Conversational narratives and aphasia

Research has highlighted the pervasiveness of narratives in conversational contexts across the lifespan (e.g., Basso, 1979; Linde, 1993; Ochs & Capps, 2001; Miller et al., 2000). This study, exploring conversational narratives in interactions between individuals with aphasia and their partners, presents: 1) a framework operationally defining conversational narratives and categorizing them by type and pattern of production; 2) a systematic analysis of a small corpus of data (10 sessions with 5 participant pairs) using that framework; and 3) a situated discourse analysis of striking narrative examples, exploring social and discursive functions of conversational narratives for these participants