Chapter published in:
Sources of Variation in First Language Acquisition: Languages, contexts, and learners
Edited by Maya Hickmann †, Edy Veneziano and Harriet Jisa
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research 22] 2018
► pp. 427–438

Chapter 20
Non-literal language comprehension

Brain damage and developmental perspectives

| Centre de Recherches en Psychologie, Cognition et Communication, Université Rennes 2
| Laboratoire Parole & Langage, CNRS & Université Aix-Marseille
Nonliteral language includes any utterance that produces an apparent need to go beyond what is literally stated, in order to comprehend the speaker’s communicative intent and, consequently, to understand the meaning of these utterances in a given context. Impaired comprehension of indirect requests has been reported in adults with acquired brain lesions. There is little available knowledge on the development of pragmatic skills in children and adolescents with brain damage. Do children with brain damage differ from brain-damaged adults in request comprehension? To answer the question, this chapter adopts a developmental perspective, describing the results of studies with adults and children with acquired brain lesions.
Keywords: pragmatics, non-literal language, comprehension of requests, acquired brain lesions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Indirect request comprehension in adults with right-hemisphere damage and adults with traumatic brain injury
  • 3.Request comprehension in children and adolescents with frontal lesions
  • 4.Conclusion
  • References
Published online: 22 February 2018
https://doi.org/10.1075/tilar.22.21dar
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