Underlying Mechanisms of Change in Spoken Discourse: Close Linguistic Inspection
Date
2009-01
Authors
Fleming, Valarie B.
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Abstract
The purpose of this retrospective study was to examine a corpus of spoken discourse samples and to determine how EF ability contributes to spoken discourse production. The specific aims of the proposed project were to 1) determine the dynamics of the relationships among age, components of EF, and spoken discourse production ability and 2) continuing the investigation of the utility of a spoken discourse production task as a brief assessment of cognitive-communicative ability in normal and pathologically aging adults. Specifically, the research questions were as follows: 1) What are the quantitative and qualitative linguistic characteristics of the spoken discourse of younger and older adults in tasks of varying complexity? 2) What are the differences in younger and older adults in terms of EF as measured by linguistic and nonlinguistic EF tasks? 3) What is the relationship between spoken discourse production and EF in younger and older adults?
Thus far, the data has been transcribed and analyzed in terms of macrolinguistic (i.e., discourse cohesion and coherence) information. The results and paper have been submitted for peer-review and manuscript preparation is underway. Microlinguistic (e.g., morphological and syntactical) analysis are still ongoing. In addition, data from these analysis where used as pilot data in the preparation for the submission of two submitted external grants and for another grant in preparation, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) R15 grant to be submitted June 2010.
Description
Research Enhancement Program Final Report
Keywords
communincation, linguistic analysis, close linguistic inspection
Citation
Fleming, V. B. (2009). Underlying mechanisms of change in spoken discourse: Close linguistic inspection. Research Enhancement Program, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX.