Modality

Modality is a notion that is understood in different ways within different approaches to human communication. Modality may be understood as a human sensory and/or motor channel, for example, vision, hearing, touch, voice, or speech. Often, however, modality is investigated in terms of ways of communicating or, alternatively, ways of encoding information. In the latter conceptualization, modalities are subdivided into bodily and material modalities. Whereas the former includes speech, [Page 1178]gesture, facial expression, gaze, and body posture, the latter comprises graphic and electronic means. This entry provides a brief overview of the two principal forms of modality and the roles they play in communication disorders and their treatment.

In accordance with the two different notions of modality, communication disorders may be due to damage to the sensory-motor modalities or be the result of brain injuries that occasion so-called impaired cognitive functioning, a term that includes amnesia and difficulties with attention and abstract reasoning. Also, communication disorders or communicative disabilities may result from the coordination of modalities of communication that occasion a communicative action that cannot be typified as a specific one (e.g., a question), or though apt for typification, its details may not suffice to make sense of it. For example, if participants in face-to-face encounters do not combine speech in terms of “That’s a gift?” with rising intonation, the communicative action may not be recognizable as a question. Furthermore, if it is not combined with a gesture or gaze that points to a material object, the recipient may not recognize what the question concerns and respond to it with a yes, as expected, rather than “What gift?” “Okay,” or “Whose birthday is it?” which the recipient combines with different modalities (e.g., nodding, facial expressions, gaze). The combination of modalities in this case does not result in structures that make the action understandable. Neither does it constitute a context, which a responding action can be fitted to, so that the responding action makes sense too. From this perspective, ordered structured action and interaction, whether they include participants with diagnosed impairments or not, are the result of coordinated modalities within and, actually, across communicative actions produced by different participants. From this perspective, communicative disabilities result from social interactional structures and cannot simply be explained by reference to physical sensorimotor modalities in the individual.

Bodily behavior and written or electronic systems for communicative purposes are resources (e.g., for face-to-face communication) that are very different in nature. Individuals engage directly and bodily with the material world and with each other. Although the details of bodily behavior (e.g., body movements, speech, gaze, and gesture, including manual sign language) are not all the same every time, together the individuals manage to order elements of them and turn them into specific, recognizable, structured communicative actions. Actions of this kind may best be categorized as embodied actions. As research in social interaction has shown, embodied actions are ordinarily not treated as scripted and preplanned ideas that are being encoded in bodily channels of communication, and there is little evidence, if any, that a preplanned ideational complex prestructures what kind of bodily means are employed and how. Rather, individuals engage in interactional work that is incrementally developing and situated in the here and now of each and every situation.

...