A Multimodal Study on Language Impairments in Chinese-Speaking Alzheimer’s Disease Patients from the Perspective of Relevance Theory

Abstract

With the intensification of global population aging, Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has emerged as a significant public health issue among the elderly populations, with language impairment being one of its primary manifestations. This study, grounded in Relevance Theory, selects situated discourse from five elderly individuals in the early stages of AD featured in the reality show “Forget Me Not Cafe” as corpus material. Utilizing a multimodal corpus research method, it analyzes the manifestations of language impairment in these patients, aiming to comprehensively unveil their specific characteristics at both verbal and non-verbal levels. The findings reveal that affected elderly individuals exhibit five verbal manifestations, including redundant repetition, the use of filler words, naming difficulty, aborted phrases, and vague references. Meanwhile, they also employ non-verbal means such as gestures and laughter to make multimodal compensatory adjustments in communication. Furthermore, this study highlights the differences in the manifestations of language impairment between Chinese and English-speaking AD patients. English-speaking patients are more prone to issues like pronoun misuse, tense and voice errors, whereas Chinese-speaking patients predominantly exhibit tone confusion. This research not only holds significant importance for the academic development of gerontolinguistics but also possesses practical clinical application value and notable social benefits.