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PubMed2004

Linguistic indicators of inter-genre differentiation in later language development.

The paper examines two types of texts, personal experience narratives and expository discussions, dealing with the shared theme of interpersonal conflict. Both were produced by the same 80 subjects, participants in a crosslinguistic study on developing literacy: gradeschoolers aged 9.0 to 10.0, twelve-to-thirteen-year-old junior high school students, sixteen-to-seventeen-year-old high school students, and graduate-level university students. The study reported here aims to demonstrate that inter-genre differentiation is evident from an early age and is reflected by distinct forms of expression across different interlocking linguistic systems. In keeping with the focus on relations between linguistic forms and discourse functions that motivates our study, we further aim to show how particular grammatical elements can fulfil different discourse functions across development. To this end, we analysed several different lexical and morphosyntactic constructions in 160 Hebrew-language texts as diagnostic of inter-genre distinctiveness: subjectless constructions; verbless copular clauses; verb types and the temporal categories of verb tense and mood, including lexical expressions of modality in the two genres. Results show that narratives are clearly distinguished from expository texts along all these dimensions; these distinctions are evident from the youngest age group we considered; and with age, inter-genre differentiation emerges as more moderately dichotomous. We concluded from this that maturely proficient text construction is able to combine expository-type generalizations with narrative event-description and to intersperse narrative-type illustrative episodes with expository formulation of ideas.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1997

Autonomous linguistic systems in the language of young children.

This paper considers cross-linguistic findings concerning the early development of formal, arbitrary, grammatical systems in normal hearing and deaf children and in children with congenital brain abnormalities. The paper reviews evidence showing an early acquisition of grammatical forms. Such learning is typically dissociated from the development of the relevant semantics. Form-function correspondences were not required for the development of morphological paradigms and for certain aspects of formal syntax. This finding held across all the populations studied. It is hypothesized that the autonomous nature of these formal paradigms accounts for their priority in learning cross-linguistically.

Child↗
PubMed2004

Novel treatments for expressive aprosodia: a phase I investigation of cognitive linguistic and imitative interventions.

This study investigated two mechanism-based treatments for expressive aprosodia, a disturbance in emotional prosody thought to be governed by the right hemisphere. The 3 participants all suffered right CVA's resulting in expressive aprosodia. Presence of expressive aprosodia was determined by performance on two batteries of emotional communication. A single subject ABAC design was employed in which two treatments, one imitative and one cognitive linguistic, were assigned in random order. All participants in this study were randomly assigned to begin with the cognitive linguistic treatment. Probes of treated and untreated emotions were completed during baseline and therapy phases. Probe items were judged by a reliable, trained rater blind to time of testing. Visual and statistical analyses were completed. These analyses confirmed that both treatments were active. For example, effect size calculations confirmed modest to substantial treatment effects for both treatments in all 3 patients. Replication to increase confidence about treatment effect and enhance understanding of the neuromechanisms underlying aprosodia is underway.

Aged↗
PubMed2001

Cognitive, linguistic, and social aspects of adults' noun definitions.

Low-income, rural adults and middle-income, urban adults provided oral definitions for eight common nouns. Two general issues were addressed: (1) whether the rural adults' definitions would conform to the well-documented Aristotelian form typically found among middle-class, well-educated adults; and (2) whether different definitional types would emerge for two different noun classes, social vs. object nouns. Participants' definitions were examined for conceptual content and linguistic form. Among rural participants, the mean proportion of definitions conforming to the Aristotelian model was .13, contrasted with .69 for the urban participants. Also, rural adults were significantly less likely to cast definitions in the conventional linguistic form than were urban adults. On other measures of definitional skill as well, rural participants demonstrated less mastery. There were no significant differences in definitional form between social and object nouns. Various explanations for the findings are considered.

Adult↗
PubMed1999

Linguistic styles: language use as an individual difference.

Can language use reflect personality style? Studies examined the reliability, factor structure, and validity of written language using a word-based, computerized text analysis program. Daily diaries from 15 substance abuse inpatients, daily writing assignments from 35 students, and journal abstracts from 40 social psychologists demonstrated good internal consistency for over 36 language dimensions. Analyses of the best 15 language dimensions from essays by 838 students yielded 4 factors that replicated across written samples from another 381 students. Finally, linguistic profiles from writing samples were compared with Thematic Apperception Test coding, self-reports, and behavioral measures from 79 students and with self-reports of a 5-factor measure and health markers from more than 1,200 students. Despite modest effect sizes, the data suggest that linguistic style is an independent and meaningful way of exploring personality.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Effects of concurrent motor, linguistic, or cognitive tasks on speech motor performance.

This study examined the influence of 3 different types of concurrent tasks on speech motor performance. The goal was to uncover potential differences in speech movements relating to the nature of the secondary task. Twenty young adults repeated sentences either with or without simultaneous distractor activities. These distractions included a motor task (putting together washers, nuts, and bolts), a linguistic task (generating verbs from nouns), and a cognitive task (performing mental arithmetic). Lip movement data collected during the experimental conditions revealed decreases in displacement and velocity during the motor task. The linguistic and cognitive tasks were associated with increased spatiotemporal variability and increases in the strength of the negative correlations between upper and lower lip displacements. These findings show that distractor tasks during speech can have a significant influence on several labial kinematic measures. This suggests that the balance of neural resources allocated to different aspects of human communication may shift according to situational demands.

Adult↗
PubMed1982

Towards an understanding of retarded children's linguistic deficiencies.

The purpose of this study was to provide a more accurate description of the language performance of retarded children and, by doing so, to understand better how the general mental handicap affects language learning. Subjects were a group of 10 retarded children matched for MA to a group of 10 normal children and 10 language-impaired children. Various syntactic and semantic analyses were performed. The results indicated that the retarded group's language abilities were essentially comparable to those of the normal group, though differences between these groups were found. Notably, the retarded children did not demonstrate the same linguistic deficiencies as the language-impaired children. It was suggested that the MA-inconsistent language behaviors exhibited by the retarded children were quantitative in nature rather than qualitative and as such seemed to reflect deficits in adaptive (i.e., social) and motivational behaviors rather than deficits in linguistic or cognitive abilities.

Child↗
PubMed1999

Effects of treatment on linguistic and social skills in toddlers with delayed language development.

This study investigated the effects of early language intervention on various linguistic and social skills of late-talking toddlers. The 21 children who participated in the investigation were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 11) or a control (delayed-treatment) group (n = 10). The experimental group participated in a 12-week clinician-implemented language intervention program. Groups were compared at pretest and posttest on five linguistic variables: Mean Length of Utterance, Total Number of Words, Number of Different Words, Lexical Repertoire, and Percentage of Intelligible Utterances, as well as on Socialization and Parental Stress. Significant group differences were found for each of the variables, indicating facilitative effects of the treatment. Notably, increases were observed in areas that were not specifically targeted by the intervention. Implications of these results are discussed with respect to considerations regarding clinical management decisions for toddlers with delayed language development.

Child Language↗
PubMed1995

Linguistic aspects of speech synthesis.

The conversion of text to speech is seen as an analysis of the input text to obtain a common underlying linguistic description, followed by a synthesis of the output speech waveform from this fundamental specification. Hence, the comprehensive linguistic structure serving as the substrate for an utterance must be discovered by analysis from the text. The pronunciation of individual words in unrestricted text is determined by morphological analysis or letter-to-sound conversion, followed by specification of the word-level stress contour. In addition, many text character strings, such as titles, numbers, and acronyms, are abbreviations for normal words, which must be derived. To further refine these pronunciations and to discover the prosodic structure of the utterance, word part of speech must be computed, followed by a phrase-level parsing. From this structure the prosodic structure of the utterance can be determined, which is needed in order to specify the durational framework and fundamental frequency contour of the utterance. In discourse contexts, several factors such as the specification of new and old information, contrast, and pronominal reference can be used to further modify the prosodic specification. When the prosodic correlates have been computed and the segmental sequence is assembled, a complete input suitable for speech synthesis has been determined. Lastly, multilingual systems utilizing rule frameworks are mentioned, and future directions are characterized.

Communication↗
PubMed2004

Validation of linguistic analyses in narrative discourse after traumatic brain injury.

Narrative discourse tasks are a common feature of assessment and research after traumatic brain injury (TBI) and other types of brain damage. Although stimulus materials and analysis methods have been developed from a variety of theoretical perspectives, many do not challenge cognitive-linguistic skills sufficiently to highlight individual difficulties in assessment after TBI. This study employed a complex story recall task and it aimed to develop analysis methods that were sensitive to differences in recalled narratives and which could be validated against the perceptions of external raters. Twenty TBI adults and 20 matched control subjects were tested and their narratives analysed in terms of six measures (T-units, Noun:Pronoun Ratio, Scenes, Errors, Comments and Tentative Statements). Two groups of raters (one professionally trained, the other not) judged the transcribed narratives on ratings of Content and Clarity. Multiple regression analyses established that two of the linguistic measures in combination predicted ratings of Content, while a further three in combination predicted ratings of Clarity. Cut-off scores were established in order to categorize the TBI and control subjects' performance. The validated measures provide the foundation for analyses of complex narrative as a means of assessment after TBI.

Adolescent↗
PubMed1998

Cognitive-linguistic subgroups in closed-head injury.

This study examined variability in the interrelationship between language skill and neuropsychological function within a group of 25 severe closed head injury (CHI) subjects and 23 matched controls. All subjects underwent a battery of standardized language and neuropsychological tests. Cluster analyses were conducted to determine whether the CHI sample was universally or differentially impaired. Further subgroup analysis using a Q-type factor analysis outlined the differences in performance profiles within the group of CHI subjects. Results support the hypothesis that while some deficits were common to all CHI subjects, impairments delineated by whole group analysis do not necessarily represent universal impairments. In particular, ability to perform tasks involving auditory comprehension, naming, verbal memory, visual memory and visuospatial skills appeared to be important components in group differentiation. The cognitive-linguistic impairments which were common to all CHI subjects and considered to be the 'cardinal' cognitive-linguistic deficits following severe CHI were deficits in lexical-semantic and sentential semantic skills, verbal fluency, complex auditory comprehension, and attentional operations. Profile analysis revealed the existence of a double dissociation between performances on naming and verbal memory tasks and performances on visually related cognitive tasks. Results are discussed with reference to findings on previous studies of subgroups in the CHI population.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Notational modulation of the SNARC and the MARC (linguistic markedness of response codes) effect.

Number magnitude and number parity representation are fundamental number representations. However, the representation of parity is much less understood than that of magnitude: Therefore, we investigated it by examining the (new) Linguistic Markedness of Response Codes (MARC) effect: Responses are facilitated if stimuli and response codes both have the same (congruent) linguistic markedness (even-right, odd-left) while incongruent conditions (even-left, odd-right) lead to interference. We examined systematically the MARC (for parity) and the Spatial Numerical Association of Response Codes (SNARC; for magnitude) effect for different number notations (positive Arabic, negative Arabic, number words) and with different methods of data analysis. In a parity judgement task, the SNARCeffect indicating a magnitude representation was replicated for all notations except for negative numerals. The MARCeffect was found for number words in all analyses, but less consistently for the other notations. In contrast, a correlational analysis of the reaction time (RT) data, as suggested by Sternberg (1969) using a nonmetric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) procedure, produced a clear association of parity and response code for all notations (MARCeffect), but little evidence of the SNARCeffect. We discuss the extent to which these notation-specific MARC and SNARC effects constrain current models of number processing and elaborate on the possible functional locus of the MARC effect.

Adult↗
PubMedDate not supplied

Population history of Corsica: a linguistic and genetic analysis.

Genetic and linguistic differentiations within Corsica were analysed and compared; the genetic relationships of Corsica to other Mediterranean populations were also studied. Lexical distances between 49 Corsican localities were computed from a standard word list; trees built from these distances were compared with average linkage and neighbour-joining trees of genetic distances. Our lexical distance results confirmed the north/south dialectal subdivision of Corsican speeches described by linguists. No clear results were achieved with genetic distances because of the low number of loci for which data were available. Nevertheless, a tight northern cluster clearly emerged. When compared to other Mediterranean populations, Corsica showed a certain degree of differentiation, although not so marked as that of Sardinia. Corsica presented genetic affinities with Campania, Sicily, Liguria, Provence and Latium, while distances with Tuscany and Sardinia were larger. These results can be interpreted as a reflection of the prehistoric isolation of Corsica and the relative contribution to the island gene pool of prehistoric and historic invaders and immigrants from several populations.

Blood Group Antigens↗
PubMed2002

Impact of culturally, linguistically, and literacy relevant cancer information among Hispanic farmworker women.

BACKGROUND: This pilot investigation describes the impact of culturally, linguistically, and literacy relevant cancer information in terms of knowledge, satisfaction, comfort level, and intentional and actual breast/cervical cancer screening practices among Hispanic migrant and seasonal farmworker women. METHODS; Study phases were: 1) formative research; 2) instrument development and pretesting; and 3) pilot evaluation among 65 women using a one-group pretest-posttest design. RESULTS: Participants' reactions to the intervention were highly favorable. While an increase in knowledge (p < 0.001) was observed, no change in comfort was noted. Ninety-seven percent stated that they would be willing to miss a day of work (intent) to get a health check-up. CONCLUSION: Educational tools that are culturally, linguistically, and low-literacy can be promising interventions to promote awareness about breast and cervical cancer screening.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2000

Linguistic evaluation of Profet II: a pilot project.

Profet, a word prediction program, was designed to accelerate the writing process and to minimize the writing effort of persons with motor dysfunction. It has also proved to be beneficial in text construction for persons with linguistic impairment such as dyslexia. With increasing linguistic demands on support for individuals with severe reading and writing difficulties/dyslexia, the need for an improved version of Profet arose. Thus, Profet II was designed. In this study, a procedure for evaluating Profet II has been developed. Results from a single-case evaluation study with a person with dyslexia are presented. The possible implications for support and aspects such as spelling, morphology and subjective judgements of and attitudes towards texts are discussed.

Adult↗
PubMed2003

Cigarette smoking among Chinese Americans and the influence of linguistic acculturation.

Less acculturated Chinese Americans experience cultural and language barriers. The present study assessed the relationship between linguistic aspects of acculturation and cigarette smoking among Chinese Americans. A cross-sectional, self-administered survey was administered to a consecutive sample of 541 Chinese American adults (aged 18 years or older) attending four pediatric, medical, or dental practices located in Philadelphia's Chinatown from November 2000 to February 2001. Linguistic acculturation was measured by adapting a reliable and valid acculturation scale developed for Southeast Asians. English and Chinese language proficiency subscales were utilized to analyze the association between language proficiency and current smoking. Whereas 25% of Chinese American men reported current smoking, only 3% of Chinese American women reported current smoking. Chinese American men with lower English proficiency reported significantly higher rates of current smoking compared with Chinese American men with a higher level of English proficiency (33% vs. 18%, p<.01). Less English-proficient Chinese American male smokers were less likely to have received advice from a physician to quit smoking (50% vs. 85%, p=.01). In multivariate analysis, increased English proficiency was associated with decreased odds of current smoking (OR=0.38, 95% CI=0.16-0.89) among Chinese American men after controlling for confounding variables. In conclusion, higher English proficiency was associated with decreased current smoking among Chinese American men. Chinese American men with limited English proficiency should especially be targeted for tobacco control interventions. Further research is needed to assess whether acculturation is associated with smoking among Chinese American women and with use of smoking cessation treatments and services by Chinese American smokers.

Adult↗
PubMed1997

Linguistic approaches to biological sequences.

Biologists have long made use of linguistic metaphors in describing and naming cellular processes involving nucleic acid and protein sequences. Indeed, it is very natural to view the genetic 'text' and its sequential transliterations in these terms. However, a metaphor is not a tool, and it is necessary to ask whether the techniques used in analyzing other kinds of languages, such as human and computer languages, can in fact be of any use in tackling problems in molecular biology. This paper reviews the work of the author and others in applying the methods of computational linguistics to biological sequences.

Base Sequence↗
PubMed2001

Geographical, linguistic, and cultural influences on genetic diversity: Y-chromosomal distribution in Northern European populations.

We analyzed 10 Y-chromosomal binary markers in 363 males from 8 populations in Northern Europe and 5 Y microsatellites in 346 of these individuals. These populations can be grouped according to cultural, linguistic, or geographical criteria, and the groupings are different in each case. We can therefore ask which criterion best corresponds to the distribution of genetic variation. In an AMOVA analysis using the binary markers, 13% of the Y variation was found between populations, indicating a high level of differentiation within this small area. No significant difference was seen between the traditionally nomadic Saami and the neighboring, historically farming, populations. When the populations were divided into Uralic speakers and Indo-European speakers, 8% of the variation was found between groups, but when they were divided according to geographical location, 14% of the variation was between groups. Geographical factors have thus been the most important in limiting gene flow between these populations, but linguistic differences have also been important in the east.

Analysis of Variance↗