Accommodating 'unaccustomed pragmatic spaces' in Arbib's model Comment on "Towards a Computational Comparative Neuroprimatology: Framing the language-ready brain

Arbib's article [1] offers a sophisticated and convincing account of the evolution of human language that does not shy away from nailing together neurophysiology and the forms and functions of language. The core recognition of what language does, rather than just what language looks like or how its forms are generated, gives the model a high level of explanatory significance. This commentary explores interaction in the context of his account of comprehension, section 4.3.2, offering some observations that potentially test and support the model. They expand Arbib's existing consideration of agrammatism, where he suggests that difficulties with managing the linguistic system (Grammatical Route, G, including Light Semantics, LS) are compensated for using world knowledge (Heavy Semantics, HS). That is, if, in comprehension, one is not sure how the words go together, one increases attention to the pragmatics generated by the observable context and general memory to fill in the gaps. I introduce the opposite situation, where, in dementia of the Alzheimer's type, compromises to world knowledge and pragmatics create unstable HS, and may generate ambiguity in the linguistic input. I consider how Arbib's model sheds light on the typical fixes for this eventuality, and also venture a link back to the protolanguage account

Mechanisms of conflict and aggression in the dementia context

It is proposed that conflict is an almost inevitable outcome, when, as in dementia communication, the delicate relationship between linguistic processing and pragmatics is upset. This relationship has been little researched, even though much is known about the two components in isolation. Making particular use of key observations and claims from the papers in this special issue, a macro-conceptualisation of the dynamics of conflict and aggression in the dementia context is developed. It is proposed that the cognitive and linguistic processing problems experienced by a person with dementia (PWD) can undermine her capacity to manage her spoken output in the way necessary to match the situational pragmatics, resulting in failure to achieve her interactional goals. The mismatch will create internal dissonance that may be expressed as aggression. Importantly, caregivers will also experience dissonance when their communicative agenda is not fulfilled. This may happen when their expectations of the situational pragmatics (e.g., old versus new information) are contradicted by the behaviour of the PWD. Here too, the dissonance may result in aggression or conflict. Modelling the mechanisms of ‘Communicative Impact’ (CI) offers a way to capture the relationship between processing and pragmatics and to examine how speakers attempt to resolve the dissonance. The CI model gives insights into how the risk of conflict in interaction between people with dementia and their caregivers might be minimised

NHS England long-term workforce plan: Can this deliver the workforce transformation so urgently needed or is it just more rhetoric?

The long-awaited NHS England workforce plan1 (the plan) was launched in June 2023 by the Prime Minister (Rishi Sunak) and NHS England CEO (Amanda Pritchard) and heralded as: "The first comprehensive workforce plan for the NHS, putting staffing on a sustainable footing and improving patient care. It focuses on retaining existing talent and making the best use of new technology alongside the biggest recruitment drive in health service history"

Formulaic sequences as a regulatory mechanism for cognitive perturbations during the achievement of social goals

This paper explores two questions central to understanding the nature of formulaic sequences: (1) What are they for? and (2) What determines how many there are? The “Communicative Impact” model draws into a single account how language is shaped by cognitive processing on the one hand and socio-interactional function on the other: Formulaic sequences play a range of coordinated roles in neutralizing unanticipated perturbations in the cognitive management of language, so the speaker's socio-interactional goals can still be achieved. One role involves compensatory actions to sustain fluency. However, these actions are themselves context-sensitive, so the balance of types of formulaic sequence will vary according to situation. The model applies equally to temporary cognitive pressure and chronic problems such as dementia and limited linguistic competency in a foreign language

What do we (think we) know about formulaic language? An evaluation of the current state of play

This article briefly summarizes key developments in formulaic language research over the past 5 years, before exploring certain assumptions typically made, regarding the coherence of formulaicity as a phenomenon, the significance of frequency as a property, and the location of subtypes of formulaic language along various continua. It is argued that we do not yet have the full measure of how different features associated with formulaicity fit together. The challenge lies in reconciling the range of evidence types within an explanation that is rooted not only in usage itself, but in the underlying motivations that determine usage

The language of dementia science and the science of dementia language: linguistic interpretations of an interdisciplinary research field

Language is a balance of precision and flexibility, and scientific dialogue across disciplines faces challenges in how terms are used and how phenomena, including language itself, are described and explained. Taking dementia as its focus, this article offers linguistic perspectives on causes of inherent difficulty with terminological exactness. Attention is paid to the interface between the positivist imperatives of clinical evaluation and the relativist interpretations that help make sense of uses of terms across contexts. Two types of reason are examined for why the language produced by people with dementia is sometimes hard to characterize and predict: the theoretical challenges inherent in analyzing the language of dementia and the social variables that affect how that language is manifested. The article concludes with the vision of linguistic research using corpus-based discourse analysis to underpin and catalyze communication-bridging activities in interdisciplinary projects, within and beyond the dementia contex

Establishing the reliability of word association data for investigating individual and group differences

This paper argues that, across different psychological contexts, the methods of data collection, treatment and analysis in word association tests have hitherto been inconsistent. We demonstrate that this inconsistency has resulted from inadequate control, in previous studies, of certain important variables including the basis of norm comparisons, and we present a principled method for collecting, scoring and analysing association responses, to address these issues. The method is evaluated using test and retest datasets from 16-year-old and over-65-year-old twins (n=636), which enable us to (a) compare samples matched for key environmental variables, (b) assess the transferability of norming information between age cohorts, and (c) evaluate the reliability of the scoring protocols. We find systematic differences in the association behaviour of the two age cohorts, indicating the importance of evaluating data only against norms lists which are matched to the target population. Individual association behaviour is found to be consistent across test times, both in terms of response stereotypy and response type