The therapist’s linguistic mechanisms of intervention and their effects on the patient’s speech in language clinic

Abstract

This article is based on two presuppositions. The first one is that, in speech therapy sessions, the therapist is usually expected to “correct” the speech (considered deviant) of his/her patient. The second one is that from this expectation results a very peculiar enunciative configuration: the therapist makes several interventions in the speech production of his patient. Given these interventions are both on meaning and form, we thus ask, as the objective of this study: what effects do the therapist’s linguistic interventions have on his/her patient’s speech? In order to answer it, this article uses the Benvenistian enunciative perspective as theoretical framework to analyze transcriptions of excerpts of sessions in which a child is being treated, aiming to describe the therapist’s mechanisms of intervention in the speech of his/her patient and the generated effects. The results point to a focus on form, disregarding meaning, which makes us reflect on the linguistic status of these interventions when compared to those made in different, natural contexts.

Keywords: enunciative studies, language clinic, intervention.