Theory and practice in action: the contributions of Michael Perkins to clinical linguistics

This article reviews the scholarly contributions of Michael R. Perkins in the discipline of clinical linguistics and provides some indication of the reasons that he has been so successful. Three primary attributes were described through an analysis of his publications.

The birth and growth of a scientific journal

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics (CLP) and its namesake field have accomplished a great deal in the last quarter of a century. The success of the journal parallels the growth and vitality of the field it represents. The markers of journal achievement are several, including increased number of journal pages published annually; greater diversity of topics related to the core mission of the journal; expanding cross-language coverage; and healthy interactions among editors, reviewers and contributors; and - for better or worse - journal impact factors. A journal is in a competitive dynamic with other journals that share its general domain of scholarship, which is a major reason why an apparent imbalance may emerge in the topic content of any particular journal. The content of a journal is determined by the nature and number of submitted manuscripts. As far as linguistic content goes, CLP's centre of gravity appears to have been mostly in phonology and phonetics, but certainly not to the exclusion of syntax, semantics and pragmatics. The clinical scope is broad, both in terms of concepts and types of disorder. CLP has secured its place among journals in the field, and it is an outlet of choice for many researchers throughout the world.

Advancing description and explanation in clinical linguistics: a legacy of Martin J. Ball

This article asserts the importance of explication of order and disorder in language as a privileged objective of clinical linguistics and service delivery and reviews the contributions of Martin Ball in advancing this agenda.

Clinical linguistics: its past, present and future

Historiography is a growing area of research within the discipline of linguistics, but so far the subfield of clinical linguistics has received virtually no systematic attention. This article attempts to rectify this by tracing the development of the discipline from its pre-scientific days up to the present time. As part of this, I include the results of a survey of articles published in Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics between 1987 and 2008 which shows, for example, a consistent primary focus on phonetics and phonology at the expense of grammar, semantics and pragmatics. I also trace the gradual broadening of the discipline from its roots in structural linguistics to its current reciprocal relationship with speech and language pathology and a range of other academic disciplines. Finally, I consider the scope of clinical linguistic research in 2011 and assess how the discipline seems likely develop in the future.

'On alterations in the form of speech and on the formation of new words and expressions in madness' by L. Snell (1852)

This Classic Text is a translation of an 1852 paper on neologisms and other disorders of language in the insane by Ludwig Snell (1817—92). It illustrates the impact on descriptive psychopathology caused by the early nineteenth-century view that language shaped thought and culture. Developed by Herder, Humboldt and others, this view was to govern the way in which disorders of language were to be studied in psychiatry until well into the twentieth century. After World War II, the so-called ‘cognitive revolution’ returned to the view that thought was more important than language. This encouraged psychiatrists to neglect the study of psychotic neologisms per se and consider ‘thought disorder’ as a primary abnormality in schizophrenia.

Language and memory disorder in the case of Jonathan Swift: considerations on retrospective diagnosis

The cause of behavioural changes described by Alzheimer for his original case, Auguste D., has been recently reconfirmed by histological examination. However, there has been active speculation regarding the cause of behavioural changes exhibited by the political satirist Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) during the final three years of his life for over 250 years. Swift's symptoms of cognitive changes, memory impairment, personality alterations, language disorder and facial paralysis have all been apportioned differing levels of significance in various attempts at retrospective diagnosis. The various medical arguments put forward from the 18th through 20th centuries will be critically examined. The diagnoses considered refer to evolving theories of insanity, phrenology, localization of cortical function, hydrocephalus, psychoanalysis, aphasia, dementia and depression in ageing. Re-consideration of the attempts to re-diagnose Swift's final mental state by the leading neurological thinkers of the day, including Wilde (The Closing Years of Dean Swift's Life. Dublin: Hodges and Smith, 1849), Bucknill (1882), Osler [Osler's textbook Principles and Practice of Medicine (1892); published in St Thomas's Hospital Gazette (London) 1902; 12: 59-60), Brain (Irish Med J 1952: 320-1 and 337-346) and Boller and Forbes (J Neurol Sci 1998; 158: 125-133) reveal the changing attitudes regarding the significance of behavioural symptoms to neurological diagnosis from the 18th century to the present day.

Schizophrenia and the structure of language: the linguist's view

Patients with schizophrenia often display unusual language impairments. This is a wide ranging critical review of the literature on language in schizophrenia since the 19th century. We survey schizophrenic language level by level, from phonetics through phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. There are at least two kinds of impairment (perhaps not fully distinct): thought disorder, or failure to maintain a discourse plan, and schizophasia, comprising various dysphasia-like impairments such as clanging, neologism, and unintelligible utterances. Thought disorder appears to be primarily a disruption of executive function and pragmatics, perhaps with impairment of the syntax-semantics interface; schizophasia involves disruption at other levels. Phonetics is also often abnormal (manifesting as flat intonation or unusual voice quality), but phonological structure, morphology, and syntax are normal or nearly so (some syntactic impairments have been demonstrated). Access to the lexicon is clearly impaired, manifesting as stilted speech, word approximation, and neologism. Clanging (glossomania) is straightforwardly explainable as distraction by self-monitoring. Recent research has begun to relate schizophrenia, which is partly genetic, to the genetic endowment that makes human language possible.

The challenge of language assessment for african american english-speaking children: a historical perspective

The diagnostic problem of how validly to assess the language of children who speak dialects different from Mainstream American English (MAE) has challenged the field of communication disorders for several decades. The key to its solution is to recognize differences due to dialect or development and remove them from the initial diagnosis of a disorder. A new approach to the puzzle, implemented jointly by University of Massachusetts scholars and the Psychological Corporation (TPC), takes two directions: (1) it provides new normative data on African American English (AAE) development, and (2) it proposes a level of analysis deeper than dialect for the discovery of alternate markers of a disorder. We present three objectives for a language assessment instrument designed to solve this longstanding problem: (1) to answer the problem/no problem question for a given child; (2) to provide explanatory data about the nature of the problem; and (3) to achieve objectives 1 and 2 in a way that is culturally and linguistically fair to both speakers of MAE and speakers of other dialects of English such as AAE.

The history of written language disorders: Reexamining Pitres' case (1884) of pure agraphia

The first clinical description of pure agraphia was reported by the French neurologist Pitres in 1884. Pitres used the case study evidence to argue for modality-specific memory representations and the localization of writing. This article reviews Pitres's contribution to the study of acquired writing disorders, the components of writing models and the cerebral localization which subserve writing, in light of the views entertained by his contemporaries and current authors. Although numerous cases have been reported throughout this century, the view that writing can be impaired while other language functions and motor activities remain intact is still challenged.

The generativist-interactionist debate over specific language impairment: psycholinguistics at a crossroads

Certain defining problems in psychology force us to clarify both the origins and the limits of a paradigm that has long governed our thinking in a particular area of research. The current debate over the nature and causes of specific language impairment is proving to be just such an issue. In particular, the existence of the KE family, 15 of whose 37 members suffer from specific language impairment, has raised far-reaching questions about the conceptual foundations of our current views about language deficits and, indeed, about language development in general.

Voices of the mad: patients' letters from the Royal Edinburgh Asylum, 1873-1908

BACKGROUND

This paper is based on a rich archive of 1151 letters by patients, who were admitted to the Royal Edinburgh Asylum during the reign of Thomas Clouston (1873-1908).

METHODS

All letters were examined for evidence of psychopathology, and the material obtained was organized under the various psychopathological categories, such as delusions or hallucinations, as defined by Sims (1988).

RESULTS

A descriptive account of patient symptomatology is given. It is found that nineteenth century psychopathology is very similar to that of the modern day, and that most forms of morbid mental phenomena can be found in the patients' letters. More specifically, most of the cardinal symptoms of schizophrenia were described in the patients' correspondence. The letters also illustrate how mental symptoms reflect the cultural and scientific concerns of their time.

CONCLUSIONS

The evidence in the patients' letters argues for the unchanging nature of mental illness across time, at least for the last 120 years. It also demonstrates that patients admitted to the Royal Edinburgh Asylum suffered from serious mental illness, and it undermines the view that the Asylum was simply a dumping ground for society's disaffected.

A reappraisal of localization theory with reference to aphasia. Part 1: Historical considerations

Aphasiology is deeply rooted in observations of human behavior, in classification systems for speech and language disturbances, and in language paradigms from outside neurology. A systematic examination of the behaviors that were historically incorporated into aphasia classifications, the changes over time in what behaviors were considered important enough to classify, and the context in which these observations took place can serve as the entry point for a critique of current aphasia studies. Part 1 of this three-part series therefore examines the historical roots of contemporary aphasiology with these issues in mind.