Language, cognition and interaction in Alzheimer's disease

Author(s)

Fernanda Miranda da Cruz

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2008-06-17

Examining board members

Edwiges Maria Morato; Anna Christina Bentes; Roxane Helena Rodrigues Rojo; Maria Alice de Mattos Pimenta Parente; Pedro de Moraes Garcez

• Advisor: Edwiges Maria Morato; Lorenza Mondada

Abstract

Alzheimer¿s disease (AD) is clinically defined as a degenerative cerebral pathology, whose cause is not known. It affects the superior levels of cognitive functioning and is characterized by multiple deficits that compromise the mental and social functioning of the individual. AD does not alter only the neurological structures, but also the cognitive processes, language, interaction and the organization of every social practice. The objective is to investigate, from the socio-cognitive perspective, the language in interaction in AD. An interactionist and socio-cognitive approach of the language in AD contributes to the identification and understanding of the complexity of aspects that are in the constitution (and in the loss) of human cognition such as our diverse everyday language practices, role of speakers, identity of subjects, interactive instances, social routines, the significance of those practices and the interrelations between linguistic levels. The investigation of languages in the AD state is based on corpus of conversations between probable dementia of Alzheimer type participants and distinct speakers, doctors, relatives and close friends united in institutional and non-institutional environments in natural contexts of occurrence. Two phenomena stick out for analysis. The first refers to the form how the conversations are organized, highlighting the role of participants in both institutional environments, relatives and the socio-linguistic implications of the diagnosis of the probable carrier of Alzheimer¿s. In another moment, the occurrences repetition in those interactions will be analyzed. The repetitions in the AD subjects¿ language are linguistic productions that serve as a base for the production of hypotheses about the limitations or linguistic productions derived from the cognitive and memory decline. Apart from the interactive instances in which they are produced, they are understood in terms of excess (like automatic, echolalic or preservative productions), or in terms of a lack of memory skills. The study of occurrences in language repetition in AD subjects is motivated by the hypothesis that there are certain specificities of those verbal forms in those interactions. The expectation is that the description of the occurrences of repetition in the interactions can contribute to the understanding of the phenomenon of repetition in neurodegenerations, conjugating the following aspects around the theme: the repetition as a cognitive-linguistic approach; the functions of language repetition in Alzheimer¿s subjects; pathologic nature of the language repetition of people with Alzheimer¿s, and the degenerative and progressive character of the socio-cognitive loss in AD. The questions that drive the investigation of language in the AD state and that they should be dealt with in the body of this study are in epistemological-theoretical and methodological and mention about how the relation between language and cognition are conceived and established, to the conception itself that the Alzheimer¿s disease (and the ¿Alzheimer¿s carrier¿ category), to the conception of the cognitive decline and to the forms of investigating and describing the language in these states of cognitive decline (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 04/00965-7 - Language in the early stages of Alzheimer's disease: contributions to neurolinguistic studies on the relationship between language and memory
• Grantee: Fernanda Miranda da Cruz
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate