (4) The usefulness of the term ‘pragmatic language disorder’ as an alternative or an addition to the terms ‘high level autism’/‘autism at the upper end of the continuum’ and ‘Asperger's syndrome’.