Background: Discourse impairment significantly affects communication effectiveness. For a comprehensive understanding of pathological discourse behaviour, documentation of typical discourse production is essential. However, reference data from Mandarin speakers have not been previously available. Aims: This study sought to: (1) develop preliminary reference data for the Mandarin-speaking population to characterise discourse performance elicited by the picnic scene picture description task from the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB) and explore the relationship between demographic variables (i.e., age, education, gender) and discourse performance; (2) examine how persons with anomic aphasia differ from healthy adults on discourse measures. Method and Procedure: We recruited 207 healthy Mandarin-speaking adults to establish the reference data. The picture description task of the WAB was administered to all participants. Effects of age, gender, and years of education on discourse performance were examined. Additionally, the microstructural discourse variables of 11 individuals with anomic aphasia were compared with those of 11 age-, gender-, and education-matched healthy adults. Outcomes and Results: Preliminary reference data were obtained. Findings in healthy controls revealed statistically significant effects of age and education on syntactic complexity (mean length of utterance) and communication efficiency (correct information units per minute). Age significantly impacted transmission effectiveness (percentage of correct information units). Education level significantly influenced lexical diversity (the moving-average type-token ratio). Individuals with anomic aphasia performed more poorly than healthy controls on most discourse measures. Conclusions and Implications: To our knowledge, this study provides the first reference data for analysing discourse production in the WAB picture description task among the Mandarin-speaking population. Persons with anomic aphasia underperformed healthy controls on most of the discourse measures. The findings contribute to improving microstructural evaluation of discourse impairment in clinical settings, particularly for persons anomic with aphasia.