摘要：A great amount of research has been devoted during the last decade to the assessment of abilitiesinvolved in the control, monitorization and strategical use of language by people with aphasia.Research is progressively displacing the focus of interest from language itself to the relationshipbetween language and users of language in different communicative settings. It is now clear that theformal (grammatical) component of verbal behavior manifests itself differently depending on thecontext of use (Hernandez-Sacristan, Rosell-Clari, & MacDonald 2011). As a consequence, a verbaldeficit such as agrammatism should also be reevaluated as an across-task variable phenomenon(Sharaoui and Nespoulous, 2012). This perspective embracing language, users of language andcontexts of use is defining a new pragmatic-functional paradigm in aphasiology. A particularcomponent of the relationship between language and users of language can be captured under thenotion of ‘reflexivity’ (Hockett, 1960), by which we refer to the specific way humans can transformthe linguistic tool into an object of reference and perceptual control. In a more general sense,reflexivity in language can be understood as the particular way verbal behavior becomes a factorinvolved in metacognitive processing and/or executive functioning. The MetAphAs ( Metalanguagein Aphasia Assessment ) protocol (Hernandez-Sacristan, Rosell-Clari, Serra-Alegre and QuilesCliment, 2012) has been developed with the aim of obtaining an integrated view on the way peoplewith aphasia are enabled to perform metacognitive processes associated with verbal behavior: that isto obtain an integrated view of preserved natural metalinguistic abilities in people with aphasia.
