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Discourse Analysis and Applications

Studies in Adult Clinical Populations

• Edited by Ronald L. Bloom, Loraine K. Obler, Susan De Santi, Jonathan S. Ehrlich

• Price: $69.95
• Binding: Hardback
• Pages: 264
• Published by: Psychology Press
• Publication Date: 1st September 1994
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-1365-4

About the Book

Application of analytic discourse techniques to clinical practice is relatively recent. This book's contributors begin with the notion that systematic examination of discourse provides a rich source of data for describing the complex relationships among language, social context, and the cognitive processes that underlie discourse comprehension and production. Evidence is provided that when discourse is studied across different clinical populations, analysis yields an optimal opportunity for developing dynamic models of brain and language that more thoroughly account for the complexity of language use in social contexts. Accordingly, studies presented in this volume have a dual focus -- to examine the implications of discourse research on neurolinguistic theories and to evaluate the contribution of discourse analysis to understanding the clinical status of patients with brain damage. As such, this volume reports patterns of preserved and impaired discourse behavior in normal adults and in different adult clinical populations. It also describes numerous tasks designed to elicit a variety of discourse genres and a host of techniques created to describe how subjects order information and relate ideas across sentences. In addition, it includes numerous abstract units and linguistic devices targeted to examine those aspects of discourse that govern cohesion, organization, and topic manipulation.

This volume is unique because it presents both theoretical and clinical papers that examine a variety of communication pathologies. Clinicians often report dissatisfaction with formal test batteries in that results are often at variance with clinical observation of performance in real life situations. To address this concern, this work proposes methods for examining discourse that move the examiner closer to naturalistic sampling. The research presented demonstrates that discourse analysis provides clinically significant information that contributes to the understanding of the cognitive, linguistic, and social status of people with communication disorders. These studies also offer a framework to support continuously evolving diagnostic and treatment paradigms for adults with neurological communication pathologies.

Table of Contents

Contents: Preface. J. Duchan, Approaches to the Study of Discourse in the Social Sciences. L.K. Obler, R. Au, J. Kugler, J. Melvold, M. Tocco, M.L. Albert, Intersubject Variability in Adult Normal Discourse. H.K. Ulatowska, S.B. Chapman, Discourse Macrostructure in Aphasia. A. Haravon, L.K. Obler, M.T. Sarno, A Method for Microanalysis of Discourse in Brain-Damaged Patients. R.L. Bloom, Hemispheric Responsibility and Discourse Production: Contrasting Patients With Unilateral Left and Right Hemisphere Damage. C.A. Coelho, B.Z. Liles, R.J. Duffy, Cognitive Framework: A Description of Discourse Abilities in Traumatically Brain-Injured Adults. R.A. Domingo, The Expression of Pragmatic Intentions in Adults With Mental Retardation During Instructional Discourse. F.P. Roth, N.J. Spekman, Oral Story Production in Adults With Learning Disabilities. J.S. Ehrlich, Studies of Discourse Production in Adults With Alzheimer's Disease. L.J. Garcia, Y. Joanette, Conversational Topic-Shifting Analysis in Dementia. H.E. Hamilton, Requests for Clarification as Evidence of Pragmatic Comprehension Difficulty: The Case of Alzheimer's Disease. S. De Santi, L. Koenig, L.K. Obler, J. Goldberger, Cohesive Devices and Conversational Discourse in Alzheimer's Disease. M.A.C. Lamar, L.K. Obler, J.E. Knoefel, M.L. Albert, Communication Patterns in End-Stage Alzheimer's Disease: Pragmatic Analyses.