RIGHT BRAIN DAMAGE AND EMOTIONAL EXPRESSION IN DISCOURSE Sue Sherratt

“Verbal communication is ordinarily and normally imbued with affective and attitudinal nuances” (Van Lancker & Pachana, 1998, p. 311)

Why is evaluation important? Expresses speaker’s opinion about something (and thereby values) Constructs and maintains relations between speaker and hearer Organises the discourse

The role of evaluation in narratives 1.wards off the question “so what?”. 2.makes part of narrative prominent. 3.distinguishes narratives from other stretches of talk 4.allows the speaker to occupy the floor for longer

Right hemisphere & emotion – 2 hypotheses RH hypothesis – RH is dominant for emotional processing Valence hypothesis – RH is dominant for unpleasant/negative emotions.

RBD and emotional expression Emotional expression may be verbal, nonverbal or extralinguistic RBD investigations focused mostly on nonverbal and extralinguistic expression of emotion Limited research into RBD and verbal expression of emotion

Verbal expression of emotion and RBD Most studies have used rating scales. Rated as less emotionally intense, reduced in emotionality, less accurate in emotions expressed. 2 studies of lexical emotional expression – reduction in emotional content and lower rate of affect words.

Assessment of verbal emotion Complex – can be explicit or implicit, subjective, value-laden. Tends to have been sidelined in linguistics (Martin 2004) Few relevant analysis procedures

Appraisal (Martin and colleagues) “semantic resources used to negotiate emotions, judgement and valuations, alongside resources for amplifying and engaging with these evaluations” (Martin, 2000, p. 145). Forms a “prosody of attitude” (Martin & Rose, 2003, p. 54) through the sample.

Appraisal resources 3 categories/dimensions Appreciation Affect Judgement Amplification – for grading the attitudes

Appraisal Categories Appreciation how speakers evaluate a text or a process “What do you think of that?” Affect how something makes them feel “How do you feel about it?”

Appraisal Categories contd Judgement evaluation of the ethics, morality or social values of people’s behaviour “How would you judge that behaviour?” Amplification how speakers grade their attitudes towards people, things or events.

Questions Are speakers with RBD able to express emotion verbally and to what extent? What appraisal resources do they use to do this?

Participants community-dwelling British males monolingual English-speaking minimum of 10 years of education

7 RBD participants Pre-morbidly strongly right-handed Single right hemisphere CVA Aged TPO 2y6m to 5 y

10 NBD participants right-handed matched for age and SES to RBD group

Narratives 2 narratives of personal experience “Tell me about a frightening/funny experience that you have had at any time in your life”

Total appraisal resources (% total words) GroupTotal Samples (range) RBD4.5 (0-15.5) NBD6.4 ( )

Total appraisal by topic (%total words) GroupFrightening (range) Funny (range) RBD4.6 ( ) 5.5 (0-15.5) NBD6.3 ( ) 5.9 ( )

Appraisal resources used (% of total appraisal) GroupAppAffectJudgeAmp RBD NBD

Appraisal by topic (% of total appraisal) GroupApprecAffectJudgeAmp RBD FR RBD FN NBD FR NBD FN

Appreciation & affect (% of total appraisal) ApprecAffect RBD - Fright RBD - Funny27.4 NBD - Fright NBD - Funny

Judgement & amplification (% of total app) JudgeAmplific RBD - Fright RBD - Funny737 NBD - Fright NBD - Funny

Conclusions Relative, not absolute, differences between groups RBD tended to use less, particularly for negative topic On positive topic, RBD and NBD similar. On negative topic, RBD appraised things more than expressing feelings

More questions than answers Effect of discourse genre? Specific/personally relevant negative topic? Other factors? Limitations of this study?

Final comments Attitudinal analysis will never be completely clear-cut and are still being developed Appraisal framework used has considerable merit Evaluation plays a constructive role in “organising sociality – how we share feelings in order to belong (Martin, 2004, p, 341).

RBD and social integration The difficulties of people with RBD in emotion processing have marked effects on interpersonal interactions (Lehman Blake, 2003). People with RBD are considered to be “disconnected from the world around them” (Myers, 1999) and as having “a social handicap at least as significant as aphasia” (Paradis, 1998)

Thank you