Announcing 'Stammering Research' - Stammering Research - UCL

TARGET ARTICLE
Stammering Research. Vol. 1.
A conversation analytic perspective on stammering: Some reflections
and observations
Ciaran Acton
School of Sociology and Social Policy, Queen’s University Belfast
University Road, Belfast, BT7 1NN Northern Ireland
c.acton@qub.ac.uk
Abstract. While the contribution of quantitative research to our understanding of stammering is
well-recognized, the reasons for the under-utilisation of qualitative frameworks are less clear. This
main aim of this paper is to highlight the distinctive methodological features of one specific
qualitative research paradigm, conversation analysis, and to draw attention to the potential of this
approach for developing our understanding of interactional implications of stammering. The
literature on turn-taking, adjacency pairs and response tokens is examined along with previous
conversational analytic work on ‘communication disorders’, and it is argued that in order to fully
comprehend the interactional consequences of stammering we need to engage in a fine-grained
analysis of the details of recorded naturally occurring conversation. Keywords: Conversation
Analysis; Qualitative research; Stammering.
1. Introduction
Research on stammering has traditionally relied upon experimental designs and statistical analyses
and in so doing it has made great strides, not only in terms of our knowledge about the nature of
stammering, but also with regard to the development of effective treatment strategies. While there is
inevitably going to be disagreement over the value of individual studies, there is little doubt that
collectively this research has significantly increased our understanding of a wide range of stammeringrelated
issues. However, given the extremely complex and multidimensional nature of the
phenomenon, it is possible that an over-reliance on quantitative methods could result in other important
aspects being under-researched or overlooked completely. The qualitative research tradition has a long
and well-regarded history in the social sciences and the benefits of applying some of these approaches
to the study of stammering have been highlighted by Tetnowski and Damico (2001), who suggest that
researchers will be able to:
‘collect authentic data that are true representations of how stuttering impacts on
individuals in the real world, …..create a richer description of what stuttering is,
…..focus on the impact of stuttering on the individual… and collect data from the
perspective of the individual person who stutters [PWS], …focus on the PWS and
their collaborations with their coparticipants within the social context [and] learn
more about the phenomenon under investigation, how it operates, and how PWS
attempt to reduce its impact in social contexts’.
While the term qualitative research encompasses a wide range of data collection techniques, some,
such as in-depth interviewing and ethnographic methods, have a greater potential than others to open
up certain relatively unexplored dimensions of stammering. Indeed there are encouraging signs of an
increasing willingness among researchers on stammering to embrace qualitative methods. Studies such
as those carried out by Crichton-Smith (2002) and Corcoran and Stewart (1998) provide important
insights into the lived experience of stammering and highlight the need for more research in this area.
However, the descriptions of stammering and its consequences that permeate this kind of research often
rely heavily on the respondents’ recollections and interpretations of events. While such data allows us
access to an important dimension of stammering it is nonetheless problematic in terms of our ability to
fully understand the mechanisms at work in everyday interaction. So, for example, Crichton-Smith’s
(2002:347) suggestion that ‘many of the limiting experiences reported….. may be associated with the
consequences that follow a member’s chosen speech strategies’ leaves a number of unanswered
questions and generates the need to obtain a much more detailed account of these strategies, how they
function in everyday conversation and what interactional implications they have. Alternative research
methods, however, may provide the opportunity for obtaining an account of stammering-related
strategies at this level of detail and, conversation analysis offers such a potential. Although
conversation analysis falls under the broad category of qualitative methods, it represents a quite
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