A Phonological Investigation Of Aphasic Speech

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Phonological Processes and Brain Mechanisms reviews selective neurolinguistic research relating brain structures to phonology. The studies in the volume report on a number of timely and important topics, such as a neuronal model for processing segmental phonology, the role of the thalamus and basal ganglia in language processing, and oral reading in dyslexia. Increasingly, phonology is considered a cognitive module whose brain correlates may be independently investigated. Given the modular nature of the phonological system and its direct linkage with peripheral components of the nervous system, research on phonology and the brain will undoubtedly flourish in the future. The chapters in this volume give substance to this future.

Bringing together a range of experts, the editors of this volume aim to show how psycholinguistic models of normal speech processing can be applied to the study of disorders of speech production, such as stuttering, aphasia and verbal dyspraxia.

This volume combines in-depth reviews of models of spoken word production and cognitive neuropsychological disorders of spoken word production. The first section provides a detailed discussion of the development and structure of current models of language production using data form "normal" subjects. It is these models that form the basis of the study and therefore the text attempts to explain their processing mechanisms and assumptions clearly. The evidence used for the development of these models is described including experimental studies and observation of patterns in naturally occurring speech errors.; The second section focuses on studies of aphasic naming disorders and discusses these disorders in terms of the model described in the first section. The emphasis is on single case studies. These are reviewed in three chapters examining semantic errors and disorders, the range of symptoms attributed to disorders of lexical retriveal and deficits of phonological encoding. The text assumes that the reader has some familiarity with the linguistic and psychological terminology relevant to these areas and therefore is most suited to the graduate student or researcher/lecturer.

Over the past decade, questions about the clinical classification and experimental examination of aphasic patients have been raised. Growing doubts about the validity and reliability of standard clinical diagnoses have been responsible, in part, for the explosion of case studies in the neurolinguistic literature. In turn, rejection of classical aphasia diagnoses has made it difficult to synthesize much of this literature, and no alternative method for selecting and comparing aphasic patients has emerged. This volume was motivated by a desire to take a fresh look at the benefits that aphasia diagnosis has for both clinical and experimental work. This is accomplished by exploring one classical aphasia syndrome from a multidisciplinary perspective; that is, by presenting information from the disciplines of neurology, speech-language pathology, and experimental neurolinguistics. Given this scope, it is hoped that this work will appeal to an equally broad range of readers.

A Linguistic Investigation of Aphasic Chinese Speech is the first detailed linguistic analysis of a large body of aphasic Chinese natural speech data. This work describes how the major aphasia syndromes are manifest in Chinese, a language which differs significantly from languages upon which traditional aphasia theory is based. Following the Chinese data, a new explanation for the major aphasia syndromes is offered based on the cognitive science modularity hypothesis. The theory posits that Broca's aphasia is the result of computational deficits that occur within linguistic components, while Wernicke's aphasia is the result of deficits that occur in the transfer of information between components. It is demonstrated how the fluent and non-fluent characteristics of the major aphasia syndromes follow directly from the properties of cognitive modules. Detailed linguistic descriptions of Broca's and Wernicke's aphasia in Chinese are provided, including a summary of diagnostics of aphasia type. The complete corpora of four aphasic Chinese speakers, including interlinear and free translations, are presented in an Appendix.