On the afternoon of April 28, 2026, Dr. Yuan Boping, doctoral supervisor in Chinese Language and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge and Distinguished Professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, delivered an academic lecture titled “A Linguistic Perspective on Aphasia Research” in Lecture Hall 101, Audiovisual Education Building, Suiyuan Campus. Professor Yuan received his Ph.D. in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics from the University of Edinburgh in 1993. He is currently a Fellow of Churchill College, Cambridge, Director of the Academic Committee of the National Language and Health Research Center, and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Second Language Studies as well as a board member of several other leading domestic and international journals. The lecture was met with a lively atmosphere.

Professor Yuan first discussed how linguistic research can serve human health in the context of the “Healthy China 2030” initiative. He creatively proposed the concept of “impaired grammars,” arguing that the impaired language of aphasic patients is not disorganised but constitutes a special linguistic form with its own systematicity, regularities, and grammatical system.

Professor Yuan then presented two empirical studies to demonstrate the unique value of linguistic theory in aphasia analysis. The first study focused on differences in the production of two types of intransitive verbs by English-speaking stroke aphasic patients. The study found that among one-argument verbs, unaccusative verbs indicating change (e.g., melt, sink) and unergative verbs indicating non-change (e.g., bark, laugh) posed significantly different levels of difficulty to the patients.

The second study examined the production of the adjective de (e.g., hen da de zhuozi ‘very big table’) versus the possessive de (e.g., fandian de zhuozi ‘the restaurant’s table’) by Chinese-speaking aphasic patients. Professor Yuan reinterpreted the experimental results from the perspectives of theta-role complexity and nominal definiteness features, pointing out that possessive de phrases, involving multiple theta-role relations and double definiteness features, impose significantly higher processing demands than adjective de phrases, which have a single semantic relation.

At the end of the lecture, Professor Yuan discussed the enhancing effect of bilingual training on executive function and suggested that bilingual or multidialectal rehabilitation training might provide more effective intervention pathways for aphasic patients. He emphasised that the active participation of language researchers in the construction of Healthy China is not only a requirement of national development strategy but also a need for disciplinary innovation and the researchers’ own development.

During the Q&A session, Professor Yuan had an in-depth exchange with faculty and students on issues such as the theoretical construction of impaired grammars and the development of clinical assessment tools for Chinese aphasia. This lecture not only broadened the audience’s understanding of the applied boundaries of linguistics but also provided new perspectives for interdisciplinary research.

copywriter：Zhang Yiyu