Genesis of Clinical Linguistics: Cognitive-Communication Disorders and Their Research Directions

Abstract

Cognitive linguistics, psychophysiology, cardiology, and pathological psycholinguistics have common theory and methodology. Clinical linguistics is a new area of research within cognitive science. The authors reviewed domestic and foreign studies of communicative disorders published in 1981–2022. The review focused on the cardiology, neurology, and pathological psycholinguistics of speech abnormalities, which demonstrated similar terminology and methods. The authors identified three research directions: 1) disorders associated with the period of intrauterine, intranatal, or early postpartum development; 2) age-related disorders; 3) disorders caused by a prior disease or brain injury. The language and communication profile of patients with cognitive impairments was different, but all aspects of language and communication fell into the field of psychophysiology, cardiology, and pathological psycholinguistics, thus remaining within an interdisciplinary paradigm. The review highlighted some terminological inconsistency of studies focused on the analysis of language and speech in cognitive linguistics. The authors proved that clinical linguistics is a separate branch of cognitive research that bridges a certain gap between theory and practice. They defined the main objectives of clinical linguistics as the coordination of the conceptual and terminological research apparatus, unification of methodology, and development of unified principles for language and communication research.