Coreferential processing of nouns and pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese by people with stuttering

Abstract

This article presents the results of experimental research about the processing of coreference by people who stutter and fluent speakers, both groups of Brazilian Portuguese native speakers, and shows a reflection about the possibilities of association between stuttering and difficulties in procedural memory, based on the relationship between Alm´s Dual Pre- Motor Model (2005) and Ullman´s Declarative/Procedural Model (2001). It isproposed, then, a hypothesis about the connection among the presence of procedural memory disfunctions and the people who stutter´s linguistic processing, which was investigated using a self-paced reading experimental test. The results obtained suggest that there is no difference among anaphoric processing of nouns and pronouns by both stutterers and fluent speakers of BP, because both groups showed similar reading times means. The next steps suggest that it is necessary to investigate the anaphoric coreference processing at the intrassentencial level, in order to isolate the grammatical aspect and to eliminate the possible interferences of pragmatic and contextual factors.