Function words in the so-called telegraphic speech in aphasic subjects' utterances

Author(s)

Arnaldo Rodrigues de Lima

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2017-06-27

Examining board members

Rosana do Carmo Novaes Pinto; Marcus Vinicius Borges Oliveira; Mirian Cazarotti Pacheco

• Advisor: Rosana do Carmo Novaes Pinto

Abstract

One of the reasons that explain the interest of Linguistics on language changes in pathologies is that data from this field help either to corroborate or refute hypotheses about language functioning in the so-called normal states. Agrammatism is one of the most studied types of aphasia, either if taken as a symptom or as a syndrome. It has been described, more specifically, by the presence of a telegraphic speech, which is the central object of analysis of this research. In neuropsychological literature, agrammatism and telegraphic speech are associated with Broca's aphasia. The studies on this category emphasize losses in verbal language, especially regarding the functional categories: prepositions, articles, conjunctions and the inflectional and derivational morphology. Open classes are usually relatively preserved: nouns, adjectives, adverbs and the infinitive form of the verbs. For Jakobson, agrammatism is a prototype of aphasia involving difficulties of combining linguistic elements in the structuring of an utterance. However, we question whether the most relevant difficulties would not be with the selection of functional words. We also evaluated the hypotheses of Vygotsky, Luria, Leontiev and Akhutina about the crucial role of the inner language to the construction of an utterance and, especially, Akhutina¿s hypothesis about the relation between the inner language and the telegraphic utterances production. This research was developed articulating theoretical and methodological assumptions of different fields (i) Enunciative-discursive Neurolinguistics, (ii) the socio-historical-cultural neuropsychological approaches, and (iii) Functional Grammar. The work specially aims to reflect on the non-fluent aphasic subjects difficulties with the functional words in order to understand the telegraphic speech ¿ which we began to refer as telegraphic style utterances ¿ and, also, to evaluate Akhutina¿s explanatory hypotheses about the variations of this phenomenon among the subjects and those that occur in the productions of each subject. In order to reach its goals, we evaluated ¿ through the microgenetic qualitative research paradigm ¿ telegraphic style utterances produced by four aphasic subjects (BM, BS, TR and GB) who attend both group meetings and individual speech therapy sessions at Centro de Convivência de Afásicos (CCA/IEL/UNICAMP). All the interactive episodes among aphasic and non-aphasic subjects were video-recorded, registered in diaries and, subsequently, discursively transcribed. Besides observing events in the group sessions of CCA, other data were obtained through metalinguistic instruments. In the analysis we were interested, above all, in understanding the alternative strategies in meaning processes ¿ that is, how they deal with language structures in their utterances ¿ given their difficulties with the functional words. We concluded that the approaches of the socio-historical-cultural representatives and, mainly, the reflections of Akhutina, contribute to the understanding of the processes involved in the production of telegraphic utterances, once they consider both the physiological aspects and the brain areas impacted by the lesions, as well as the neuropsychological aspects, with emphasis on language ¿ in the production of utterances in dialogical situations and its mediating role for the development of other cognitive functions and for the development and organization of thought. We believe that this research may also contribute to the clinic practice with aphasic subjects as well as for a broader study about the Word Finding Difficulties, a central theme for the studies in the scope of GELEP (Study Group of Language in Aging and in Pathologies) (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 15/07238-8 - Function words in the so-called telegraphic speech in aphasic subjects' utterances
• Grantee: Arnaldo Rodrigues de Lima
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master