Description and Analysis of the linguistic role of the particle "le" in the speech of an aphasic individual as an aid for the language's reconstruction.

• Grant number: 10/10272-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2010
• End date: August 31, 2011
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Edwiges Maria Morato
• Grantee: Nathalia Do Nascimento Epifânio
• Host Institution: Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem (IEL). Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Campinas , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This work aims to describe and analyse the role of a linguistic element which emerges from the speech of an aphasic individual, EC, in the conversations that take place at CCA (Aphasia Centre). Something which draws attention in her speech is the massive occurrence of the multifunctional particle "le", in general, before the evocation of words, replacing determiners, nouns, or even being part of these elements' composition, resulting in paraphasias (such as "leceitas" instead of "receitas"), so as to operate as an expedient of language reconstruction and improvement of the communicative capacity.Taking into account this aim, the first task set is the investigation of the linguistic role of the particle in its varied occurrences amidst discoursive and interactive practises of EC. Our first hypothesis, resulting from the preliminary observation of the phenomenon, is that this linguistic element would be operating as an "auto-prompting", playing the role of the filling of diverse linguistic categories and processes, such as lexical activation and emphasis. The project's second task is linked to the second hypothesis, according to which the particle "le" would be operating as a categories' "joker", a strategy for lexical-phonological reconstruction which may be explained in the manner of processes such as grammaticalisation and discoursivisation.The occurrence or productivity of this phenomenon seems to be related to conversational practises in which EC participates. Therefore, the particle "le" would not be a mere excrescence of aphasia, but rather a strategy whose operation acts according to some systematicities of organisational nature which emerges in verbal interactions, in an interindividually interactive and regulative way.We believe that it's in the empirical domain that we will have to understand both the role and the linguistic-cognitive properties of the occurrence, verifying, in a longitudinal way, its role in language reconstruction on different levels: morphological, lexical, syntactic, pragmatic.