تاثير مرض الزهايمر على كيانات المعنى والشكل وآثاره اللغوية

Abstract

This study examines the cognitive implications of Alzheimer's disease on linguistic entities (form-meaning), which are the central mental structures that we use to express our communication outputs. The research explores how these mental structures and their components deteriorate or persist throughout the progression of AD. While prior studies have focused widely on the structural deficits of linguistic components as phonetic, semantic, and grammatical in verbal language, this study shifts the focus to the cognitive-semiotic scopes of underlying linguistic components (form-meaning) based on Ronald Langacker's (2008) modeland by using the visual domain. The sample of study is the artist William Utermohlen, who suffered from AD. Utermoleen considered himself a living sample and recording of the progression of his illness, offering a more authentic portrayal of the stages of AD and the gradual loss of the mental structures it destroys, and by analysing his self-portraits from 1995 to 2001, by Ronald Langacker's (2008) model of "symbolic assemblies" of form- meaning, we can observe the phases of losing of FORM entities in comparison to MEANING and the concept of the face. This shows that the artist remained semantically aware of the concept of face even after losing form entities. This means that the patient did not lose the semantic stock, but rather the expressive or linguistic stock. Research has shown that the ability to express oneself through drawing continues longer than other cognitive skills. Although the study does not deals straight with neurological dimensions, its visual examination is construed in light of neuropsychological works (e.g., Chamberlain et al., 2014; Crutch et al., 2001). The results propose that whereas syntax elements of artist works shows deteriorates, the basic semantic cognizance of the concept of the face shows a kind of persistence. This visual path supports with neuroscientific results about the flexibility of drawing mental apparatuses in contrast to linguistic loss. The research paper concludes with some conclusions, specific findings.