Cross-linguistic perspectives in acquired and developmental language disorders

Pre-course assignment:

Record and transcribe the speech of two or more people engaged in the following types of tasks (select 2 out of 3):

1. Description of a picture, preferably the Cookie Theft picture of the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination

2. A semi-structured biographical interview focusing on a topic of interest to the participant, such as work or school, hobbies, family history or an upcoming event

3. Narration of a well-known story, such as the Little Red Riding Hood

Guidelines: The participants must be native speakers of the language you choose, which can be any language you speak, including English. Try to select people who are either monolingual or without full proficiency in another language. If you have access to patients, we suggest you select a patient with aphasia or dementia and an age- and gender-matched normal control. If you have access to children, you can record either two normal children or a child with delayed language and an age- and gender-matched normal control. Children between 4–8 years of age should provide interesting data. Alternatively, you can select two people of different ages, such as a young child and an adult. You can record more than two people if you are able to. You can encourage personal history narratives with questions and verbal or nonverbal reinforcements. Encourage the participants to speak for at least 5 minutes and try to avoid yes/no questions. When you transcribe the speech of the participant, measure its total duration excluding your input.

Class schedule (week–topic)

1. Student & instructor introduction. Description of assignments. Introduction of syllabus and course topics. Discussion focussing on student background and interests.

READINGS: None

2. Quantitative and qualitative differences and similarities among different languages in the manifestation of developmental and acquired language disorders. An overview of the main issues: the relationship between form and meaning, between grammar and semantics, between lesion site and deficit.

READINGS:

Menn, L., O’Connor, M., Obler, L. K., & Holland, A. (1995). Non-Fluent Aphasia in a Multilingual World (chapter 2, “Describing and comparing languages”, pp. 12-40). John Benjamins.

Grodzinsky Y. (2000). The neurology of syntax: language use without Broca’s area. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 23(1), 1-21: 21-71. Commentaries by Dronkers, Dick & Bates, Kolk & Hartsuiker

3. Sources of linguistic differences that may contribute to the differential expression of language disorders: phonetics and phonology, morphology and syntax. Overview of specific languages. Methodological considerations in cross-linguistic research.

READINGS:

Menn, L., O’Connor, M., Obler, L. K., & Holland, A. (1995). Non-Fluent Aphasia in a Multilingual World (chapter 4, “The grammar of connected agrammatic speech”, pp. 71-116). John Benjamins.

Bates, E., Devescovi, A., & Wulfeck, B. (2001). Psycholinguistics: a cross-language perspective. Annual Review of Psychology 52, 369-96.

4. Cross-linguistic issues in language acquisition I: What are the general principles of acquisition that are revealed by comparison across languages and how do these principles relate to the study of language breakdown? The conceptual bases of grammatical marking. Linguistic experience and speech perception.

READINGS:

Slobin, D. I. (Ed.) (1997). The Cross-linguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol 1 (“Introduction: Why study acquisition cross-linguistically?” pp. 3-24). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Levy, Y. (1997). Autonomous linguistic systems in the language of young children. J Child Lang 24(3), 651-71.

Werker, J.F. (1994).  Cross-language speech perception: Development change does not involve loss.  In J. C. Goodman & H. C. Nusbaum (Eds.) The development of speech perception: The transition from speech sounds to spoken words (Ch. 4, pp. 93–120).

5. Cross-linguistic issues in language acquisition II: Two language examples: Turkish and Hebrew. Implications for language breakdown.

READINGS:

Slobin, D. I. (Ed.) (1997). The Cross-linguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol 1 (chapter 3, “The acquisition of Hebrew”, 255-371). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

Slobin, D. I. (Ed.) (1997). The Cross-linguistic Study of Language Acquisition, Vol 1 (chapter 9, “The acquisition of Turkish”, 839-878). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

6. Specific topics I: Cross-linguistic studies in SLI and dyslexia.

READINGS:

Leonard, L. (1997). Children with Specific Language Impairment (chapter 4, “SLI across languages,” pp. 89-117). Cambridge: MIT Press.

Paulesu, E.et al. (2001). Dyslexia: cultural diversity and biological unity. Science 291(5511), 2064-5.

Landerl, K., Wimmer, H., & Frith, U. (1997). The impact of orthographic consistency on dyslexia: A German-English comparison. Cognition 63(3), 315-334.

7. Specific topics II: Cross-linguistic studies in aphasia

READINGS:

Friederici, A. D., & Gorrell, P. (1998). Structural prominence and agrammatic theta-role assignment: A reconsideration of linear strategies. Brain & Language 65(2), 253-275.

Goral, M. (2001). Aphasia in Hebrew speakers. Journal of Neurolinguistics 14(2-4), 297-312.

8. Conclusions: What cross-linguistic data tell us about language universals and about the organisation of language in the brain. Presentation of student assignments based on analysis of their data.

READINGS:

Menn, L. & Obler, L. K. (1990). Agrammatic Aphasia: a Cross-Language Narrative sourcebook, Vol. 1-3 (chapter 20, “Cross-language data and theories of agrammatism”, pp. 1369-1389). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.