Schematic Understanding

Evidence from Alzheimer's Discourse

Bibliographic Data

ID12387147
AuthorsVai Ramanathan (University of Alabama, corresponding author)
Year1995
Volume5
Issue3
Pages224-247
Publication date1995-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueCommunication Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1050-3293 • E-ISSN: 1468-2885
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-2885.1995.tb00107.x
OpenAlexW2018857112
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited36

This paper explores repetition in the discourse of a patient suffering from Alzheimer's disease (hereafter AD). Previously studied by psycholinguistic researchers, repetition has been understood as a feature that contributes to the growing incoherence of AD speech. However, by doing a schematic analysis of an AD patient's life story—recorded over the period of a year and a half—I shall demonstrate two things: (a) how repeated segments capturing particular life events have gotten frozen and bound in the teller's memory, and (b) how these segments make sense when understood in terms of the teller's larger interpretive schema, thus rendering the evolving life story “meaning based.” I also point out ways in which the patient's interpretive schema is evident a year and a half later, when her condition has deteriorated considerably and her discourse is more “text based” and “impaired.”

Cognitive psychology · Cognitive science · Linguistics · Rendering (computer graphics · Repetition (rhetorical device · Schema (genetic algorithms · Schematic · Computer Science · Discourse Analysis in Language Studies · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition · Philosophy · Psychology · Artificial Intelligence