Abstract
This paper aims to examine the effects of cognitive impairment on memory, thinking, and communication in individuals experiencing memory loss, especially in those affected by dementia. The Father (2020) illustrates the difficulties associated with memory loss, language impairment and the ability to participate in emotional communication. The affected cognitive aspects are also addressed, particularly through the challenging relationship between Anthony and Anne, which emphasizes the father-daughter dynamic. In addition, Anthony faces challenges in recognizing his own identity, and the audience gains a deeper insight into the emotional struggles his daughter is going through while supporting her in her fight against dementia. Dementia is a complex issue that impacts the human mind and social interactions. The focus on its medical aspects often overshadows other important elements of this issue.
Keywords: dementia, psycholinguistics, memory loss, communication breakdown, The Father
I. INTRODUCTION
Psycholinguistics is concerned with how language and the mind interact in some of the most complex ways possible. It examines how people come to learn, understand, create and use language in different circumstances. Psycholinguistics is the combination of linguistics and psychology. To understand what takes place in our minds as we process language (Field, 2003, p. 4). The topic includes important topics, such as how kids learn their first language and the thinking processes and surroundings that affect this growth. Furthermore, psycholinguistics explores how people understand language, concentrating on the mental processes that help us make sense of both spoken and written words (Harley, 2008, p. 102). However, it looks at how people create language, examining the ways they express and organize their ideas into clear speech or writing. Creating language requires a complex mix of thinking and physical actions to turn ideas into either spoken or written words (Treiman, 2015, p. 78). Thus, psycholinguistics looks at how our minds work when it comes to using language to communicate well. Besides that, dementia is one aspect that can be examined in the field of psycholinguistics.
Dementia is a general term that describes a significant decline in cognitive abilities that can disrupt everyday activities. Moreover, dementia is the different conditions with azheimer's disease because these are being the most prevalent type. Therefore, dementia is a progressive disease, which affects cognitive functioning and is most evidently manifested in such domains as memory, language, and executive working (Salthouse, 2010, p. 15). In dementia, memory has the main characteristic whereby the person is unable to remember events that has happened or things that they once knew best (Smith, 2013, p. 56). Language disturbance is one of the many factors which's many people with dementia have problems with speaking, following conversation, or comprehending language (Ellis & Young, 2010, p. 210). It also manifest themselves in term of impaired ability to reason, solve problems and make right decisions, this affect how individuals' relate with one another (Warren, 2015, p. 122). Dementia progresses impair significant alteration of interpersonal interactions, erasing the self, and relationships. There are have several analysis studies on dementia.
This paper of Florian Zeller's The Father (2020) looks into how cognitive decline significantly affects how people use language and communicate with each other. As dementia advances, people face major difficulties in understanding and producing language, which relates to the study of how mental processes help with language skills (Harley, 2008, p. 109). For example, when it comes to memory loss in dementia patients such as Anthony, it clearly impacts their ability to find words or remember conversations. This shows how cognitive issues can interfere with communication (Salthouse, 2010, p. 34). Also, the movie highlights times when Anthony doesn't quite get what people are saying or gets their intentions all mixed up. These examples show how psycholinguistic theories affect understanding in real life (Ellis & Young, 2010, p. 213).
Additionally, The Father highlights the emotional effects that come from these thinking and communication difficulties. The emotional impact of losing the ability to communicate is significant for people with dementia and those who care for them, as it interrupts their ability to connect meaningfully (Warren, 2015, p. 124). The feelings of frustration that both Anthony and his daughter go through show their personal battle with dementia, while also bringing attention to larger ideas about connection and disconnection that come from issues with communication (Smith, 2013, p. 59). To sum it up, psycholinguistics helps us understand how our thinking affects the way people use language, and dementia shows us just how deeply cognitive decline can impact these processes. Florian Zeller's The Father is a compelling story that captures these themes, providing a glimpse into the experiences of people dealing with dementia and highlighting how important language is for keeping human connections alive. This analysis explores how The Father portrays the cognitive, emotional, and linguistic aspects of dementia and how these themes connect with psycholinguistic principles.
II. RELATED STUDIES
In the first study provides a linguistic analysis of dementia "Maxim Violation in A Dementia Sufferer: A Case Study of the Main Character in The Father Movie" by Marharani Kresnanti & Nina Setyaningsih (2024), this study focusing on Anthony, the protagonist in The Father. Using Grice's cooperative principles, the research examines how Anthony violates conversational maxims, such as relevance, quantity, quality, and manner. For instance, Anthony frequently responds irrelevantly or with incomplete information due to his fragmented memory, which disrupts communication. The study highlights that while Anthony retains linguistic knowledge, his pragmatic ability to use language effectively in conversation is impaired. The authors claimed that these violations occur due to the presence of the disease in Anthony, specifically, dementia that affects the possessive, but not the linguistic, knowledge, as well as pragmatic ability (Setyaningsih, 2024, p. 286). This disturbance results in confusion and fustration for Anthony's caregivers and denotes the major issues of people with dementia experiencing difficulties for social relationship. By grounding the analysis in Grice's maxims, the study offers a detailed exploration of how dementia affects communication on a pragmatic level. The research not only fosters empathy for individuals with dementia but also highlights the need for caregivers to adapt their communication strategies.
In the second study titled "Challenging representations of dementia in contemporary Western fiction film" by Capstick et al. (2015) which attempts to find out that stereotype is evident especially in the Western fiction film of portraying the dwindling character of dementia, dependency and helplessness. According to Capstick et al. (2015), "Representations of people with dementia in film tend to draw heavily on familiar tropes such as global memory loss, violence and aggression, extreme dependency on heroic carers, catastrophic prognosis, and early death" (p. 8). As for the former, the authors claim that these representations contribute to the biomedical approach to dementia, and the actions and words of patients with dementia are reconstructed as mere symptoms of the disease. The study uses Miranda Fricker's epistemology of epistemic injustice where categorised subjects are confined to the role of 'knower'. The authors mentioned that about dementia Capstick et al., (2015) has said, " In film, representations of dementia as the loss of human status or living death feed all too easily into public debates about the 'burden of care' and social costs." The paper makes a call for more active subjects involved in creating representations of the disease and shares people with dementia, reducing the objectification of individuals with the condition.
