Abstract
One of the symptoms of Global or severe Broca's aphasia is a type of speech automatism. Speech automatisms are involuntary, stereotyped and repetitive utterances which can be produced either as lexical or non-lexical forms. Previous research has examined the different types of lexical and non-lexical utterances produced by German and British aphasic speakers. The lexical utterances are mostly composed of high frequency words, emotional expressions, interjections and proper names while non-lexical utterances, also called recurring utterances, are made up of, concatenated and reiterated consonant and vowel syllables which do not form recognisable words. The purpose of this study was to investigate relationships between lexical and non-lexical speech automatisms obtained in German and British aphasic speakers with those found in Cantonese aphasic speakers. Cantonese is a tonal Chinese dialect which employs the use of six lexical tones and is used mainly in the southern part of China, Hong Kong and Macau. Twenty-five aphasic speakers with speech automatisms formed the basis of the analysis. Results generally indicated that similar types of lexical and non-lexical utterances observed in the German and British aphasic speakers are also obtained in Cantonese aphasic speakers. It was concluded that both European and Cantonese patients share a common pathology underlying the production of speech automatisms.