Expressing opinions and feelings on aphasia: an examination of speakers' use of evaluative language

Introduction: The ability of individuals with aphasia to verbally express their feelings and opinions about things, people and events has not been widely addressed in the research literature to date. The vast majority of research studies into the expressive abilities of people with aphasia have investigated their use of words to convey factual information rather than evaluation. This study aimed to investigate differences between speakers with aphasia and controls in their use of evaluative language to verbally convey their feelings and opinions about a significant life event. Method: Narratives were collected from 5 individuals with aphasia and from 5 people without brain damage and each sample was analysed with respect to the Attitude domain of Martin’s (2000) Appraisal framework. The amount of attitudinal appraisal used and frequency of various types of appraisal subtypes, lexical items, and negative/positive valuations were calculated for each speaker. Comparisons were made within groups and between members of 5 matched pairs matched with respect to age, gender and years of education. Results: Speakers with aphasia used less evaluative language than speakers without brain damage and more negative evaluative language. Both the speakers with aphasia and controls used adjectives as the most frequent type of word for expressing feelings and opinions poststroke. The participants with aphasia were able to use some adverbs and verbs as appraisal but did not use whole clauses or nouns to express their emotions and opinions.