The psycholinguistic approach to aphasia of Chajim Steinthal

Abstract

Background: Aphasiology developed in the 19th century as a primary area of research for the localisatio n of function in the brain. It was based on a rather primitive notion of language as a psychological function: input and output of words, in particular nouns. Aphasiology turned into neurolinguistics in the second half of the 20th century, when researchers realised that a linguistically based theory should form the basis of the analysis of language performance deficits. Aims: The current paper argues that in a very early stage of aphasiology the claim was already formulated that a psycholinguistically oriented approach was necessary. This claim was made by Chajim Steinthal (1823-1893), but it was completely neglected. Main Contribution: In this paper, I will present Steinthal's psycholinguistic views on aphasia, described in his textbook on psycholinguistics in 1871. Conclusions: Steinthal formulated a psycholinguistically based theory of language disorders, in which a distinction was made between disorders at the word level and at the sentence level. Moreover, the nature of the deficit was a reduction of the capacity to activate representations and not a loss of word forms. Steinthal thus may be considered a founder not only of psycholinguistics, but also of neurolinguistics.