Rethinking the Neural Basis of Prosody and Non-literal Language: Spared Pragmatics and Cognitive Compensation in a Bilingual With Extensive Right-Hemisphere Damage (original) (raw)
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Brain and Language, 2006
The aim of the present study is to compare the pragmatic ability of right-and left-hemisphere-damaged patients excluding the possible interference of linguistic deWcits. To this aim, we study extralinguistic communication, that is communication performed only through gestures. The Cognitive Pragmatics Theory provides the theoretical framework: it predicts a gradient of diYculty in the comprehension of diVerent pragmatic phenomena, that should be valid independently of the use of language or gestures as communicative means. An experiment involving 10 healthy individuals, 10 right-and 9 left-hemisphere-damaged patients, shows that pragmatic performance is better preserved in left-hemisphere-damaged (LHD) patients than in right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) patients.
Extralinguistic pragmatic ability in right hemisphere brain damaged patients
2003
The aim of the present study is to compare the pragmatic ability of right-and left-hemisphere-damaged patients excluding the possible interference of linguistic deWcits. To this aim, we study extralinguistic communication, that is communication performed only through gestures. The Cognitive Pragmatics Theory provides the theoretical framework: it predicts a gradient of diYculty in the comprehension of diVerent pragmatic phenomena, that should be valid independently of the use of language or gestures as communicative means. An experiment involving 10 healthy individuals, 10 right-and 9 left-hemisphere-damaged patients, shows that pragmatic performance is better preserved in left-hemisphere-damaged (LHD) patients than in right-hemisphere-damaged (RHD) patients.
Disintegration of Higher Language Functions in Patients with Right Hemisphere Damage
Clinical observations indicate that patients with right hemisphere damage (RHD) do not show clinical symptoms of aphasia, but still experience serious disturbances in their personal, family, professional and social lives, connected with a certain, not pre-cisely specified disruption of communication. The purpose of our research was to determine the essence of these distur-bances. The study comprised of 12 patients after right hemisphere stroke, including 6 with the primary lesion in the frontal lobe, and 6 in the parietal lobe. The patients' conversations during therapy were recorded and transcribed, and then analyzed using the GSP method (Generic Structural Potential), modified by the authors in the spirit of ethnographic research. The communication problems in this group of patients were related to disturbances of pragmatics. The most frequently en -countered disturbances involved various social behaviors, both linguistic and non-linguistic, including initiating, continuing an...
The Assessment of Pragmatics in Iranian Patients with Right Brain Damage
Background: Pragmatics is appropriate use of language across a variety of social contexts that provides accurate interpretation of intentions. The occurrence of the right hemisphere lesions can interfere with pragmatic abilities, and particularly with the processing of nonliteral speech acts. Methods: Since the objective of this study was to assess different aspects of pragmatic competence in the right hemisphere damage (RHD) patients, 20 Iranian patients with right hemisphere lesions were examined by adult pragmatic profile (APP) and a novel checklist was introduced for Persian language speaking individuals. Meanwhile, 40 healthy adult individuals, who were age and gender matched with RHD patients, were considered as the control group. After obtaining video records, all subjects were evaluated for 35 pragmatic skills, including 24 verbal, 5 paralinguistic, and 6 nonverbal aspects, by a two-point scale system. Results: Studying RHD patients and their healthy counterparts revealed that the performance by participants with right hemisphere lesions exhibited a high degree of inappropriate pragmatic abilities compared with controls in all domains. Furthermore, RHD patients showed a trend of increasing difficulty in understanding and producing different pragmatic phenomena, including standard communication acts. Conclusion: Present results indicated that the right hemisphere lesions significantly affected pragmatic abilities in verbal, paralinguistic and nonverbal aspects. Such a pattern of performance, which is in line with deficits previously reported for RHD, proved the unquestioned role of the right hemisphere in processing nonliteral language.
Acquired pragmatic disorders of right hemisphere damaged patients
ExLing Conferences, 2019
In neuropragmatics attempts have been made to investigate how the brain/mind uses language both in healthy and neurologically impaired individuals (Paradis, 2009). This field, combining the approaches of linguistics and neurology, focuses on the communicative use of language, its neurological/neural basis and representation in the brain, mental strategies, communicative difficulties, intentional communication, inference from discourse and the role of context (contextual clues) in comprehension. Studies often deal with pragmatic competence (Perkins, 2010). By means of experimental pragmatics, our current research focuses on pragmatic competence and its vital component, the theory of mind (
Pragmatic breakdown in patients with left and right brain damage: Clinical implications
Journal of Neurolinguistics, 1998
Formal and functional approaches to pragmatics are based upon different assumptions about the nature of the language system. This paper examines these approaches to pragmatics and considers how each approach has been applied to understand the different language disorders that emerge from left and right brain-damage. The paper explores conflicting reports in the literature about pragmatic performance and hemispheric side of lesion. Finally, clinical methods based on both the formal and functional approaches to pragmatics are discussed.
Discourse Impairments Following Right Hemisphere Brain Damage: A Critical Review
Language and Linguistics Compass, 2008
Right hemisphere brain damage (RHD) rarely causes aphasias marked by clear and widespread failures of comprehension or extreme difficulty producing fluent speech. Nonetheless, subtle language comprehension deficits can occur following unilateral RHD. In this article, we review the empirical record on discourse function following right hemisphere damage, as well as relevant work on non-brain damaged individuals that focuses on right hemisphere function. The review is divided into four sections that focus on discourse processing, inferencing, humor, and non-literal language. While the exact role that the right hemisphere plays in language processing, and the exact way that the two cerebral hemispheres coordinate their linguistic processes are still open to debate, our review suggests that the right hemisphere plays a critical role in managing inferred or implied information by maintaining relevant information and/or suppressing irrelevant information. Deficits in one or both of these mechanisms may account for discourse deficits following RHD. While damage to the left cerebral hemisphere (LH) often causes significant impairment to language function at all levels, right hemisphere damage (RHD) seems to leave fundamental word and sentence processing operations more or less unaffected (for example, see Klepousniotou and Baum 2005a; c.f. Tompins et al. 2007). This is readily illustrated by the fact that trauma to 'traditional' language areas in the left hemisphere often results in aphasic symptoms, while damage to the homologous structures in the right hemisphere (RH) rarely does. Consider, for example, that only 180 cases of aphasia resulting from RHD (crossed aphasia) have been reported since 1975 (Marien et al. 2004). This does not mean that insult to the RH has no effect on language comprehension and/or production; however, unlike left hemisphere damage (LHD), the linguistic deficits that may result from damage to the RH tend to be subtle in their presentation, emerging primarily in cognitively sophisticated settings such as narrative comprehension and conversation. This is unsurprising given that RH involvement seems to increase with the complexity of linguistic stimuli, being the least activated at the level of the word, and maximally activated at the level of narrative discourse (Xu et al. 2005; for other neuroimaging studies of healthy individuals showing RH activity during discourse processing, see Huettner et al. 1989; Lechevalier et al. 1989; Nichelli et al.
2014
Background: Pragmatics is appropriate use of language across a variety of social contexts that provides accurate interpretation of intentions. The occurrence of the right hemisphere lesions can interfere with pragmatic abilities, and particularly with the processing of nonliteral speech acts. Methods: Since the objective of this study was to assess different aspects of pragmatic competence in the right hemisphere damage (RHD) patients, 20 Iranian patients with right hemisphere lesions were examined by adult pragmatic profile (APP) and a novel checklist was introduced for Persian language speaking individuals. Meanwhile, 40 healthy adult individuals, who were age and gender matched with RHD patients, were considered as the control group. After obtaining video records, all subjects were evaluated for 35 pragmatic skills, including 24 verbal, 5 paralinguistic, and 6 nonverbal aspects, by a two-point scale system. Results: Studying RHD patients and their healthy counterparts revealed th...
Language following functional left hemispherectomy in a bilingual teenager
Brain and Cognition, 2003
A detailed language assessment was conducted with MM, a 17-year-old bilingual teenager with Rasmussen syndrome who had undergone a left functional hemispherectomy. Results revealed important deficits in French and English, affecting expressive and receptive language in both the written and the oral modality. MMÕs linguistic profile was coherent with previous description of language function following left hemispherectomy, and what is known of the linguistic potential of the right hemisphere (RH). The impairment pattern showed overall similarities between French and English, thus supporting the existence of a common underlying system for these two languages. However, the profiles in each language were not identical, implying that distinct subsystems may also be at play. These findings support previous descriptions of acquired language impairments and recovery in bilingual individuals.
Brain and Cognition, 2005
We examined the effect of localized brain lesions on processing of the basic speech acts (BSAs) of question, assertion, request, and command. Both left and right cerebral damage produced significant deficits relative to normal controls, and left brain damaged patients performed worse than patients with right-sided lesions. This finding argues against the common conjecture that the right hemisphere of most right-handers plays a dominant role in natural language pragmatics. In right-hemisphere damaged patients, there was no correlation between location and extent of lesion in perisylvian cortex and performance on BSAs. By contrast, processing of the different BSAs by left hemisphere-damaged patients was strongly affected by perisylvian lesion location, with each BSA showing a distinct pattern of localization. This finding raises the possibility that the classical left perisylvian localization of language functions, as measured by clinical aphasia batteries, partly reflects the localization of the BSAs required to perform these functions.