For all the aphasic patients, picture descriptions involved language at two different levels: at the "object level", where language refers directly to the objects and action depicted in the cartoons, and at the "metalinguistic level", including circumlocutions, repetitions and self-corrections, false starts, and comments about the problems that the patient was experiencing in trying to describe the pictures.
- Bates & Friederici & Wulfeck (2004), Pag. 280