Language and neurology : Alzheimer's disease / Christophe Cusimano.

Includes index.

Christophe Cusimano is Professor of French linguistics and a member of the Prague Linguistic Circle. He teaches and conducts his research in semantics at the Institute of Romanticism of the Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic.

Table of contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction ix

Chapter 1. Linguistics, Language Pathologies and Alzheimer’s Disease: A Brief History 1

1.1. Gagnepain’s theory of mediation: an approach to pathological speech on its own terms 2

1.2. “Looking for help from linguistics”: other (rare) resources 10

Chapter 2. Alzheimer’s Disease: General Symptoms and Language Impairments 17

2.1. General symptoms 18

2.2. Language-related problems 25

Chapter 3. Cognitive Testing: The Key to Diagnosing Memory Pathologies 31

3.1. Definitions of psychometric tests 31

3.2. Test types 34

3.3. Intelligence tests: a starting point 35

3.4. The mysterious test 38

3.5. Postulates on verbal language in cognitive testing 39

3.6. Verbal and non-verbal cognitive tests 43

3.6.1. Non-verbal tests 44

3.6.2. Basic verbal tests: naming, designation and matching 48

3.6.3. Tests using idiomatic expressions 54

3.6.4. Barbizet’s test: “The Lion’s Tale” 58

3.7. Tests and context(s) 66

3.8. Absence of a cultural dimension in cognitive testing 70

3.8.1. First-generation North African patients in France 70

3.8.2. Erasure of Czech/Slovak cultural disparities 71

3.8.3. Connecting cognition and culture: origins and perspectives 72

3.9. Summary: rewriting tests 73

Chapter 4. Analyzing the Speech of Alzheimer’s Patients: Methods and Perspectives 79

4.1. An eclectic range of approaches 79

4.2. Patient–physician dialog and autobiographies: microsemantic analysis 89

4.3. Analyzing patient discourse: perspectives 106

4.3.1. Recursion, circularity and sequences: finding meaning through analysis grids 106

4.3.2. A multi-channel approach 113

4.3.3. Confabulations: “from minor distortion to bizarre tales”17 117

Conclusion 129

Appendices 135

Appendix 1. Interview Transcriptions: The Lion’s Tale Test 137

Appendix 2. English Translations for Chapter 4 159

References 165

Index 173

This book questions the relationship and compatibility between current beliefs in neurology and contemporary textual linguistic theories, interpretative semantics and discourse analysis.

It begins with a critical examination of the screenings for Alzheimer’s type dementia through cognitive testing, particularly screenings where language is used. It then analyzes the various linguistic properties (morphological, syntactic and semantic) of the speech of Alzheimer’s patients, which can be troubling for both caregivers and their environment in general.

More than a synthesis of critical linguistic reflections, Language and Neurology provokes a fruitful reflection through adjustments suggested by the acquired knowledge of textual semantics.