A communication linguistics perspective on clinical language research

This dissertation examines the relevance of discourse analysis in the clinical investigation of communication disorders. In particular, the dissertation explores the appropriateness of the theoretical descriptive model phasal analysis for the examination of clinical texts and suggests that the Communication Linguistics framework, with its technique of phasal analysis, may have a significant role to play in the diagnostic assessment and treatment of disordered patients, providing a sophisticated understanding of their communication that is respectful of individuality. This close textual approach can be either supportive of clinical perceptions or draw attention to aspects of disordered communication that others have not noticed.;Texts from two clinical language studies are analyzed using the Communication Linguistics framework, a branch of the Systemic Functional tradition in linguistics. In this approach, the object of investigation is discourse, and the main resource for the analysis is the language of the text itself.;The first analysis is related to a patient with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a cognitive disorder characterized by hyperactivity, inattention and impulsivity. Two elicited narratives from a language study on ADHD are analyzed using a contrastive phasal analysis. The second phasal analysis is a conversational analysis from another language study on patients with Asperger's syndrome, a type of Pervasive Developmental Disorder characterized by severe impairment in several areas of development.;Drawing on both the narrative and conversational analyses, I argue that phasal analysis can show the ways in which the texts of patients from two clinical backgrounds differ linguistically, in cases where these differences are not at once apparent or easy to capture. The linguistic approach can also lead to a refined clinical understanding of patients whose discourse is difficult to discern.;Through an application of phasal analysis, and an examination of its relevance in two clinical settings, especially with regard to devising solutions for treatment, the approach is shown to be diagnostically and prognostically useful. The Asperger's analysis in particular demonstrates the relevance of discourse analysis for clinical research in that a linguistic analysis provided a different perspective on the patient than the general clinical perception of the disorder.