Rethinking repetition in therapy: Repeated engagement as the social ground of learning

Background: Clinical aphasiologists have long attended to repetition in aphasia classification and used it in treatment. Within traditional approaches, repetition has been conceptualised narrowly as the ability to produce relatively immediate, verbatim reproductions of target behaviours; treatment protocols have relied heavily on drill, eliciting client repetition of targets. In sharp contrast, sociocultural theories conceptualise repetition as a fundamental, pervasive feature operating at every level of language use. Repetition thus includes partial and paraphrased as well as verbatim repetitions, across time as well as immediate. These theories also stress the communicative functions of repetition. With respect to learning, sociocultural theories emphasise the way such loosely structured, diverse patterns of repetition emerge in, and are prompted by, repeated engagement in meaningful activities. Aims: This study (1) presents a sociocultural approach to repetition in conversation; (2) illustrates that ap...