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Pragmatics in discourse performance: insights from aphasiology.

Ulatowska HK, Olness GS

Callier Center for Communication Disorders, School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, University of Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX, USA.

This article examines the preservation of pragmatic abilities of individuals with aphasia, as manifested in the discourse they produce. The construct of coherence is used as a framework for understanding this pragmatic preservation. Discourse coherence is largely derived from the structure, selection, and highlighting of information expressed in a discourse. Personal narratives, as one type of discourse, represent an extended turn-in-conversation on a topic of personal relevance to the speaker, common in everyday life. As such, they provide a valuable source of information about a speaker's pragmatic ability. Examples of personal narratives told by individuals with aphasia are used to illustrate and discuss the means by which discourse coherence is achieved. These include a tightly structured temporal-causal event line, development of theme, and evaluation of information. Possible approaches to clinical assessment are considered, including use of global rating systems.

Published 11 April 2007 in Semin Speech Lang, 28(2): 148-58.
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