Linguistic and cognitive aspects of proverb processing in aphasia

The main purpose of this study was to explore proverb competence in aphasia within an ethnographic framework. A battery of proverb tests and a questio nnaire were constructed to collect the data. The battery was designed to ex plore the changes in the form and the meaning of proverbs resulting from ap hasia, while the questionnaire served the purpose of tapping aphasics' know ledge of proverb use. The experimental battery was designed to include the dichotomy of in-context and out-of-context tasks. The basic assumption that underlay the analysis of the experimental data was that, to understand the mechanism of proverb use in aphasia, one should include qualitative as wel l as quantitative analyses. The aphasic subjects, who exhibited a mild leve l of language impairment, to a great extent preserved the ability to compre hend proverbs and the ability to use them under experimental conditions. Me thodological guidelines coming from this research are discussed.