Structural and functional macrolinguistic analysis of narrative production in bilingual aphasia

Background Bilingual speakers with aphasia often demonstrate differential performance across their two languages. Structural macrolinguistic features – such as narrative organization and global coherence – may be relatively preserved but can be vulnerable depending on aphasia severity and task demands. Functional macrolinguistic features, including informativeness and communicative efficiency, tend to vary more across languages and are sensitive to factors such as premorbid proficiency, frequency of use, and dominance. Examining these features across a first (L1) and second language (L2) can clarify how bilingualism and aphasia jointly shape narrative performance.Aims This study examined five macrolinguistic aspects of narrative production in a bilingual speaker with moderate nonfluent aphasia: three structural features (between- main concept sequencing, information structure, story grammar) and two functional features (informativeness, communication efficiency) across Yiddish (L1) and English (L2). Four microlinguistic features were also analyzed to contextualize language form. We hypothesized that structural macrolinguistic features would show relative similarity across languages despite aphasia-related disruptions, whereas, functional macrolinguistic and microlinguistic features would show greater variability, with relatively stronger performance in Yiddish (L1) and more aphasia-related errors in English (L2).Methods & Procedures Narratives were elicited using a cue word procedure, with 16 narratives collected in each language. Analyses targeted structural and functional macrolinguistic domains, with microlinguistic features included for comparison.Outcomes & Results Structural macrolinguistic features of narratives were broadly comparable across Yiddish (L1) and English (L2), although disruptions were evident in both languages. In contrast, functional macrolinguistic and microlinguistic features showed greater variability, with small numerical differences favoring Yiddish (L1). These patterns suggest language-specific influences rather than absolute impairments, supporting within-speaker cross-language comparison despite aphasia.Conclusions These findings indicate that bilingual speakers with aphasia can retain similar structural macrolinguistic organization across languages, even when functional and microlinguistic features differ. Language-specific factors (e.g. premorbid proficiency, post-stroke use, therapy exposure) appear to influence performance at functional and microlinguistic levels. Clinically, this highlights the importance of assessing both languages and tailoring intervention to relative strengths to support communicative effectiveness.