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Article published In:
Pragmatics & Cognition
Vol. 23:2 (2016) ► pp.324–342

Pragmatic function impairment and Alzheimer’s dementia

Pragmatic competence includes the capacity to express illocutionary force and successfully achieve perlocutionary effects, in order to guarantee fully functional communication exchanges. Alzheimer’s Disease is characterized by a constellation of limitations derived from progressive cognitive impairment, which is usually viewed as a global uniform phenomenon. In this paper it is argued that looking independently at the loss and recovery of pragmatic function related to illocutionary and perlocutionary abilities can be a productive way of understanding the progressive deterioration of communicative capacities by patients or their improvement under targeted treatment.
Keywords: Alzheimer's Disease, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts, performative utterances, pragmatic functions, cognitive impairment
Published online: 20 July 2017
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https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.23.2.07sch
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