The Effects of Second-Language Acquisition on Verbal Fluency Among Elderly Israelis

CNS Spectrums ◽  
2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (5) ◽  
pp. 377-386 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amir M. Poreh ◽  
Avraham Schweiger
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Phonemic Fluency ◽  
Language Areas ◽  
Fluency Task

ABSTRACTThe present study investigated the effect of age of second-language acquisition (Hebrew) on verbal fluency in a random sample of 196 elderly Israelis from four distinct ethnic groups. Using conventional statistics, it was shown that phonemic fluency, particularly switching, is associated with education and the age of Hebrew acquisition, while semantic fluency, particularly clustering, is associated with age. Ethnic differences were not significant after controlling for the age of Hebrew acquisition and education. Additional analyses show that the tendency of subjects to use borrowed, non-Hebrew words on the phonemic fluency task was associated with lower total scores on this task and later age of Hebrew acquisition. In contrast, the tendency to use non-Hebrew words on the semantic fluency task was associated with age and higher total scores. These findings are discussed with regard to recent functional imaging studies of bilingual subjects. Such findings indicate that native and second languages form distinct areas of activation in the dominant anterior language area, an area often associated with phonemic processing and switching, whereas an overlap of activation of various languages has been demonstrated within the posterior language areas, those that are often associated with semantic processing.

World Englishes, Second Language Acquisition, and Language Contact

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rajend Mesthrie
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learners ◽  
Language Contact ◽  
Second Language Learners ◽  
World Englishes ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Political Dimension ◽  
Second Languages

Although areas of potential overlap between the fields of Second Language Acquisition (SLA) and World Englishes (WE) may seem obvious, they developed historically in isolation from each other. SLA had a psycholinguistic emphasis, studying the ways in which individuals progressed towards acquisition of a target language. WE studies initially developed a sociolinguistic focus, describing varieties that arose as second languages in former British colonies. This chapter explores the way in which each field could benefit from the other. The SLA emphasis on routes of development, overgeneralization, universals of SLA, and transfer in the interlanguage has relevance to characterizing sub-varieties of WEs. Conversely, the socio-political dimension of early WE studies and the notion of macro- or group acquisition fills a gap in SLA studies which sometimes failed to acknowledge that the goal of second language learners was to become bilingual in ways that were socially meaningful within their societies.

scholarly journals Performance of Brazilian children on phonemic and semantic verbal fluency tasks

2011 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 78-84 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helenice Charchat-Fichman ◽  
Rosinda Martins Oliveira ◽  
Andreza Morais da Silva
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
International Studies ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
Phonemic Fluency ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Positive Correlations ◽  
Effect Of Age ◽  
Fluency Task ◽  
Brazilian Children

Abstract The most used verbal fluency paradigms are semantic and letter fluency tasks. Studies suggest that these paradigms access semantic memory and executive function and are sensitive to frontal lobe disturbances. There are few studies in Brazilian samples on these paradigms. Objective: The present study investigated performance, and the effects of age, on verbal fluency tasks in Brazilian children. The results were compared with those of other studies, and the consistency of the scoring criteria data is presented. Methods: A sample of 119 children (7 to 10 years old) was submitted to the three phonemic fluency (F, A, M) tasks and three semantic fluency (animals, clothes, fruits) tasks. The results of thirty subjects were scored by two independent examiners. Results: A significant positive correlation was found between the scores calculated by the two independent examiners. Significant positive correlations were found between performance on the semantic fluency task and the phonemic fluency task. The effect of age was significant for both tasks, and a significant difference was found between the 7- and 9-year-old subjects and between the 7- and 10-year-old subjects. The 8-year-old group did not differ to any of the other age groups. Conclusion: The pattern of results was similar to that observed in previous Brazilian and international studies.

scholarly journals Lateralized Cerebellar Contributions to Word Generation: A Phonemic and Semantic Fluency Study

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 31-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom A. Schweizer ◽  
Michael P. Alexander ◽  
B. A. Susan Gillingham ◽  
Michael Cusimano ◽  
Donald T. Stuss
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Cerebellar Lesion ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
Word Generation ◽  
Phonemic Fluency ◽  
Cerebellar Lesions ◽  
The Right ◽  
Fluency Task ◽  
Neuropsychological Findings

Impairment on verbal fluency tasks has been one of the more consistently reported neuropsychological findings after cerebellar lesions, but it has not been uniformly observed and the possible underlying cognitive basis has not been investigated. We tested twenty-two patients with chronic, unilateral cerebellar lesions (12 Left, 10 Right) and thirty controls on phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. We measured total words produced, words produced in the initial 15 seconds, errors and strategy switches. In the phonemic fluency task, the right cerebellar lesion (RC) group produced significantly fewer words compared to the left cerebellar lesion (LC) group and healthy controls, particularly over the first 15 seconds of the task with no increase in errors and significantly fewer switches over the entire task. In the semantic fluency task there was only a modest decrease in total words in the RC group compared to controls. RC lesions impair fluency with many of the same performance characteristics as left prefrontal lesions. This supports the hypotheses of a prefrontal-lateral cerebellar system for modulation of attention/executive or strategy demanding tasks.

Schizophrenia in Bilingual Immigrants: is Verbal Fluency Preserved in Second Language Acquisition?

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 1681
Author(s):  
D. Smirnova ◽  
J. Walters ◽  
J. Fine ◽  
Y. Muchnik-Rozanov ◽  
M. Paz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Verbal Fluency

scholarly journals A Cross-linguistic Perspective on Questions in German and French Adult Second Language Acquisition

2012 ◽  
Vol 57 (7) ◽  
Author(s):  
Solveig Chilla ◽  
Matthias Bonnesen
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
First Language ◽  
Inflectional Morphology ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Feature Values ◽  
Feature Checking ◽  
Adult Second Language Acquisition

Several studies have been conducted to try and understand and explain the morphological and syntactic aspects of adult second language acquisition (SLA). Two prominent hypotheses that have been put forward concerning late L2 speakers' knowledge of inflectional morphology and of related functional categories and their feature values are the Impaired Representation Hypothesis (IRH) and the Missing Surface Inflection Hypothesis (MSIH). The cross-linguistic comparison of the acquisition of questions in German and French provided in this study offers a new perspective to differences and similarities between first language acquisition (FLA) and adult SLA. Comparing a Germanic and a Romance L2, differing not only in their overall linguistic properties (such as i. e. OV/VO, V2, clitics), but explicitly in the formation and regularities of questions, we present striking similarities in adult SLA, and irrespective of the first and the second languages and of instructed versus non-instructed learning. The investigation of the adult SLA of morphological and structural aspects of questions in French and German strengthens the assumption that the acquisition of morphology and syntax is connected in French and German FLA but is disentangled in adult SLA. Our data reveal variability of question syntax, and with the syntactic position of the verb in particular. Instead of discovering the correct position of the verb at a certain stage of acquisition which can be accounted for by parameter setting in FLA, the adult learners gradually approach the target word order but still exhibit a great deal of variation after several years of exposure to the L2. The findings provided here contradict the predictions of the MSIH (Prévost/White 2000; Ionin/Wexler 2002; among others), for not only morphological features, but syntactic finiteness of finiteness are problematic in adult SLA, and that the Impairment Representation Hypothesis (IRH) (Beck 1998; Eubank 1993/1994; among others) accounts for these differences in first and second language acquisition. IRH and FDH mirror our findings, by predicting the use of (domain-general) strategies instead of agreement or feature checking mechanisms.

Second-Language Acquisition

1989 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 122-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry McLaughlin ◽  
Michael Harrington
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Second Language Learning ◽  
Theoretical Models ◽  
Adequate Model ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Language Knowledge ◽  
The Mind

As H. Douglas Brown pointed out in his review (1980), the field of second language acquisition [SLA] has emerged as its own discipline in the 1980s. A somewhat eclectic discipline, research in SLA involves methodologies drawn from linguistics, sociolinguistics, education, and psychology. Theoretical models are equally diverse (McLaughlin 1987), but in general a distinction is possible between representational and processing approaches (Carroll in press). Representational approaches focus on the nature and organization of second-language knowledge and how this information is represented in the mind of the learner. Processing approaches focus on the integration of perceptual and cognitive Processes with the learner's second-languages knowledge. This distinction is used here for purposes of exposition, although it is recognized that some approaches combine both representational and processing features, as any truly adequate model of second-language learning must.

Clustering and switching strategies in verbal fluency tasks: Comparison between schizophrenics and healthy adults

1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 539-546 ◽  
Author(s):  
PHILIPPE H. ROBERT ◽  
VALÉRIE LAFONT ◽  
ISABELLE MEDECIN ◽  
LAURENCE BERTHET ◽  
SANDRINE THAUBY ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Verbal Fluency ◽  
Healthy Controls ◽  
Semantic Fluency ◽  
Clinical Neuropsychology ◽  
Phonemic Fluency ◽  
Significant Impairment ◽  
Schizophrenic Patients ◽  
Dsm Iv ◽  
Fluency Task

Verbal fluency tasks are frequently used in clinical neuropsychology. Clustering (the production of words within semantic subcategories) and switching (the ability to shift between clusters) have been described as 2 components underlying fluency performance. We compared the use of clustering and switching in schizophrenic patients and healthy subjects. Seventy-eight schizophrenic subjects (DSM–IV criteria) and 64 control participants matched for age and educational level were recruited. Negative, disorganized, and productive clinical dimensions were evaluated using the SANS and SAPS scales. The number of words generated per semantic–phonemic cluster and the number of switches were evaluated during 2 verbal fluency tasks (phonemic and semantic). In the healthy controls switching and clustering were closely related to the total number of words generated in the verbal fluency tests. The role of the 2 components was partly dependent on the specific task. Switching was prevalent in formal fluency, while both switching and clustering contributed to semantic fluency. In comparison to the healthy controls, the overall group of schizophrenic patients showed a significant impairment of switching in the formal fluency task and of both switching and clustering in the semantic fluency task, and both the negative and disorganized dimensions correlated with verbal fluency performance, the number of switches during the phonemic fluency task, and the clustering during semantic fluency task. (JINS, 1998, 4, 539–546.)

Interaction

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Behney ◽  
Susan Gass
Keyword(s):  
Second Language ◽  
Second Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Acquisition ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Corrective Feedback ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Conversational Interaction ◽  
Second Languages ◽  
Negotiation For Meaning ◽  
Interactionist Approach

This Element in the Cambridge Elements in Second Language Acquisition series examines the role of interaction in Second Language Acquisition research, with a focus on the cognitive interactionist approach. The Element describes the major branches of the field, considering the importance of conversational interaction in both the cognitive interactionist framework as well as in sociocultural approaches to second language learning. The authors discuss the key concepts of the framework, including input, negotiation for meaning, corrective feedback, and output. The key readings in the field and the emphases of current and future research are explained. Finally, the authors describe the pedagogical implications that the cognitive interactionist approach has had on the teaching of second languages.

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