Discourse analysis is one of the clinical methods commonly used to assess the language ability of individuals with traumatic brain injury (TBI). However, the majority of published analytic frameworks are not geared for highlighting the pragmatic aspect of discourse deficits in acquired language disorders, except for those designed for quantifying conversational samples. This study aimed to examine how pragmatic competence is impaired and reflected in spoken monologues in Chinese speakers with TBI.

Discourse samples of five tasks (personal narrative, storytelling, procedural, single- and sequential picture description) were elicited from ten TBI survivors and their controls. Each discourse sample was measured using 16 indices (e.g., number of informative words, percentage of local/global coherence errors, repeated words or phrases) that corresponded to the four Gricean maxims. Twenty-five naïve Chinese speakers were also recruited to perform perceptual rating of the quality of all 50 TBI audio files (five discourse samples per TBI participant), in terms of erroneous/inaccurate information, adequacy of amount of information given, as well as degree of organization and clarity.

The maxim of quantity best predicted TBI’s pragmatic impairments. Naïve listeners’ perception of pragmatics deficits correlated to measures on total and informative words, as well as number and length of terminable units. Clinically, personal narrative and storytelling tasks could better elicit violations in pragmatics.

Applying Gricean maxims in monologic oral narratives could capture the hallmark underlying pragmatic problems in TBI. This may help provide an additional approach of clinically assessing social communications in and subsequent management of TBI.

话语分析是临床常用的评估创伤性脑损伤（TBI）个体语言能力的方法之一。然而，除了那些旨在量化会话样本的分析框架之外，大多数已发表的分析框架并不适合强调获得性语言障碍中话语缺陷的语用方面。本研究旨在探讨患有 TBI 的汉语使用者的语用能力如何受损以及如何反映在口语独白中。

从 10 名 TBI 幸存者及其对照组中提取了五项任务（个人叙述、讲故事、程序、单一和连续图片描述）的话语样本。每个话语样本均使用与四个格莱斯格言相对应的 16 个指数（例如，信息性单词的数量、局部/全局连贯性错误的百分比、重复的单词或短语）进行测量。还招募了 25 名不懂中文的人，对所有 50 个 TBI 音频文件（每个 TBI 参与者五个话语样本）的质量进行感知评级，包括错误/不准确的信息、所提供信息量的充分性以及程度的组织性和清晰度。

数量准则最能预测 TBI 的语用障碍。天真的听众对语用缺陷的感知与对总单词和信息单词以及可终止单元的数量和长度的测量相关。临床上，个人叙述和讲故事的任务可以更好地引发语用学方面的违规行为。

将格莱斯格言应用于独白口头叙述中可以捕捉 TBI 中潜在的实用问题的标志。这可能有助于提供一种额外的方法来临床评估 TBI 中的社交沟通和后续管理。