DISCOURSE RULES IN TELETYPEWRITER CONVERSATIONS (HEARING-IMPAIRED

The extent of discourse rule and modality specific telecommunication code application in teletypewriter (TDD) conversations was examined to describe how social interaction is achieved by typed communication. Five severely hearing impaired adults who exhibited average to above average nonverbal intellectual functioning submitted printouts of TDD calls they sent or received during a period of 4 weeks. The structural, operational, and clarification discourse rules evident in each call were coded according to a taxonomy of discourse rules derived from previous research. The modality specific telecommunication codes displayed in each call were designated according to a listing of abbreviations frequently used in TDD conversations. The conversations were analyzed for the occurrence and frequency of occurrence of each structural, operational, and clarification discourse rule and for the occurrence and frequency of occurrence of each telecommunication code. A series of univariate analyses of variance were performed to determine if hearing impaired adult TDD users vary in their discourse rule and telecommunication code application according to the hearing status of a conversational partner.;Results indicated that structural discourse rules accounted for less than a third of total discourse rule application; whereas operational discourse rules constituted slightly more than two-thirds of all discourse rules applied, regardless of hearing status of conversational partner. Although extreme differences in frequency of use characterized the application of each structural discourse rule, operational discourse rule application focused on the recurrent use of certain rules to accomplish specific functions. Application of clarification rules was minimal in all TDD conversations. Variation was evident in the frequency with which each telecommunication code was applied throughout the entire sample.;Hearing impaired and normally hearing TDD users did not exhibit any significant differences in their discourse rule and telecommunication code application, with the exception of topic initiation by direct statement. This single rule was applied more frequently in conversations between hearing impaired and hearing partners than in conversations between hearing impaired partners.