Metaphor-related figurative language comprehension in clinical populations: a critical review

• Siqueira, Maity ^[1] ; Marques, Daniela Fernandes ^[1] ; Gibbs, Jr, Raymond W. ^[2]
  1. [1] Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

     Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

     Brasil

     
  2. [2] University of California, Santa Cruz

     University of California, Santa Cruz

     Estados Unidos

     
• Localización: Scripta, ISSN-e 2358-3428, ISSN 1516-4039, Vol. 20, Nº. 40, 2016, págs. 36-60
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • This paper aims to critically review current studies with respect to definitions,methods, and results on the comprehension of metaphor, metonymy,idioms, and proverbs under the following clinical conditions: aphasia,Alzheimer’s disease, autism, brain injuries, specific language impairment,and Williams Syndrome. A comprehensive search of experimentalpsycholinguistic research was conducted using EBSCOhost, PsychInfo,PUBMED, and Web of Science databases. Thirty-eight studies met thereview inclusion criteria. Results point to deficits in figurative languagecomprehension in all conditions considered, lack of clear definitions ofthe phenomena investigated, and varied methods throughout the sample.Patients’ difficulties are attributed to multiple factors, such as a lack ofTheory of Mind, executive dysfunctions, and poor semantic knowledge.The study of nonliteral aspects of language comprehension in clinicalpopulations reveals a range of disparate impairments. There was no specificfeature about metaphor-related phenomena identified that could, on its own,account for the difficulty some populations have to understand figurativelanguage. Rather, metaphor-related language comprehension difficultiesare often part of pragmatic, linguistic, and/or cognitive impairments.