Announcing 'Stammering Research' - Stammering Research - UCL

Stammering Research. Vol. 1.
vocalisation, however, they are conveying the message that it is their turn and they intend to take it.
Unfortunately some people who stammer experience very real difficulty in vocalising at all and these
people are particularly vulnerable at transition points. It is they who are likely to be most adversely affected
by the restrictions imposed by telephone communication where visual signs of struggle are unavailable to
the listener. Others make a clear choice to remain silent for fear of 'exposing' themselves as people who
stammer but, perhaps ironically, risk leaving themselves relatively powerless in the turn-taking economy.
The critical role played by silence in the turn-taking system creates a dilemma for people who stammer,
as many develop an acute fear of speechlessness. Some of the conversational consequences of this phobia
are alluded to in the following extract from Sheehan (1970:27):
stuttering is not just a difficulty of starting, for many stutterers it is a difficulty of
terminating. The more severe the stutterer, the more trouble he has getting started, and
the more trouble he has getting stopped. An aspect of listening to a severe stutterer that
exasperates many people is that he never seems to know when to stop, as hope sags that
each next word will be the stutterers last.
One of the hypotheses put forward for this 'clinically observed phenomenon' is that because people who
stammer experience most trouble at the beginning of utterances 16 they become conditioned to fear silence.
Filibustering is a common feature of stammering (Sheehan 1970) and on the basis of earlier discussion
which drew attention to the severe competition that exists at TRPs, this concern to hold the floor is
understandable. However, Sheehan (1970:29) suggested that people who stammer 'be taught to risk and to
court the fear of silence, by permitting pauses in his speech....., pauses to permit the stutterer sufficient
breath so that he is not trying to force out words on residual air'. This may appear sound advice, but given
the nature of stammering and the exigencies of the turn-taking system, pausing at or near TRPs may create
the wrong impression for listeners, who could justifiably interpret this as their opportunity to speak. I
would suggest, therefore, that the fear of silence, which is common to many people who stammer, has a
quite legitimate basis and derives, at least in part, from the operation of the turn-taking system and the
constraints this imposes on conversationalists. In this respect, it was perhaps erroneous for Sheehan
(1970:29) to refer to the 'time pressure set' as 'self-imposed'. Moreover, these difficulties are exacerbated in
multi-party talk where the increased competition for turns makes self-selection far from automatic, a fact
that may have important ramifications for the development of the conversation. For example, when a
participant wishes to respond to something the current speaker is saying, it is often crucial that they get in at
the next TRP. Otherwise whoever does become the next speaker may select someone else and the
relevance of what they were going to say may be lost. These additional constraints only serve to illustrate
the need for people who stammer to devise strategies that will allow them equal access in the turn taking
economy. For some, these techniques, which have been cultivated through years of painful conversational
experience, are quite effective in turn management terms. For others, however, the severity of the stammer
precludes any such straightforward manipulation of the turn taking rules. An inability to control silences in
any significant way leaves these people who stammer in an extremely vulnerable and powerless position
within the turn taking system, especially in telephone conversations. This may help to account for the welldocumented
feelings of frustration and anger that people who stammer often experience and may also
explain the reluctance of many people who stammer to use the phone. Given Nofsinger's (1991:96) claim
that research has consistently shown that perceptions of participants' communicative competence and even
the viability of their conversation is related to the way they manage conversational silence, it is also
extremely likely that many people who stammer are unfairly judged in terms of their overall
communication skills.
The preceding discussion has focused on silences and considered the ways in which their placement has
differential implications. We have considered some of the possible strategies that people who stammer may
employ in an attempt to minimise silences and commented on the specific advantages of employing these
at transition places. Of course, as I have already indicated, many of these techniques are employed
regularly by people who do not stammer, usually to secure a turn while formulating a response. Empirical
research, however, is needed to clarify these issues. For example, to what extent do people who stammer
manipulate these turn-holding techniques in an attempt to overcome difficulties which are specifically
related to their fluency disorder? Nevertheless, on the basis of our current knowledge of talk-in-interaction,
to crudely dismiss them as avoidance strategies (as some of the literature on stammering attempts to do)
risks overlooking their possible role in helping people who stammer secure a turn at a point in the
conversation where the speech difficulties put the maintenance of speakership in jeopardy.
There is of course the additional possibility that by employing devices that are widely used in ‘normal’
talk, people who stammer are able to conceal their disorder more effectively. For many people who
16 There has been considerable research carried out into the various linguistic determinants of dysfluency
(e.g Brown, 1945; Howell, Au-Yeung & Sackin, 1999; Wingate 1988) and these findings need to be taken
into account in any examination of the relationship between turn-taking system and stammering.
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