Main description:

Nonspecialists are often surprised by the issues studied and the perspectives assumed by basic scientific researchers. Nowhere has the surprise traditionally been greater than in the field of psychology. College students anticipate that their psychology courses will illuminate their personal problems and their friends' per sonalities; they are nonplussed to discover that the perception of geometric forms and the running ofT-mazes dominates the textbooks. The situation is comparable in the domain of linguistics. Nonprofessional observers assume that linguists study exotic languages, that when they choose to focus on their own language, they will examine the meanings of utterances and the uses to which language is put. Such onlookers are taken aback to learn that the learning of remote languages is a marginal activity for most linguists; they are equally amazed to discover that the lion's share of work in the discipline focuses on issues of syntax and phonol ogy, which are virtually invisible to the speaker of a language. Science moves in its own, often mysterious ways, and there are perfectly good reasons why experimental psychologists prefer to look at mazes rather than at madness, and why linguists study syntax rather than Sanskrit. Nonetheless, it is a happy event for all concerned when the interests of professionals and non specialists begin to move toward one another and a field of study comes to address the "big questions" as well as the experimentally most tractable ones. Discourse Ability and Brain Damage reflects this trend in scientific research.

Contents:

Section 1: Theoretical Perspectives.- 1 Discourse Analysis in Linguistics: Historical and Theoretical Background.- Historical Background: Discourse and the Prevailing Approaches to Language Analysis in Linguistics.- The Emergence of Discourse as a Field of Inquiry.- Discourse Analysis and Neurolinguistics.- 2 The Psycholinguistics of Discourse Comprehension.- General Principles.- Specific Topics.- Morals and Conclusions.- 3 Text Analysis: Macro- and Microstructural Aspects of Discourse Processing.- Propositional Representations.- The Kintsch and van Dijk Model.- Conclusions.- 4 The Cognitive Representation and Processing of Discourse: Function and Dysfunction.- Discourse Comprehension.- Discourse Production.- Methods for Studying Discourse Processing.- Section 2: Empirical Perspectives.- 5 Discourse Comprehension by Right-Hemisphere Stroke Patients: Deficits of Prediction and Revision.- Stroke and Its Aftermath.- Indirect Requests and Verbal Irony.- Verbal Irony.- Jokes and Inference Revision.- Jokes.- Inference.- Discourse Deficits in the Context of Other Research.- 6 Narrative Discourse in Right-Brain-Damaged Right-Handers.- General Methodology.- General Discussion.- 7 Text Comprehension and Production in Aphasia: Analysis in Terms of Micro- and Macrostructure.- Text-Picture Matching.- Comprehension of Metaphorical Idioms.- Verbal Description of Cartoon Stories.- Conclusions.- 8 Narrative and Procedural Discourse in Aphasia.- Perspectives on Discourse Genre.- Review of Research.- Interpretation of Results.- Extensions of Discourse Studies.- Epilogue.- 9 Discourse Ability in Children after Brain Damage.- The Study of Discourse.- Why Study Discourse in Brain-Damaged Children?.- Representing Discourse Information.- Discourse Analysis Methods and Applications.- Current Applications of Discourse Procedures to Brain-Damaged Children.- Potential Applications of Discourse Procedures.- Issues on Which Early Brain-Damaged Discourse Processing Data Bear.- 10 Discourse Abilities and Deficits in Multilingual Dementia.- Literature Review.- Description of Cases.- Procedure.- Methods.- Results.- Discussion.- 11 Gender-Specific Discourse Differences in Aphasia.- Speech Samples.- Analytic Scheme.- Statistical Analysis.- Discussion.- Author Index.