El nixtamal preparado con ceniza: Una receta en el rarámuri de Norogachi

Documented oral texts in Uto-Aztecan languages of northern Mexico are scarce in comparison with oral texts in languages from central and southern Mexico. This unavailability of oral texts indicates that documenting these languages is a high priority. This is the case for the Tarahumara/Rarámuri language. The oral text presented here is not the first text in Tarahumara or Rarámuri published in Tlalocan. However, it does represent the first instance in a series of oral texts collected recently, and more importantly, documented by using current methodologies implemented in a documentation project. This contribution to Tlalocan serves as a different written register from narratives in Rarámuri. The text ‘Échi napíwili napisó kítila newáami’ is a sample of a procedural discourse as shown when telling a recipe. This procedure tells us about a cultural practice that used to be more common among Rarámuri people: how to prepare hominy (nixtamal) by using pine ashes. Rarámuri people consider this practice as common among the ki’yawáli ‘the ancestors’ and the ochélame ‘the elders’.

A unified model of post-stroke language deficits including discourse production and their neural correlates

The clinical profiles of individuals with post-stroke aphasia demonstrate considerable variation in the presentation of symptoms. Recent aphasiological studies have attempted to account for this individual variability using a multivariate data-driven approach (principal component analysis) on an extensive neuropsychological and aphasiological battery, to identify fundamental domains of post-stroke aphasia. These domains mainly reflect phonology, semantics and fluency; however, these studies did not account for variability in response to different forms of connected speech, i.e. discourse genres. In the current study, we initially examined differences in the quantity, diversity and informativeness between three different discourse genres, including a simple descriptive genre and two naturalistic forms of connected speech (storytelling narrative, and procedural discourse). Subsequently, we provided the first quantitative investigation on the multidimensionality of connected speech production at both behavioural and neural levels. Connected speech samples across descriptive, narrative, and procedural discourse genres were collected from 46 patients with chronic post-stroke aphasia and 20 neurotypical adults. Content analyses conducted on all connected speech samples indicated that performance differed across discourse genres and between groups. Specifically, storytelling narratives provided higher quantities of content words and lexical diversity compared to composite picture description and procedural discourse. The analyses further revealed that, relative to neurotypical adults, patients with aphasia, both fluent and non-fluent, showed reduction in the quantity of verbal production, lexical diversity, and informativeness across all discourses. Given the differences across the discourses, we submitted the connected speech metrics to principal component analysis alongside an extensive neuropsychological/aphasiological battery that assesses a wide range of language and cognitive skills. In contrast to previous research, three unique orthogonal connected speech components were extracted in a unified model, reflecting verbal quantity, verbal quality, and motor speech, alongside four core language and cognitive components: phonological production, semantic processing, phonological recognition, and executive functions. Voxel-wise lesion-symptom mapping using these components provided evidence on the involvement of widespread cortical regions and their white matter connections. Specifically, left frontal regions and their underlying white matter tracts corresponding to the frontal aslant tract and the anterior segment of the arcuate fasciculus were particularly engaged with the quantity and quality of fluent connected speech production while controlling for other co-factors. The neural correlates associated with the other language domains align with existing models on the ventral and dorsal pathways for language processing.

Automated Proposition Density Analysis for Discourse in Aphasia

Purpose This study evaluates how proposition density can differentiate between persons with aphasia (PWA) and individuals in a control group, as well as among subtypes of aphasia, on the basis of procedural discourse and personal narratives collected from large samples of participants. Method Participants were 195 PWA and 168 individuals in a control group from the AphasiaBank database. PWA represented 6 aphasia types on the basis of the Western Aphasia Battery–Revised (Kertesz, 2006). Narrative samples were stroke stories for PWA and illness or injury stories for individuals in the control group. Procedural samples were from the peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwich task. Language samples were transcribed using Codes for the Human Analysis of Transcripts (MacWhinney, 2000) and analyzed using Computerized Language Analysis (MacWhinney, 2000), which automatically computes proposition density (PD) using rules developed for automatic PD measurement by the Computerized Propositional Idea Density Rater program (Brown, Snodgrass, & Covington, 2007; Covington, 2007). Results Participants in the control group scored significantly higher than PWA on both tasks. PD scores were significantly different among the aphasia types for both tasks. Pairwise comparisons for both discourse tasks revealed that PD scores for the Broca's group were significantly lower than those for all groups except Transcortical Motor. No significant quadratic or linear association between PD and severity was found. Conclusion Proposition density is differentially sensitive to aphasia type and most clearly differentiates individuals with Broca's aphasia from the other groups.

Revealing disciplinary variation in student writing: a multi-dimensional analysis of the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP)

The purpose of this study was to uncover sets of co-occurring, lexico-grammatical features to help to characterise successful student writing. The writing was captured by the Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers (MICUSP, 2009) and was taken from sixteen disciplines. MICUSP is a corpus of A-graded, upper-level student papers of different disciplines and paper types ( O'Donnell and Römer, 2012 ; and Römer and O'Donnell, 2011 ). Following Biber (1988) , we used a multi-dimensional analysis to identify dimensions of frequently co-occurring features that best account for cross-disciplinary variation in MICUSP. The four functional dimensions of MICUSP appear to distinguish between: (1) Involved, Academic Narrative versus Descriptive, Informational Discourse; (2) Expression of Opinions and Mental Processes; (3) Situation-Dependent, Non-Procedural Evaluation versus Procedural Discourse; and (4) Production of Possibility Statement and Argumentation. Along with a description of the methodology, this paper defines the features that constitute the factors, which have been labelled based on their communicative functions. Similarities and differences at the disciplinary and genre-specific levels are discussed as are the implications for discipline-specific and register-based pedagogies.

Modified Response Elaboration Training: Application to Procedural Discourse and Personal Recounts

Purpose This investigation was designed to examine the effects of a modification of response elaboration training (RET; Kearns, 1985) with speakers with mild to mild–moderate aphasia. The modification entailed application of RET to procedural discourse and personal recounts rather than to narrative discourse. Method Three participants with chronic aphasia received modified RET (M–RET) applied sequentially in the context of multiple baseline designs to the conditions of personal recounts and procedural discourse. Production of correct information units (CIUs; Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993) served as the primary dependent variable. Results Participants 2 and 3 demonstrated increases in the production of CIUs in response to treatment of procedures. M–RET applied to the personal recount condition was not associated with increased production of CIUs in personal recounts in probes. However, Participant 1 demonstrated increased CIU production for previously treated procedures when treatment was applied to personal recounts. Small effect sizes were obtained for procedural sets for Participant 1, and large effect sizes were obtained for procedural sets for Participants 2 and 3. Maintenance of gains at 3 and 6 weeks post treatment was strong. Conclusion Application of M–RET to procedural discourse appears to be a viable treatment option for participants with mild to mild–moderate aphasia.