acoustic aphasia
- noun
- /əˈkuːstɪk əˈfeɪziə/
- Archaic
- The neurologist diagnosed the patient with acoustic aphasia after tests showed she could not understand speech.
Examples
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She was diagnosed with acoustic aphasia after her stroke.
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Many patients with acoustic aphasia can still speak fluently.
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Despite having normal hearing, he struggled with acoustic aphasia and needed support to communicate.
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Research into acoustic aphasia has helped doctors better understand language processing in the brain.
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Despite having normal hearing, he struggled with acoustic aphasia and needed support to communicate.
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The neurologist diagnosed the patient with acoustic aphasia after tests showed she could not understand speech.
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Research into acoustic aphasia has helped doctors better understand language processing in the brain.
Synonyms
Able to speak easily but say words that do not make sense and cannot understand speech or writing
A problem where a person cannot understand speech even though hearing is normal
A condition that makes it hard to understand spoken language despite normal hearing due to brain damage
A condition where a person can hear sounds but cannot understand spoken words
A condition in which a person speaks smoothly but their words have little meaning and cannot understand speech or writing
Talking that sounds normal but uses wrong words and makes understanding language hard
A condition where a person speaks in long sentences that do not make sense and cannot understand speech or writing
Fluent speech that has little meaning and very poor understanding of what others say or write
Surface Forms
Morphology
The compound is compositionally transparent: 'acoustic' (relating to sound or hearing) modifies 'aphasia' (loss of ability to use or comprehend language), so a learner who knows both constituents can infer it refers to a language impairment tied to spoken/sound input. Although it is a medical term, the meaning follows directly from the parts and is cross-linguistically paralleled, making it predictable to learners who know the component words.
Etymology
The noun acoustic aphasia comes from the parts acoustic, meaning 'hearing', and aphasia, meaning 'trouble with language'. Imagine your ears hear sounds clearly but the words do not make sense, like a radio playing noise instead of speech, and that's why acoustic aphasia means not being able to understand spoken language even with normal hearing.