EFFECTS OF TALKER FAMILIARITY ON COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN IN CONVERSATIONS WITH ADULT COCHLEAR-IMPLANT USERS

This investigation had three objectives: a) to determine the types of repair strategies that cochlear-implant users implement to rectify com munication breakdowns during ongoing conversation when talking to eith er familiar or unfamiliar communication partners, b) to determine how communication partners respond to particular types of repair strategie s, and c) to describe the use of conversational behaviors that might c ircumvent communication difficulties. In Experiment 1, cochlear-implan t subjects were videotaped while talking to familiar and then unfamili ar communication partners. In Experiment 2, a second group of cochlear -implant subjects were videotaped while speaking with an unfamiliar pa rtner for 6.5 minutes. Analysis of the videotapes revealed that the co chlear-implant subjects in the two experiments most commonly asked ''w hat?,'' ''huh?,'' or ''pardon?'' after not recognizing a spoken messag e (e.g., following a communication breakdown), regardless of whether t he communication partner was familiar or unfamiliar. Communication par tners' most common response to this repair strategy was to repeat the original message. When cochlear-implant subjects repeated back the seg ment of a message that they understood, communication partners most of ten confirmed or corrected them. When they requested information, comm unication partners usually provided it. The cochlear-implant subjects were more likely to use controlling conversational behaviors when inte racting with unfamiliar than familiar communication partners. We concl ude that repair strategy-response adjacency pairs may emerge during sp ontaneous conversations. Use of both specific and nonspecific repair s trategies may indicate cochlear-implant users' adherence to a cooperat ive principle.