Aphasia is a heterogeneous disorder. We should then expect that subjective experiences of aphasia are equally diverse. There is little exploration of this, perhaps because of the double barrier of a hard-to-describe experience and communication impairment. One way to communicate complex experiences is through metaphor. Littlemore (2019) shows that metaphor analysis provides clinically useful insights about disorders which impact on cognition and language. Several studies have examined the experience of aphasia rehabilitation more broadly through metaphor analysis of interview transcripts (e.g. Ferguson et al, 2010). This study aims to discover how people with aphasia use metaphor to describe word-finding difficulties in retrospective written accounts.

Twelve diverse autobiographical accounts of aphasia were selected. Cameron and Maslen’s (2010) adapted version of the Pragglejaz (2007) procedure was used to identify metaphors in these texts. These were coded into vehicle groups, and patterns of metaphor usage were explored within and across the texts.

The five most frequently used vehicle groups across were: LANGUAGE/WORDS AS OBJECTS, WORDS AS SPATIALLY LOCATED, MIND AS COMPUTER, WORD FINDING AS FIGHT, and SELF AS CHILD, with notable use of the source domain CONTAINER in two texts. In addition to these shared metaphors across texts, individual texts showed development of novel metaphors. The findings demonstrate that the metaphors used by people with aphasia to describe word-finding difficulties include both metaphors non-aphasic people use to talk about words and word-finding and more novel frameworks. Variation between the texts suggests that conceptualisation of aphasia may be influenced by social history and/or aphasia type. Novel extended metaphors within texts shows that metaphors used about early recovery can provide a conceptual framework within which to interpret later changes and challenges.