A Systemic Functional Approach To Aphasia

Aphasia is a disorder of language following some kind of acquired brain damage. It has been a neurological and psychological topic for a long time since Hatfiled noticed this deficiency and pointed out that linguistic theory was more efficient in the understanding of aphasia (Hatfiled, 1972. See Cui, Gang, 2002a: 11). It has become an important issue of linguistic significance too.We assume in this dissertation that a Systemic Functional approach to the study of aphasia, especially from the perspective of text analysis of language production by aphasics, may reveal much about the features of the phenomenon, which is constructive for the research related.With the purpose of investigating into the issues of aphasia within the framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, the author firstly introduces principles involved in a systemic functional framework and provides an overview of how these principles have been applied to aphasia to date. Through the discussion of the three metafunctions (Ideational, Interpersonal and Texual metafunctions) applied in the research of aphasia, the author will discuss in detail the expressions of aphasia in the Systemic Functional aspect.Since the purpose of this study is to investigate the phenomenon of aphasia, qualitative approach is adopted in the current study. On the basis of the neurological and psychological researches of aphasia and some previous research findings, the author of this dissertation conducts a study in an attempt to investigate into the features of aphasia. The instrument employed in this study is CLANwin (Child Language Data Exchange System for windows) software which is provided by FLLOC (French Learner Language Oral Corpora). All the English language materials come from FLLOC website, and all the Chinese is adopted from Linguistic Studies in Aphasia by Cui Gang (2002).The first chapter is a general introduction of the significance of this study. Chapter two provides a general idea of aphasia, and the classifications and representative types of aphasia, reviewing how it was researched. This chapter also proposes the theoretical basis of this paper, and elaborates on the development and taxonomies of aphasia from the neurological and psychological aspect, and the linguistic aspect as well. Chapter three is a general introduction of metafunctions in SFL frame, especially the textual metafunction. In Chapter four and chapter five, a linguistic research of Chinese and English aphasia from aspects of SFL will be produced respectively, and the author tries to find some features of the utterance of aphasiacs. Chapter six is the conclusion of this dissertation.