Aphasic discourse analysis: The story so far

Abstract

This paper provides a critical review of the literature currently available relating to aphasic discourse. It outlines the major approaches which have been taken to analysis, differentiating the structuralist and functionalist frameworks in particular and discusses the resultant gap existing in aphasiology research between microstructural linguistic aspects of discourse and macrostructural/pragmatic aspects. Studies addressing lexical, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and conversational aspects of discourse, as well as those focusing on specific aspects such as cohesion and text macrostructure are discussed and placed in a theoretical perspective. The different methodologies involved in the various studies are critically examined, with implications for using different elicitation techniques in particular discussed.