Abstract

This study was performed to investigate the problems associated with word production in an anomic aphasic. The questions were as follows: 1) Are the structure of the semantic information system separated from the lexical system? 2) Does the semantic system have a modular structure? 3) What`s the difference and relationship between Korean and English in word production process? We examined a right-handed male patient who had been diagnosed as an anomic aphasia by Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) after cerebral infarction on the left hemisphere. Four tasks, such as picture naming, word naming, semantic categorization, and lexical decision task were performed. We used ninety eight pictures which were consisted of forty eight natural things and fifty artificials. After completion of four tasks with Korean, same tasks excluding the semantic categorization were performed through English. And the results were compared between two languages. In picture naming task, the patient named correctly in thirty (30.6%) out of the ninety eight pictures. After given verbal cues, the patient answered correctly in forty five more pictures (45.9%). Most effective cue was initial phonemes or syllables of the target name. In word naming task, the patient read all the names correctly. In case of semantic categorization and lexical decision task, the error rate was only 5.1% and 11.2%, respectively. And picture naming performance differed in the natural and artificial category members. Furthermore, some naming errors in English were overlapped with the naming errors in Korean, but the other naming errors in English occurred only in English naming. In conclusion, these results were suggestive of the possibility of disruption at the connection between lexical and semantic systems in anomic aphasia. And the semantic system may have modular structure, such as artificial versus natural things as shown in this study. The test results performed by English revealed that the word production system of the two languages had both the common and independent areas.