The role of discourse markers, backchannels and pauses on discourse structure in Alternative and Augmented Communication (AAC)

References: - Aijmer, K., & Simon-Vandenbergen, A. M. (2006). Pragmatic Markers in Contrast. Elsevier. - Fischer, K. (2006). Approaches to Discourse Particles. Elsevier. - Fraser, B. (1996). Pragmatic markers. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA), 167–190. https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.6.2.03fra - Friginal, E., Pearson, P., Di Ferrante, L., Pickering, L., & Bruce, C. (2013). Linguistic characteristics of AAC discourse in the workplace. Discourse Studies, 15(3), 279–298. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461445613480586 - Weid-Goldschmidt, B. (2013). Zielgruppen Unterstützer Kommunikation. Looeper Verlag.Discourse markers and backchannels play an important role in connecting parts of as well as contributing to fluency in discourses (e.g. Fraser, 1996). While research on discourse markers on the verbal level in “typical” language use is abundant (e.g. Aijmer & Simon-Vandenbergen, 2006; Fischer, 2006), little is still known about the manifestation of discourse markers and backchannels in Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) (see Friginal et al., 2013 for an exception). AAC discourses are “atypical” in that they are characterised by AAC users’ pauses for utterance production and overlaps with interlocutors’ turns using spoken language. To our knowledge, no multimodal approach has been taken so far to analyse the discourse of persons who communicate using AAC. To fill this gap, we address the question of how discourse markers, backchannels and pauses are employed multimodally in AAC. The data stems from six interviews with persons belonging to AAC groups 3 and 4 (cf. Weid-Goldschmidt, 2013) who communicate through speech-generating devices. Despite representing a close range in terms of AAC users, their communication shows a wide range of diversity and complexity. The interviews were carried out as part of an interdisciplinary project investigating the challenges experienced by AAC users during the transitions after compulsory school, entering higher education, a workplace, or an adult institution (Kollmar et al., 2018). Each interview lasted approximately two hours and was transcribed orthographically first. In each interview, key passages were selected where pragmatic stance-taking or discourse interventions on the part of the AAC users took place. These then underwent a detailed multimodal transcription in EXMARaLDA. Preliminary analyses of the data show that a wide variety of multimodal features characterize AAC discourse such as body movements, hand and head gestures, facial expressions, gaze, PORTA signs and conventionalized signs, vocalization and speech-generating devices being used alternately and sometimes simultaneously by AAC users to structure their discourse. Taking a close look at the structure of the discourse from a “typical” speaker’s normalized perspective on discourse, lengthened pauses can be perceived as atypical or fragmenting the discourse in AAC communication. For AAC users, characteristic features like pauses are essential for structuring their AAC discourse. Furthermore, with regard to the occurrence of discourse markers and particularly backchannels, it can be noted that there are several commonly used forms displayed to participate in the discourse, such as offering a turn to another person, the use of affirmation and negation signals and connectors which, depending on the circumstances, will be expressed through one or a combination of the above-mentioned multimodal features