A Pragmatic Approach to Neurolinguistics: Requests (Re)Considered

In recent years there has been a series of studies in the field of neurolinguistics and neuropsychology investigating the comprehension and interpretation of indirect requests predominantly in right brain-damaged individuals. Although the findings of these studies seem to suggest that indirect requests may be perceived, comprehended, judged, or interpreted differently by some right brain-damaged individuals, until today no coherent picture pertaining to the description of the phenomenon under investigation has emerged. One reason for this dissatisfying situation may be that the features contributing to the interpretation of a request in terms of its level of directness have not been sufficiently investigated. In addition, the stimuli on which the experiments were based are not always clear-cut or specific if viewed within the framework of pragmatic theory. The article provides an introduction to some aspects of pragmatic theory and discusses five major studies on request comprehension in brain-damaged patients with reference to the components relevant to the realization of requests. Finally, suggestions concerning future research are made.