On communicative contributions and multimodality of onomatopoeic utterances: Towards activation of communication

本研究探讨了哪些语言因素能促进智障人士的交流，并试图找到一些线索，以有效地促进愉快的交流。以听觉和视觉刺激为重点，我们观察了一所特殊教育学校的音乐治疗课程。我们对摄像机记录的数据进行了话语分析，从而阐明了富有声音象征意义和生动节奏的拟声表达和歌唱是如何触发交际行为的。更重要的是，这样的活动似乎也产生了舒适的关系，参与者可以很容易地分享音乐丰富的交流的乐趣。在此基础上，我们实验性地制作并发行了一些DVD教学材料，希望能帮助认知障碍人士日常刷牙。这种教具的有效性有待进一步的研究验证。

This study has investigated what linguistic factors contribute to activation of communication by people with intellectual impairments, and tried to find clues to effective methods which enable enjoyable communication. Focusing on auditory and visual stimulation, we observed music therapy sessions practiced at a school for special education. We have done discourse analysis of the video-camera recorded data, which led us to elucidate how communicative actions are triggered by onomatopoeic expressions and singing rich in sound symbolism and vivacious rhythm. More importantly, such activities seemed to yield comforting relationships as well, in which participants could easily share joy of music-rich communication.Based on the result, we experimentally produced and distributed some DVD teaching materials, which we hope would help the cognitively impaired people with their daily tooth-brushing routines. The validity of such teaching aids should be verified in further studies.