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[Linguistics of ageing, linguistic Gerontology--Why? (author's transl)].

Intercourse between the young and the old is accompanied by difficulties in finding the right word. Authentic observations will be presented. These every-day experiences have prompted the search for the felicity conditions of verbal interaction between members of different age groups. This concern is called linguistics of ageing (or, etatolinguistics). It is called linguistic gerontology (or, gerontolinguistics) if older people are involved in the verbal interactions to be investigated. Papers from the fields of intelligence psychology, language psychology, and language sociology have indeed reported differences in verbal scores between groups of different ages. What has not been answered as yet, however, is the question whether these differences are, or may be, responsible for the difficulties arising in verbal interaction between different age groups. A review of hypotheses as to why verbal scores differ between different age groups in the way they do will reveal that this problem has not as yet been solved either. In conclusion, a programme for further research will be outlined.

Adult

Communicative behavior in schizophrenia. The relation of adaptive styles to kinetic and linguistic aspects of interview behavior.

Recent studies of formal kinetic and linguistic aspects of communication suggest that these may be important signposts of internal processes responsible for the regulation and organization of verbal thought. If so, the formal analysis of communication patterns of patients known to have difficulty in cognitive organization (chronic schizophrenics) should reveal kinetic and linguistic characteristics consistent with their level of adaptive cognitive functioning. In the present study, 16 chronic nonparanoid schizophrenic patients were video recorded during a clinical interview, and their kinetic and linguistic behavior was analyzed according to systems developed in our laboratory. Eight of these patients were chronic, isolated patients, classified by means of a scale for measuring proneness to future hospitalization, as extremely "prone" to rehospitalization, and eight were chronic, overtly oppositional patients, classified as "nonprone" to hospitalization. Prone patients are known to exhibit a relatively impoverished form of cognitive functioning, while nonprone patients exhibit more highly differentiated cognitive functioning. The major findings of this study revealed that the isolated prone patients could be distinguished from the nonprone patients, in their communicative behavior, by an increased utilization of the most repetitive and unpatterned stimulation of body parts, as well as the most simple form of linguistic narration of experience. The oppositional nonprone patients more often utilized circumscribed, patterned, and brief kinetic stimulation of body parts, as well as a form of language construction characterized by a complex conditional (i.e., causal, deductive, or purposive) framework for the expression of thought. In addition, social and affective components of the scale measuring hospital proneness were related to our formal kinetic and linguistic scoring categories. An explanation of these findings was offered based upon the well documented relationship observed in the literature between isolation and hyperarousal in chronic schizophrenia. That is, an attempt was made to integrate these findings with the notion that the schizophrenic disorder reflects an integrative deficit which is regulated by increasing the magnitude of proprioceptive feedback (and hence, arousal) through stereotyped repetitive motor activity.

Adaptation, Psychological

Some linguistic considerations related to the issue of female orgasm.

The purpose of this paper has been to identify a linguistic issue that continues to cloud our thinking about the subject of female orgasm. A specific technical revision has been recommended, i.e., that female orgasms be described as either coital or noncoital. It has been suggested that we help our female patients to become aware of this vocabulary and that we let them know that the clitoral/vaginal dichotomy is incorrect. Systematic adherence to the correct vocabulary is therapeutic. The linguistic implications concerning the issue of female orgasm have been examined as they relate to both theory and practice. It has been argued that linguistic usage pertaining to female sexuality generally is the product of a patriarchal value structure and, as such, reflects patriarchal prejudices about female sexuality. It has been suggested that the apparent inability of many women to achieve coital orgasms is related to centuries-old cultural attitudes and that linguistic usages, particularly dichotomies, tend to perpetuate the prejudices that underlie many cultural attitudes. Freud's view of the role of language in clinical practice has been indicated. Finally, it has been suggested that the linguistic recommendation made in this paper can be viewed as implementing the process by which recent biological findings are used to strengthen psychoanalytic theory and practice.

Female

Linguistic nonimmediacy and self-presentation.

It has been previously shown that Ss accurately infer communicators' levels of negative effect on the basis of communicators' levels of linguistic nonimmediacy (the degree of verbal indirectness with which a communicator refers to himself or to that about which he communicates). It was hypothesized that Ss would also rely on communicators' levels of linguistic nonimmediacy for impression formation, specifically that Ss would perceive communicators using lower levels of linguistic nonimmediacy as more authoritative and as having a more positive character than communicators using higher levels of linguistic nonimmediacy. The hypothesis was partially confirmed in a study of 12 college students who rated samples of student speeches by means of McCroskey's impression formation instrument for public speakers. The results were discussed in terms of the role of language in self-presentation and the role of interpretative procedures in social interaction.

Adolescent

An effect of linguistic experience. Auditory word discrimination by native and non-native speakers of English.

In this study, the effect of linguistic experience on the auditory discrimination of words has been examined. 18 subjects, including 6 native and 12 non-native speakers of English, were tested with CID auditory test W-22 in quiet and in the presence of white noise at the signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios of +12, +6 and 0 dB. The non-native speakers of English included 6 with 1 year of experience and 6 with 3-4 years of experience speaking Enligsh in the USA. In the absence of noise, the results were essentially equivalent for all three groups. As noise level increased, word discrimination deteriorated for all three groups with non-native speakers of English obtaining results significantly poorer than native speakers of English. Linguistic experience and noise levels were significant at the 0.001 level fo confidence. It appears that at 0 dB S/N, individual variability of non-native speakers of English, regardless of their original linguistic background, was much smaller than that found for native speakers of English. The results of the study tend to indicate that a limited linguistic experience results in a persistent deterioration of auditory word discrimination under impoverished conditions of audition.

Adult

[The clinical picture, motor activity, electro-encephalographic, neurophysiologic and linguistic findings in a case of left-sided hemispherectomy (author's transl)].

In a patient aged 35 the left cerebral hemisphere was surgically removed for a cerebral angioma. Cerebral function has been examined clinically and from neurophysiologic, neuropsychologic and linguistic aspects. History, pre-and postoperative clinical findings are described. Post-operative motor-activity was registered continuously with 6 electromyograms. It is described, compared with a case of right sided hemispherectomy and discussed. On the basis of a survey of the literature the cerebral activity before and after operation, examined with quantitative EEG analysis, is described and discussed. After a general exposition of the linguistic ability of the right non-dominant hemisphere it is shown that this must have been a case of left dominance. On this assumption the formal-quantitative linguistic findings after left-sided hemispherectomy are described. The neuro-psychologic tests, pre- and post-operatively carried out with several techniques (LPS, HAWIE, FLT, Token-Test), are compared with each other and the results of further tests (a short form of the "Minnesota-test and our own collection of aphasia tests) after hemispherectomy added. After a survey of relevant descriptions in the literature the postoperative linguistic findings (lexic and morphology, syntax, relationship between idea and expressive realization) are described and compared with similar findings in the literature.

Adult

[The relationship between the structuralism of Levi-Strauss and linguistic methods. An attempt at applying structuralist phonologic models to the study of pathologic language].

The structuralism which is generally accepted as a 'good French' school of thinking, presents in some of its applications the short-time character of fashion in such a way that one often forgets what this philosophy implicates. In this essay, the author intends to show that even though a structural method really exists, one cannot say who exactly is 'the father' of structuralism. But during the long maturity period of thought that resulted in structuralism, one important step has been made in France by Lévi-Strauss who has been using a great number of linguistic concepts, and at the same time has contributed to the consequent progress realized in that discipline. In the light of linguistics and of the works made by Lévi-Strauss some notions are redefined: those of structure, those of oppositions in the systems, those of relations inside one system, and the interactions between 'significant' and 'signifié'. Born from recent research in mathematics and cybernetics, the notion of Model, very fertile in linguistics, is an important element in the Lévi-Strauss structural methodology. With the help of examples taken from phonetics and phonology, the author intends to show how to elaborate a model, of what nature are the links between the observed object and the model, and what can be the applications of that method in the study of pathological languages; the author also intends to show that the main interest in a model of structural type is its explicative and previsional quality. A critical study of the structural analysis makes it possible to show the real contribution of structuralism: the author presents new ways that have been revealed by structuralism and some developments later on favorized by this discipline, mainly in linguistics. Remark. In this study of structuralism, the author places herself on the level with 'method' and not with 'philosophy'.

Child, Preschool

[An introductive approach to linguistics (author's transl)].

The author proposes an information on the semiological approach to language starting from the systemic perspective (later to be said structuralist) which has been introduced by the Saussure. A group of notions can be delineated, which are distributed in binomial oppositions: language and verb, synchronia and diachronia, meaning and signified (which define the linguistic sign, which arbitrary character is being discussed) and other oppositions. The descriptive study of linguistic units of the chain concerns phonetics and phonology. The regulations for constructing a coherent message concern grammar (or syntax), where the traditional, normative approach is in opposition with actual research, descriptive and structural: distributionnal grammar, transforming, categorial, functional. The application of new linguistic methods to human sciences is very promising and opens the way of an interesting meditation on human condition.

Linguistics

Bedtime soliloquies and linguistic competence in autism.

This study investigates the linguistic competence of an autistic child by means of her bedtime soliloquies. It suggests the usefulness of such monologues as a diagnostic tool and addresses the question of the interrelationship between echolalia and language development. Three bedtime soliloquies of an eight-year-old echolalic autistic child are analyzed along the dimensions of echolalia versus propositional speech, types of ungrammaticality produced, and analysis of connected discourse. The results are compared with those of a normal child reported earlier in the literature. The present analysis demonstrates the difficulties in the judgement of propositional versus echolalic speech. The types of ungrammaticality were found to be useful indicators of apparent differences between the acquisition process in the normal and the autistic child. They revealed that the autistic child may use specific linguistic strategies only minimally utilized by the normal child. The discourse analysis points up additional differences as well as similarities in the way the autistic subject organizes her utterances in connected discourse. It also shows that the autistic child has specific but limited linguistic competence. It is hypothesized that the autistic subject acquires more functional, useful language by a process of gradually breaking down echolalic patterns. In terms of therapy, these findings would support the use of echolalia as a basis for language training.

Autistic Disorder

Genetic distance and gene diversity among linguistically different tribes of Mexican Indians.

Using gene frequency data for 14 genetic loci, genetic distances between 13 tribes of Mexican Indians belonging to 12 language groups were determined and a dendrogram was constructed. The genetic distance between tribes is correlated more with geographic proximity than with language affinity. The gene diversity (heterozygosity) of the total population was decomposed into the three components, i.e., the gene diversity between three main linguistic groups, the gene diversity between tribes within the main linguistic groups and the gene diversity within tribes. About 95% of the total gene diversity exists within tribes, the intergroup and intertribe components being only about 5%.

Blood Group Antigens

Linguistic and articulatory aspects of single word production in apraxia of speech.

The errors of ten apraxic speakers on a single word task were analyzed to determine the effects of articulatory and linguistic variables on speech production. Results suggested that phoneme difficulty but not phoneme position or grammatical class significantly affected the errors of the subjects. A significant low positive correlation between mean word abstraction and the errors of the apraxic speakers was observed although correlations for the grammatical classes decreased with increases in abstraction. These findings were interpreted to suggest that impaired motor speech programming may be affected by linguistic and articulatory variables.

Adult

College women with differential linguistic-quantitative ability patterns: performance on two visual serial-search tasks.

Two groups of 14 college women, equated on College Entrance Examination Board Scholastic Aptitude Test scores but showing a discrepancy of at least 150 points between the scores on the Verbal and Mathematical Aptitude Test, were compared on two visual serial-search tasks; a 2 X 2 mixed factorial design was used. There was a trend in the direction of more rapid visual serial-search by the low linguistic-high quantitative subjects than for the high linguistic-low quantitative subjects. Consonant with earlier findings, visual serial-search time was significantly faster for number targets than for letter targets. Between ability patterns and target characteristics there was no significant interaction. The need to include more complex visual serial-tracking tasks in any reexamination of the observed results was noted.

Aptitude

Linguistic background and test material considerations in assessing sentence identification ability in English- and Spanish-English-speaking adolescents.

This study investigated the influence of linguistic background differences on sentence identification by groups of English- and Spanish-English-speaking adolescents. Subjects were required to identify recorded meaningful and nonmeaningful (synthetic) sentences presented in a white noise background using a closed message set-response format. The results indicate that linguistic background variables significantly influence sentence identification ability and that these variables are not adequately controlled for by a closed message set. A significant difference in the ability to identify meaningful and nonmeaningful sentences was revealed. Contrary to previous indications, synthetic sentence identification appeared to be contingent upon key work or phrase recognition.

Adolescent

Evaluation of the effects of presentation rate and speaking rate on children's auditory perception of two levels of linguistic material.

Twenty-four first- and second-order sentential approximations of four words each were presented auditorily to two groups of eight normal children. Eight first- and eight second-order approximations were spoken at three rates: 90 (slow); 140 (normal); and 175 (fast) words/min. The 48 approximations were randomized and rates altered as necessary so that one group heard the material at a slow rate (90 words/min) of presentation and the other group at a normal rate (140 words/min) of presentation. The results indicated that although presentation rate did not significantly effect auditory perception, speaking rate did. It was concluded that a slow speaking rate can be expected to enhance the perception of low-level linguistic material regardless of the presentation rate, whereas a normal speaking rate would be best for higher level linguistic material.

Auditory Perception

Congruence of distance matrices based on cranial discrete traits, cranial measurements, and linguistic-geographic criteria in five Alaskan populations.

Biological distances (C.A.B. Smith's Measure of Divergence) based on 25 nonmetric skull variants have been compared with distances (Mahalanobis' D2) based on cranial measurements of four Eskimo populations representing the Yupik subdivision of the Eskaleut linguistic stock, and one Aleut population. The ranking of Measures of Divergence (pooled-sex samples) for ten pairwise comparisons is significantly correlated (Spearman's rs) with both the male and female rankings of the F-values of D2. In addition, the non-metric distances showed stronger concordance than the metric distances with a hierarchy based on linguistic and geographical affinities. These findings indicate that, depending upon the particular battery of variants used, discrete traits provide valid taxonomical information in the study of extinct human populations.

Alaska

Disfluency changes in children as a function of the systematic modification of linguistic complexity.

This investigation determined the influence of modeling on the complexity of language in 5-year-old youngsters, and the effect of simple and complex language usage on the occurrence and topography of disfluency. Forty children balanced for age, sex, and educational level served as subjects, and a repeated measures design was implemented to examine changes in linguistic complexity and disfluency between "simple" and "complex" language modeling conditions. The investigation demonstrated a significant modeling effect and suggested a significant relationship between linguistic complexity and disfluency in children. The results are discussed in terms of grammatical load and its possible effect on speech interruption.

Child Language

A dichotic index of laterality that scores linguistic errors.

The measure of cerebral laterality most commonly used in dichotic listening to detect ear advantages does not take errors into consideration. Experimental data were used to compare the laterality coefficient measure commonly used with a new method which scores error responses using linguistic rules. This new method produced significant results when applied to data for which the traditional measure found no significant effects. This suggests that on dichotic tasks where only one response is required, the traditional method of computing ear asymmetry by excluding errors may overlook a significant amount of information in these responses, information which is recoverable with the linguistically based scoring system.

Adult