Missing:
MULTILINGUAL APHASIA
KENNETH O. OUMA
EUROPEAN MASTERS IN CLINICAL LINGUISTICS NOVEMBER, 2006
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MULTILINGUAL APHASIA
BY KENNETH O. OUMA
Thesis submitted to the EMCL programme in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of European Masters in Clinical Linguistics
First supervisor:
Professor Ria de Blesser Potsdam Universitat, Germany
Second supervisor:
Professor Reza Nilipour University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation, Iran
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ABSTRACT
There exists thousands of languages in world and therefore there is a very high possibility of meeting aphasic subjects who speak a language other than the one spoken in the clinic in which they are assessed (Paradis, 2001) As a result of this, it is very important to know or become aware of the different manifestations of aphasia in languages other than one’s one. Different factors tend to influence the symptoms in each language, from the phonological and morphosyntactic structure of the language to the frequency of obligatory contexts, the importance of the form for the derivation of meaning, and the degree of redundancy.
This study involved the adaptation of the Bilingual Aphasia Test into Luo, a language spoken in East Africa. It is a highly inflectional language and tonal as well. Afterwards there was the subsequent testing of 30 non-brain damaged multilingual speakers of Luo, Swahili and English using the adapted version of the test.
The results indicated a good performance by the subjects in most tasks which included pointing, simple and semi complex commands, complex commands, semantic categories, synonyms, antonyms, grammaticality judgement, semantic acceptability, repetition of words and non-sense words and lexical decision, series, verbal fluency, naming, sentence constructions, semantic opposites, derivational morphology, morphological opposites, description, mental arithmetic, listening comprehension and translations with minor errors in the verbal auditory discrimination and the syntactic comprehension sections. These results indicate that the adapted version of the test can in future be used on Luo brain damaged subjects.
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My sincere thanks go to the EU Erasmus Mundus consortium for awarding me the scholarship to pursue such an exceptional graduate programme in 2 European countries, Netherlands and Germany respectively. The experience has been one of a kind. Special thanks go to my supervisor Professor Ria De Blesser, Potsdam Universitat for giving me the adequate guidance and moral support I needed during the process of writing my thesis including the therapy practical sessions and Professor Reza Nillipour, University of Social Welfare and Rehabilitation, thank you too for being my second supervisor and providing me with the adequate materials and support during the study.
I am equally indebted to my course lecturers in Groningen Universiteit and Potsdam Universitat for their great professionalism and tutelage during the entire programme. Dr. Roel Jonkers thank you very much for enabling me pursue the programme, Professor Roelien Bastiaanse for opening my eyes into the world of Aphasia and moreso Professor Laurie Stowe for all the guidance on new knowledge on fMRI, ERP, PET, and modern technology.
Big thanks to Anja de Vries, Groningen for making sure we had a smooth life during the programme and Julia Lettow, Potsdam for making sure our problems were solved on time. Thank you fellow “EMCLers”. We had a nice time especially those who were in Gronigen for the second semester. Asante sana for your support and encouragement!
Finally, I would like to thank God the almighty for His eternal grace, love and mercy and without whom all these would not have been possible.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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2 3
4 5
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CHAPTER ONE ............................................................................................................ - 8 1.1 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................. - 8 1.1.1 GENERAL BACKGROUND ON MULTILINGUALISM ............................ - 8 CHAPTER TWO......................................................................................................... - 11 2.1 MULTILINGUAL SITUATION IN KENYA ..................................................... - 11 CHAPTER THREE ..................................................................................................... - 14 3.1 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE LANGUAGES ........................... - 14 3.1.1 ENGLISH ...................................................................................................... - 14 3.1.2 SWAHILI ...................................................................................................... - 17 3.1.3 DHOLUO ...................................................................................................... - 19 3.1.4 SUMMARY ON THE THREE LANGUAGES ........................................... - 22 CHAPTER FOUR ....................................................................................................... - 23 4.1 MULTILINGUAL APHASIA ............................................................................. - 23 CHAPTER FIVE ......................................................................................................... - 25 5.1 BILINGUAL APHASIA TEST............................................................................ - 25 5.1.1 WHAT IS IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT .................................................... - 25 5.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST ........................................................................... - 27 CHAPTER SIX ........................................................................................................... - 30 6.1 ADAPTATION TO LUO ..................................................................................... - 30 6.1.1 THE DIFFERENT SECTIONS OF THE TEST ........................................... - 30 CHAPTER SEVEN ..................................................................................................... - 33 7.1 NOMATIVE DATA ............................................................................................. - 33 7.1.1 STUDY.......................................................................................................... - 33 7.1.2 METHODOLOGY ........................................................................................ - 33 7.1.3 SPONTANEOUS SPEECH .......................................................................... - 33 7.1.4 VERBAL COMPREHENSION .................................................................... - 33 7.1.5 SIMPLE AND SEMI COMPLEX COMMANDS ........................................ - 34 7.1.6 VERBAL AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION ............................................... - 34 7.1.7 SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION ............................................................. - 34 7.1.8 SEMANTIC CATEGORIES ......................................................................... - 34 7.1.9 SYNONYMS ................................................................................................ - 34 7.1.10 ANTONYMS ................................................................................................ - 34 7.1.11 GRAMMATICALITY JUDGEMENT ......................................................... - 35 7.1.12 SEMANTIC ACCEPTABILITY .................................................................. - 35 7.1.13 REPETITION OF WORDS AND NONSENSE WORD, AND LEXICAL DECISION .................................................................................................................. - 35 7.1.14 SERIES.......................................................................................................... - 35 7.1.15 VERBAL FLUENCY ................................................................................... - 35 7.1.16 NAMING ...................................................................................................... - 35 7.1.17 SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION................................................................... - 36 7.1.18 SEMANTIC OPPOSITES............................................................................. - 36 7.1.19 DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY ............................................................ - 36 7.1.20 MORPHOLOGICAL OPPOSITES .............................................................. - 36 7.1.21 DESCRIPTION ............................................................................................. - 36 7.1.22 MENTAL ARITHMETIC............................................................................. - 37 7.1.23 LISTENING COMPREHENSION ............................................................... - 37 7.2 RESULTS ............................................................................................................. - 37 -5-
7.2.1 VERBAL AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION ............................................... - 42 7.2.2 SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION 1 .......................................................... - 43 7.2.3 SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION 2 .......................................................... - 44 7.2.4 DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY ............................................................ - 45 7.2.5 MORPHOLOGICAL OPPOSITES .............................................................. - 46 8 CHAPTER EIGHT ...................................................................................................... - 49 8.1 DISCUSSION ....................................................................................................... - 49 9 BIBLIOGRAPHY ....................................................................................................... - 50 -
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ENGLISH “How many languages are there in the world? More than five billion? Each of us talks, listens, and thinks in his/her own special language that has been shaped by our culture, experiences, profession, personality, and attitudes.”
SWAHILI “Kuna lugha ngapi katika ulimwengu huu? Zaidi ya bilioni tano? Kila mmoja wetu huzungumza, kusikia, na kufikiri katika lugha yake ya kipekee ambayo imeundwa na desturi yetu, yale tumepitia, kazi, tabia na fikira zetu.
LUO “Nitie dhok adi e piny ni? Mang’eny moloyo bilion abich? Ngato ka ngato wachoga, winjoga gi paro e dhok mare makende ma olos gi kweche wa, weche mawakale, tijewa, timbewa gi kaka waparo”
Quotation from an anonymous writer
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1 CHAPTER ONE 1.1 INTRODUCTION 1.1.1 GENERAL BACKGROUND ON MULTILINGUALISM Multilingualism is generally the ability to communicate in more than one language. A multilingual person is anyone who can communicate in more than one language, be it active (through speaking and writing) or passive (through listening and reading). More specifically, the terms bilingual and trilingual are used to describe comparable situations in which two or three languages are involved.
Multilingualism could be generally defined as being native like in two or more languages. It could also be loosely defined as being less native-like but still able to communicate in two or more languages.
Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, which is normally called the first language or L1. First languages (sometimes also referred to as mother tongue) are acquired without formal education. Children acquiring two first languages since birth are called simultaneous bilinguals. Even in the case of simultaneous bilinguals one language usually dominates over the other. This kind of bilingualism is most likely to occur when a child is raised by bilingual parents in a predominantly monolingual environment.
Charlotte Hoffmann (2001) says that most studies involving trilingualism have been carried out within the theoretical framework of bilingualism research. No attempt has been made to delimit trilingualism as a concept in its own right, and often it has been assumed to be an extension of bilingualism. In young children, trilingual language acquisition largely follows the path of bilingual acquisition. With regard to language behaviour there are again similarities, but certain differences can be observed. She also highlights the trilingual’s ability to make appropriate linguistic choices in monolingual/bilingual/trilingual communication modes and observed code-switching. The question of how and when a trilingual’s languages become activated or deactivated leads to a consideration of language processing and metalinguistic awareness. In the
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absence of research involving trilingualism, bilingual models is examined with a view to pointing out possible similarities and differences. It is suggested that these are both of a quantitative and qualitative kind, and therefore trilingual competence is distinct from bilingual competence.
Oksaar (1989) gives the definition of bilingualism as the ability of a person to use two or more languages as a means of communication in most situations and to switch from one language to the other if necessary. Similarly, Skutnabb-Kangas (1984) allows for more than two languages to be present in the person she defines as bilingual. Haugen (1987) refers to multilingualism as a kind of multiple bilingualism. This practice seems not to have been challenged, and studies that involve subjects who were acquiring more than two languages have worked within the theoretical framework of bilingualism with regard to the collection of data as well as its analysis.
Cenoz and Genesee (1998) describe multilingualism as the final result of the process of acquisition of several non-native languages, thereby clearly making it an attribute of the individual, and Jesner (1997) too sees multilingualism as a variant of bilingualism in her discussion of linguistic variability in individuals. Although she writes mainly from a perspective of second language acquisition and bilingualism, she does look beyond at learners acquiring third or fourth languages, and in this context employs the term multilingualism
F. Grosjean (1999) says that most researchers do not agree that bilinguals are those who have a native-like control of two or more languages. Therefore, they have been led to propose other definitions of bilingualism, such as: the ability to produce meaningful utterances in two or more languages, the command of at least one language skill (reading, writing, speaking and listening) in another language, the alternate use of several languages etc.
Therefore this definition includes people ranging from the migrant worker who speaks with some difficulty the host country’s language and who cannot write it, all the way to the professional interpreter who is totally fluent in two languages. In between there is a
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foreign spouse who interacts with friends in his or her first language, the scientist who reads and writes articles in a second language (but who rarely speaks it), the member of a linguistic minority who uses the minority language at home only and the majority language in all other domains of life. Despite the great diversity that exists between these people, all share a common feature: they lead their lives with two (or more) languages.
It is seen that multilingualism is fostered by a variety of reasons. Some of them include migrations of various kinds. For example, economic, educational, political, religious, nationalism and federalism, trade and commerce etc. therefore, these factors create various linguistic needs in people who are in contact with two or more languages and who develop competences in their languages to the extent required by these needs. It is perfectly normall to find bilinguals who can only read and write one of their languages, who have reduced speaking fluency in a language they only use with a limited number of people, or who can only speak about a particular subject in one of their languages.
Thus the world is full of bilingual and multilingual speakers because people interact in various ways as shown on the above examples. It should be noted that there still exists a couple of monolingual speakers too
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2 CHAPTER TWO 2.1 MULTILINGUAL SITUATION IN KENYA Kenya has a population of around 33Million people. It is composed of over 70 different tribal groups who speak different languages. There exists 61 different languages all of which are living languages. The national or official languages are Swahili and English. The literacy rate is 50%. Below is a map showing the distribution of the different languages found in Kenya.
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Most children start their schooling at the age of 5 years. The schooling consists of 1 year of nursery school, 8 years of primary school and 4 years of secondary school and 4 years of Undergraduate degree in a University. The medium of instruction in most institutions of learning in Kenya is English. Swahili is also taught as a compulsory course in primary school. Most first languages are not taught at school but some schools teach the first language in the first three or fours years of primary schooling.
It is noted that there exist tri-lingual speakers of Kiswahili, Dholuo, and English in Kenya due to the following reasons: Children speak Dholuo with their parents when they are at home most of the time. But some parents also prefer to use both Swahili and Luo. In case of parents who speak two different first languages, they normally use both languages besides Swahili when speaking with their children at home. Therefore, by the age of 12 the child will be able to speak the 3 languages besides English.
Children at school speak Swahili or English with their fellow students. This is due to the fact that the different students speak different first languages or mother tongues. Nevertheless, if not at school, the language spoken outside the house with most of the people is always Swahili. For example, it is spoken in shops, buses, streets and any public place etc.
The national (Swahili) and the official (English) languages serve as unifying mediums of communication in the country since they are understood by a broad cross-section of the people. Kiswahili is the general lingua franca spoken by all irrespective of educational or regional background, while English is the official language, normally used as medium of instruction in institutions of learning. Beside these two languages, there are a score of native indigenous languages that are normally acquired as mother tongues and this is what causes the existence of multilingualism in Kenya. Some people, however, speak even more than three languages depending on their demographic and economic requirements.
In the rural areas, the respective indigenous languages are spoken in most social interactions except perhaps when interlocutors speak different indigenous languages or belong to different ethnic groups. This could, for example, be the case with teachers, civil servants or employees of firms, or even business people who for professional reasons are settled in such rural areas. The language often preferred, in this case, for communication with the local inhabitants is Kiswahili. Nevertheless, in most rural areas, children in classes one to three are actually - 12 -
taught how to read and write their indigenous language. In several schools the indigenous languages serve as the main language of instruction. Instruction in these languages, however, stops in class four (and above), where educational focus is moved to Kiswahili and English. English takes on the role of the main language of instruction. In the main towns, the use of the indigenous languages is mostly restricted to the households, within family circles and with close neighbours of the same ethnic background. In many families, however, children often use Kiswahili amongst themselves and the vernacular with their parents or elderly neighbours of the same ethnic group. In some households, however, English is spoken. These are more or less well-to-do families or teachers' families where the parents encourage the children to speak English in a bid to improve their academic performance. Generally speaking, Kiswahili is the most widely used language in Kenya. Having been promoted by the state to serve as lingua franca, it gradually grew to be the language through which the different ethnic groups communicate and one that reflects the common man. It is also taught as a subject in school. Due to the convergence of people from different ethnic backgrounds in towns, Kiswahili has become the main language of communication. Hence most people in the towns learn Kiswahili from childhood and can express themselves in it by the time they get to school. Being a Bantu language, Kiswahili is not so difficult to learn for most people since the majority of Kenyans are Bantu and so use Bantu languages predominantly of the same structure as Kiswahili.
The level of proficiency in terms of speaking, writing, reading or listening which speakers of these languages will have depends mainly on the extent to which they are used by the individual speaker The mother tongue in most cases has the greatest proficiency. Weinreich (1953) suggests that the dominance of a language (i.e. the status or strength of an individual's two or more languages) may be affected by many factors. It may be due to its usefulness and opportunity for communication. Other factors he mentions are age and order of acquisition, degree of emotional involvement, social function as well as literary and cultural value. These factors are also important in the patterns of communication and choice of language in Kenya. And that is why multilingual from all over the country will have a varying degree of proficiency in the three or more languages they know.
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3 CHAPTER THREE 3.1 THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE THREE LANGUAGES There exist various differences between the three languages that are English, Swahili and Luo due to the fact that they originate from different settings. An account of the different characteristics will be discussed in the next paragraphs to show how they differ with each other.
3.1.1 ENGLISH Firstly, English is basically a Teutonic language, being founded upon the speech of the Germanic tribes (Anglos, Saxons and Jutes) who invaded the British Isles in the 15th century AD. In the centuries following the coming of the Germanic tribes to the British Isles, their language was subjected to a variety of influences. Its structures were loosened by the effect of a Danish and French invasion of the British Isles. To its vocabulary were added thousands of Latin, French and Scandinavian word. Spellings and Pronunciation changed; word meanings were modified or extended. There was a gradual change in syntax, in sentence structure. Like Latin, old English was a highly inflected language with an involved system of declensions and conjugations. In the process of change, this system was greatly simplified. The order of words in a sentence not the endings attached to words came to be with few exceptions the determining factor in grammatical function and therefore the meaning. Since that time English has never ceased to grow and change and adapt itself to character of the people who write and speak it.
English is a widely distributed language originating in England and is currently the primary language in several countries, and is the most widely taught and understood language in the world.
An estimated 354 million people speak English as their first language. It is estimated that there are between 150 million and 1.5 billion second language speakers of English. English is the dominant international language in communications, science, business
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aviation, entertainment, diplomacy and the internet. It has been one of the official languages of the United Nations since its founding in 1945. Below is a map showing the distribution of English speaking nations in the world.
English grammar displays minimal inflection compared with most other Indo-European languages. For example, modern English, unlike German or Dutch and the Romance languages, lacks grammatical gender and adjectival agreement. Also there is a minimum amount of case marking which exists only in pronouns. The patterning of strong (e.g. speak/spoke/spoken) versus weak verbs inherited from Germanic has declined in importance and the remnants of inflection (such as plural marking) have become more regular.
It is noted that English has a very poor inflection and the language has developed a greater reliance on features such as modal verbs and word order to convey grammatical information. Auxiliary verbs are used to mark constructions such as questions, negatives, the passive voice and progressive tenses.
In terms of vocabulary, Germanic words such as pronouns and conjunctions tend to be shorter that the Latinate words of English, and more common in ordinary speech. The longer Latinate words are regarded by many as more elegant or educated. An English speaker is often able to choose between Germanic and Latinate synonyms: “come” or “arrive”; “sight” or “vision”: “freedom” or “liberty”. Often there is a choice between a Germanic word (oversee), a Latin word (supervise) and a French word derived from the same Latin word (survey). The richness of the language arises from the variety of different meanings synonyms have from each other, - 15 -
enabling the speaker to express fine variations of shades of thought. Another exceptional aspect peculiar to the English language is the fact that nouns for meat are commonly different from, and unrelated to, those for the animals they are produced, the animal commonly having a Germanic name and the meat having a French-derived one. Examples include; deer and venison; cow and beef: or swine/pig or pork. This is assumed to be a result of the aftermath of the Norman invasion, where French speaking elite were the consumers of meat, produced by English-speaking lower classes.
In everyday speech, the majority of words will normally be Germanic. If a speaker wishes to make a forceful point in an argument in a very blunt way, Germanic words will usually be chosen. A majority of Latinate words (or at least a majority of content words) will normally be used in more formal speech and writing such as a courtroom or an encyclopedia article. However, there are other Latinate words that are used normally in everyday speech and do not sound formal: these are mainly words for concepts that no longer have Germanic words, and are generally assimilated better and in many cases do not appear Latinate. For instance, the Words Mountain, valley, river aunt, uncle, push and stay are all Latinate.
English easily accepts technical terms into common usage and imports new words and phrases which often come into common usage. Examples of this phenomenon include: cookie, internet, and URL, as well as genre, über, lingua franca and amigo (imported words/phrases, from French, German, modern Latin and Spanish, respectively) in addition, slang often provides new meanings for old words and phrases.
The vocabulary of English is noted to be a very vast one. Unlike other languages, there is no academy to define officially accepted words. Neologisms are coined regularly in medicine, science and technology and other fields and new slang is constantly developed. Some of these new words enter wide usage while others remain restricted to small circles. Foreign words used in immigrant communities often make their way into wider English usage. For example “safari” which means journey in Swahili has been adopted to the English dictionary.
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3.1.2 SWAHILI Turning on to Swahili (also know as Kiswahili), we find that it is spoken by an estimated 50 million people and it is the second largest widely spoken language after Arabic in Africa. It is the official language of Tanzania and Kenya and is used extensively in Uganda and the Eastern provinces of Zaire. In Burundi and Rwanda, it is known and used in major urban towns, but is not widely known or extensively used in the monolinguistic countryside. The map below shows a rough sketch of the areas where Swahili is spoken in East Africa (shaded in yellow)
Despite the large number of speakers and the huge area in which the language is spoken, Swahili has approximately 5 million native speakers, most of who live along the East African coast of southern Somalia, Kenya, Tanzania, Northern Mozambique and on the offshore islands of Lamu, Zanzibar and Pemba. Most Speakers in Tanzania and Kenya acquire Swahili as a second language, being native speakers of other African languages. Many speakers of Swahili (up country) speak two or more other languages, and use Swahili as a lingua franca.
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A growing number of first language speakers, however, live in the urban areas of East Africa, where inter-ethnic communities prevail. The Swahili language is basically of Bantu origin. It has borrowed words from other languages such as Arabic probably as a result of the Swahili people using the Quran written in Arabic for spiritual guidance as Muslims.
As regards the formation of the Swahili culture and language, some scholars attribute this phenomenon to the intercourse of African and Asiatic people on the coast of East Africa. The word “Swahili” was used by early Arab visitors to the coast and it means “the coast”. They say that it originates from Arabs and Persians who moved to the East African coast for purposes of trade and other activities.
In terms of orthography, it is seen that Swahili uses the Roman-based alphabet for writing since the mid-nineteenth century. It was adopted and regularized into a standard orthography in the 1930s. Some of the older generations of speakers along the coast and on the coastal Islands still use the Arabic-based orthography, but it is not being learned by the young generation anymore.
Swahili uses the SVO sentence pattern sequence. For example, Maria anasoma kitabu (Mary is reading a book). Pronouns however, have a different pattern, which is SOV. For example, anakitupa (she throws it). Swahili is an agglutinative language, that is, grammatical information is conveyed by attaching prefixes and suffixes to roots and stems. For example,
taka –to want
anataka-he/she wants
analitaka-he/she wants it
angalilitaka-had he/she wanted it
As in other Bantu languages, nouns are divided into sets or classes, referred to as grammatical genders. Each gender has two distinct prefixes, one marking singular nouns, the other plural nouns. There are numerous classes far exceeding the masculine, feminine and neuter classifications of familiar European languages and each class is roughly associated with certain semantic characteristics; for instance, there are classes for human beings, animals, plants, artifacts, long objects, abstract concepts, and so on. For example, in human beings mbefore the noun represents one person (“mtu” man), wa- represents more than one or plural
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(“watu” men), ki- before nouns represent a small thing (“kitoto” tiny baby) and ji- represents a huge thing (“jitoto” huge baby), ku- represents an activity (“kulia” to cry) and u-represents abstractness (“u-erevu” cleverness, “u-zuri” goodness) and so on.
Verbs are complex; a system of affixes marks various grammatical relations, such as subject, object, tense, aspect, and mood. A typical affirmative complex verb form consists of a subject prefix, tense/aspect marker, optional relative pronoun, optional object marker, verb root, and several optional suffixes (called verbal extensions) that define argument roles such as causative, passive, stative, and reciprocal, plus a final vowel to signal the indicative mood. There is a system of concordial agreement in which subject nouns, object nouns optionally, and other sentence constituents must agree with the verb of the sentence in class and number. Adjectives, possessive pronouns and demonstratives also agree in class and number with the noun they modify.
The phonology of Swahili is characterized by a simple vowel inventory and consonant inventory. Somewhat unusual sounds are the implosives. Unlike other Bantu languages, it is not a tone language; stress is typically placed on the penultimate syllable. The typical Bantu structure of the language plus its extensive stock of vocabulary that is Bantu in origin, demonstrate that although Swahili has borrowed a large number of Arabic words, it remains a distinctly African language. In the modern era, it has borrowed extensively from English. There are also a lot of borrowed words from Portuguese which dates back to the 16th and 17th centuries.
3.1.3 DHOLUO Finally, Luo or Dholuo is a Nilotic language related to Acholi and Lang’o of Uganda and Alur of Democratic Republic of Congo. There exist at least 3.5 million speakers of Luo in Kenya. It is spoken in the south western part of Kenya. The circled area on the map below indicates the regions where Luo is spoken in East Africa.
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It belongs to a Nilotic tribe which includes other languages like Acholi, Lang’o, Alur and Padhola although there is very little difference between these different dialects and these are confined to matters of vocabulary and pronunciation rather than structure. Luo is a tonal Language whereby most of the items can only be differentiated through the use of different tones. For example words like the ones shown below can only be distinguished through the different variations in tones. “tho”
to die,
“tho” dew,
“tho” amazement
Luo borrows from Swahili as well as other foreign languages like English and German. Examples include words like “sendi” cent, “buk” book etc. It is a highly inflectional language in that words are inflected in different ways to bring about different meanings. For example, “kao” take can be inflected to “nokawe” took to indicate past tense. The normal English alphabet is used for the language except q,v,x and z which do not exist in the language.
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Luo sentences are of the order SVO. For example, “John dhi e mtoka” John is going to the car. There are two aspects of the verb: the Incomplete Aspect for an action still in progress (and also for a regular or habitual action) and the Complete Aspect for a simple action completed at the time of reference. When the subject of the verb is a pronoun, these two aspects can only be distinguished tonally. For example Gi-chiemo may mean they are eating or they have just eaten But when the subject is a noun, o- is prefixed to the verb in the complete aspect only. For example, “Ji ochiemo” the people have just eaten
Also it is noted that when a pronoun is the object of the verb, the order is still subject, verb, object and a shortened form of the pronoun is suffixed to the verb. The final –o of the verb is usually dropped before the singular pronouns. For example, “Akele” I am bringing it (the verb being kelo)
The noun phrases normally assume a reversible order with their English counterparts as shown on the tree diagram below. ENGLISH
DHOLUO
NP
Det
NP
N
AP
Deg
The
very
N
N
N
A
beautiful house
Ot
Det
AP
A
Deg
maber
ahinya
ni
Reduplication is another common feature in Luo whereby a word is repeated twice, the second time with an a at each end. In verbs it is used to state that an action is simply or merely being carried out. For example, “Dhi adhiya nyime” just keep on going, or “wachandore achanda” we are merely troubling ourselves
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3.1.4 SUMMARY ON THE THREE LANGUAGES Language
English
Swahili
Luo
Language type
Analytic
Agglutinative
Inflectional
Structure
SVO
SVO but SOV when
SVO
pronouns are used
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4 CHAPTER FOUR 4.1 MULTILINGUAL APHASIA Aphasia is a disorder that results from the damage to language centres of the brain. For almost all right handers and about ½ of left handers, damage to the left side of the brain causes Aphasia. It usually occurs as a result of a stroke or head injury or may as well develop slowly as in the case of a brain tumor. The disorder involves aspects of language comprehension and/or expression. There exists different kinds of aphasia; however, Broca's aphasia and Wernicke's aphasia are the most widely studied aphasic syndromes. Broca's aphasia results from damage to the lower part of the left frontal lobe which is situated on the front portion of the language dominant side of the brain and Wernicke's aphasia on the other hand results from damage to the Wernicke’s area in the (Brodman Area 22, in the posterior part of the superior temporal gyrus of the dominant hemisphere.
Individuals with Broca's aphasia may speak in short, meaningful sentences. They often omit small words such as "as," "and," and "the." Persons with Wernicke's aphasia may speak in long sentences that have no meaning and often add unnecessary words and create new words. Patients with Broca's aphasia are able to comprehend much of speech, but patients with Wernicke's aphasia have notable difficulties understanding speech. The other third type of aphasia, global aphasia, results from damage to a large portion of the language dominant side of the brain. Individuals with global aphasia have major
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communication difficulties and may be extremely limited in their ability to speak or comprehend language. Most people in the world have the knowledge of more than one language and therefore multilingual aphasia is very important aspect to be considered in the field of research in Clinical and theoretical Neurolinguistics. Assessing multilingual aphasics is therefore a very important factor to be considered.
Johann Gesner (1770) probably provided the first description of dissociation in reading ability in different languages in a bilingual patient, who after brain damage was able to read Latin but not German. In 1843, Jacques Lordat (1773-1870) [4], professor of anatomy and physiology in Montpellier, reported the case of a bilingual (Occitan and French) priest, a native of Languedoc in Southern France who was apparently affected by a massive selective deficit in French, whereas his Occitan was unaffected. Lordat also gave first autobiographical account of ‘differential dyslexia’,
It is noted that clinical studies have since shown that multilingual aphasics do not necessary manifest the same language disorders with the same degree of severity in all languages. Also the patterns of recovery in these patients do differ. Many studies have illustrated striking individual cases, culminating in Pitre’s law (1895)- recovery of the most familiar language in contrast to Ribot’s law which emphasises on the recovery of the native language.
There exists a theory which says that a bilingual system comprises two specific lexical systems linked to a common semantic system (de Groot, 1992). Therefore according to this theory, the conceptual system representations for words are stored in a common, nonlanguage specific system which is linked to separate, language defined lexical systems. The second theory draws on the similarities between bilinguals and monolinguals and suggests that the bilingual system is the same as the monolingual system. According to this theory, boundaries in the bilingual language system are not governed by language but by the morphology, that is by similarity in form and meaning (Kirsner, Lalor, & Hird, 1993)
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5 CHAPTER FIVE 5.1 BILINGUAL APHASIA TEST 5.1.1 WHAT IS IT IS AND WHAT IT IS NOT The usefulness of the Bilingual Aphasia Test for diagnostic purposes is important in a couple of way. For example when the language of the hospital environment is almost non available to the patient, it is important to determine whether another language may serve as a means of communication. Only when both or more languages have been tested can one ascertain which language is better retained or less impaired. Deficits may be observable in one of the patient’s languages and they may be suggestive of the general locus and extent of cerebral damage and would go unnoticed if the better preserved language happened to be that of the hospital environment and if the other language were not tested. In both cases the results may help one to decide in which language the patient should receive speech therapy.
The systematic use of the test first serves to determine under what conditions therapy in one language has beneficial or detrimental effects on the other and thus, when it is advisable to prescribe therapy in one or both.
The Bilingual Aphasia Test is not designed to differentiate aphasia from syndromes of confusion, dementia or psychosis, but to determine whether performance in one language is better than in another and if so to what extend and in what language skill and or levels of linguistic structure. Its not also designed to discriminate between types of aphasia. However it can be used as a screening instrument since it incorporates most of the tasks generally used for that purpose. Therefore it is expected that the Bilingual Aphasia Test will be used to assess the residual language of unilingual aphasics in countries where no standardized test is available for that language.
The test also explores a number of aspects of most levels of language structure (phonemic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic) and language use (comprehension, repetition, judgment, propositionizing, reading, writing) in most modalities (auditory, visual, oral) with the word, the sentence, and the paragraph as units of analysis. Thus it covers most of the performances that may be distributed.
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The Bilingual Aphasia Test is not an assessment of functional communication, but of specifically linguistic abilities in each of the patient’s language. It measures the patient’s languages and the patient’s residual linguistic competence as reflected in his/her linguistic performance. The test does not measure the patient’s use of language mixing as a communicative strategy. What is does measure is the patient’s ability to use each language in a unilingual setting.
Because of premobid reading habits and educational achievent are likely to have a greater impact on reading and writing, tasks are restricted to 10 concrete words, 10 sentences, a short paragraph, 5 concrete words for copying and 5 concrete words and 5 sentences for dictation. Scores on these sections are nevertheless not compared across languages if the patient was illiterate or quasi literate in one of them prior to insult. And also because patients differ from each other on a number of variables, they should not be compared to each other for the purpose of determining who recovers better.
It should be noted that because two languages can be affected differentially, testing in one language only cannot assess severity of aphasia. Hence, for clinical as well as research purposes, more important than how low a patient scores on a given version of the test is whether one language is more readily available than another, and if so, which one; and whether performance is significantly lower in one language than in another.
In the BAT, language is tested at various levels of spontaneity and formality ranging from extemporaneous speech to descriptive speech and from sentence construction on request to metalinguistic grammatical transformations in accordance with a set of instructions and examples. For instance, in extemporaneous speech (spontaneous speech, 514-539) the patient is called upon to “propositionize” (Jackson, 1878), that is, to generate sentences from scratch, using what Chomsky (1965) calls the creative aspect of language use, i.e. the production of sentences without being given a structural model or vocabulary (as could be provided by questions addressed to the patient. The test is not intended to be used only with “true”, “perfect”, or “ideal” bilinguals, i.e. with individuals who “possess the full range of competence in both languages that a native unilingual speaker has in one”, assuming that such individuals can be found. But neither is it
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intended to be used with persons who have only “minimal knowledge of a second language”. It may be used with any person who has a “practical command of two languages” (Lehmann, 1983, p. 170)
5.2 DESCRIPTION OF THE TEST The bilingual aphasia test uses a quadrimodal, linguistically multidimensional approach. It is quadrimodal because it examines language performance in all four modalities, which include hearing, speaking, reading and writing. It is linguistically multidimensional in that, for each modality, language performance is investigated along three dimensions and these are:
Linguistic level: Phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, semantic
Linguistic task: comprehension, repetition, judgement, lexical access, propositionizing
Linguistic unit : word, sentence, paragraph
This approach allows one to detect task specific or task independent, modality-specific or modality-independent deficits in syntax (or any other aspect of linguistic structure, as well as task- or modality- specific
(or independent) deficits at the level of the paragraph, the
sentence, or the word in each of the patient’s languages. The table overleaf shows Linguistic units of analysis by modality.
- 27 -
TASK
WORD
SENTENCE
PARAGRAPH
Comprehension
A-V
A-V
A-V
Repetition
A-V (copying)
A
Judgement
A
Grammaticality A semantic acceptability
Production
Modality:
A-V (naming)(reading
A-V
A-V (spontaneous
aloud)(writing under
(construction)(reading
speech; story
dictation)
aloud)
writing) (description)
A = Auditory & Speech V= Visual: reading & writing
The test comprises 32 subtests which can be grouped to obtain a number of measures of specific abilities, the oral and visual modalities. Measures in the oral and visual modalities may be obtained separately or in combination (separately if one of the modalities is obviously selectively impaired, in combination if there is no significant difference in performance in each modality.
The test has been constructed in such a way that each modality can be examined with minimal interference from other modalities. Performance on a given task can be compared with performance on the same task in each modality. It is thus possible to establish whether the deficit is modality specific or central.
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It is also noted that every task involves all levels of linguistic structure. However, each task may require greater involvement of a particular level, and when other factors are controlled; each task may measure one specific ability (e.g. syntactic comprehension). Phonemic, syntactic and semantic aspects of comprehension are assessed separately. Though many items (in particular writing sentences to dictation) presuppose comprehension, it is not comprehension per se that is tested in these items.
The 32 subtests have a separate score, and scores are combined into sections (comprehension, syntax, writing etc). Because more than one ability may be involved in any given subtest, the score obtained on a subtest maybe included in the computation for more than one skill. For a given patient the score obtained in each language for the whole test, for each of the 32 subtests, or for each skill may be compared. The performance in any of the three of the patient’s languages may be compared along a number of dimensions in which scores may overlap. Each dimension may be of interest for diagnostic or research purposes. In spontaneous speech and cartoon strip description, different aspects of performance may enter into the assessment of a particular ability.
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6 CHAPTER SIX 6.1 ADAPTATION TO LUO The bilingual aphasia test has never been adapted to Luo. Therefore, that was the first step that had to be done before carrying out the test on normals. This was done through the translation of the entire Swahili version. Most of the entire Swahili version was compatible with Luo.
6.1.1 THE DIFFERENT SECTIONS OF THE TEST The Swahili version is generally divided into three sections. The first section includes the history of bilingualism of the patient. In this section, information concerning the how many languages the patient spoke before the insult is derived. And this is acquired through the use of different kinds of general questions concerning him or her and the entire languages they spoke at the various stages in their life. The translation of this section was direct because it involved writing the same questions but in Luo.
The second section includes the background of the Luo language. A couple of questions are to be answered by the patient concerning his/her ability to use Luo as one of his/her languages. It includes different sections though as shown below.
Spontaneous speech
Verbal comprehension
Pointing
Simple and semi complex commands
Complex commands
Verbal auditory discrimination
Syntactic comprehension
Semantic categories
Synonyms
Antonyms
Grammaticality judgement
Semantic acceptability
Repetition of words and nonsense word, and lexical decision - 30 -
Series
Verbal fluency
Naming
Sentence construction
Semantic opposites
Derivational morphology
Morphological opposites
Description
Mental arithmetic
Listening comprehension
An important factor to note is that the reading and writing section were not included in the Luo version since speakers do not learn to read and write the language in school.
Most of the sections were translated directly from Swahili to Luo. And one thing to be noted though is that it was not merely a translation from Swahili to Luo. There was a need to make them have a linguistically equivalent transposition with each other. In addition to cultural appropriateness, each section in the Luo language was adapted to reflect a similar level of linguistic complexity, frequency, and naturalness of as in every other aspect of the languages. Though the nature of the equivalence between elements varies with the type of task involved
However, some items or phrases had to be done away with or modified since some of them are not present in the Luo language. For example, some of the pictures had to be replaced, like snow which does not exist in Luo grammar.
In the verbal auditory discrimination section, all the pictures had to be replaced since a set of new minimal pairs were developed. Thus a set of new pairs of pictures were constructed through the set of minimal pairs. The pictures had to be equivalent to the language as mentioned on the previous paragraph. Thus, it would be impossible to use the picture of a bear since there are no bears in the Luo environment.
However, turning on to the syntactic section we find the most of the pictures remained the same except for some pictures which had to be left out especially those depicting the presence of gender in the sentence because there is no gender in Luo.
- 31 -
The last section included translations. This involved translations between the languages. For example, English to Dholuo and vice versa and Swahili to Dholuo and vice versa. Subjects were required to give various types of translations which included translation of words, sentences and grammaticality judgement.
- 32 -
7 CHAPTER SEVEN 7.1 NOMATIVE DATA 7.1.1 STUDY A group of normal multilingual native speakers of Swahili, Luo and English were examined using the adapted Luo version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test. These subjects came from different places and this included Berlin, Potsdam and England.
Most of them were right handed except for two who were left handed. The subjects had to have had at least 12 years of schooling in Kenya. And this was important because it indicated their level of proficiency in the three languages as indicated in chapter two. Subjects ranged from the age of 20 to 55 years of age and they were required to have come from the Western part of Kenya where the community Luo speakers exists.
It is also noted that the subjects who had no history of neurological or psychiatric problems were matched not for age but, language, education and occupation. The adapted version of the Bilingual Aphasia Test was administered to each of the subjects.
7.1.2 METHODOLOGY The examiner of the test was me and it was done on a one to one basis with the subjects. So responses were recorder immediately they were received from the subject. And the tasks included as outlined below:
7.1.3 SPONTANEOUS SPEECH This was carried out by listening to the subject’s spontaneous speech on any topic, for example his/her work, his/her family. The function of this section of the test is to obtain a sample of the subject’s spontaneous speech, and to allow the test administrator to establish a comfortable testing atmosphere.
7.1.4 VERBAL COMPREHENSION In this section, the subject is required to act out some command that he/she hears. The commands should be read slowly and clearly with normal intonation. Different materials are arranged in front of the subject from left to right so that he/she is able to touch each individual item.
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7.1.5 SIMPLE AND SEMI COMPLEX COMMANDS Some commands were administered to the subject and their response recorded. This included simple commands like, “please close your eyes” or “put the fork in the glass” to complex commands like “here are three pieces of paper: give me the small one, put the middle sized one on your lap, and throw away the large one”
7.1.6 VERBAL AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION In this section the subject had to touch the picture which best represented the word which he/she heard. The pictures were identified by the number on the top right-hand corner of each frame.
7.1.7 SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION Here the subjects had to touch the picture which best represented the idea expressed in the sentence read to him/her. The sentences had to be read with a normal intonation.
7.1.8 SEMANTIC CATEGORIES This involved the subjects being able to identify a word in a group of a total of four words which did not belong to that entire group. For example they would hear four words like hat, glove, elephant and shirt and would be required to choose shirt since it does not belong to the group.
7.1.9 SYNONYMS Single words were uttered to the subjects and they were asked to give another word which had a similar meaning. For example they would be given a word like “jacket” and then given four choices “table”, “house”, “coat”, “car” and were required to choose “coat” because its meaning was most similar to “jacket”
7.1.10 ANTONYMS This section was abit different to the one above. The subjects were required to choose the word had the OPPOSITE meaning. So for example they would hear the word “down2 and four choices “house”, “up”, “under”, “big” and would choose “up” because its meaning was most opposite to the meaning of down.
- 34 -
7.1.11 GRAMMATICALITY JUDGEMENT This section involved the subjects being able to tell whether the sentences read to them were correct Luo sentences. The examiner would for example expect the subject to say “the boy sits on a chair” was a correct sentence as opposed to “the boy on a chairs sit”
7.1.12 SEMANTIC ACCEPTABILITY These sentences were all correct Luo sentences but some of them did not make sense. They were read to the subjects and they were to say whether they made sense or not. For example, they would say this sentence “she cuts her hair with a pencil” was incorrect because it did not make any sense. But would say “she cuts her hair with scissors” makes sense.
7.1.13 REPETITION OF WORDS AND NONSENSE WORD, AND LEXICAL DECISION In this section the subjects were being tested on two abilities. Firstly the ability to repeat words and secondly the ability to tell whether what he/she hears is a word. So for each item the word was read to the subject and he/she was expected to repeat it. After doing the repetition, they were asked whether they were real words in Luo. For example “chay” is not a real word
7.1.14 SERIES The subjects were simply asked to recite a series. This included for example days of the week, counting one to twenty five and naming all the months of the year.
7.1.15 VERBAL FLUENCY This section was meant to test the subject’s ability to recite words beginning with a particular sound. Most important was the number of words the subject could produce within a minute. For example they would be asked to produce all words beginning with the sound “P”
7.1.16 NAMING Subjects were required to name the objects shown to them. The objects were expected to be out of the subject’s sight before being presented.
- 35 -
7.1.17 SENTENCE CONSTRUCTION The requirement in this section was that the subjects create a sentence using the words that were read to them. Major points to note included
Whether the subject responded at all
Whether the sentences were correct Luo sentences
Whether the sentences made sense
Whether he/she used all the words that were read to him/her
The number of words used in the sentence
7.1.18 SEMANTIC OPPOSITES In this section the subjects were required to respond with a word that meant the opposite of the stimulus word. The response was correct if its meaning was opposite to, but not morphologically related to the stimulus word. So in this section, given the stimulus “true”, the response “untrue” would be wrong because despite having an opposite meaning, it was not a different word.
7.1.19 DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY Subjects would hear a word and were in effect required to change the word into an adjective. So for example they would hear the word “softness” and would change it to soft
7.1.20 MORPHOLOGICAL OPPOSITES These set of words the subjects needed to make them opposite but without changing the actual words. So for example a word like “polite” would yield “impolite”
7.1.21 DESCRIPTION Here the subjects were shown a cartoon strip and were required to tell the story. They were to recite the story in a maximum period of two minutes. There was a total set of six pictures. There after the total amount of speech was to be ascertained.
- 36 -
7.1.22 MENTAL ARITHMETIC Some mental arithmetic was required here. The subjects were required to do some small calculations within a maximum of ten seconds.
7.1.23 LISTENING COMPREHENSION A story was read to the subjects and later on a set of five questions was asked concerning the story they had heard.
7.2 RESULTS Below are the results of the overall performance of the 30 subjects on section B of the test excluding the three sections namely, sentence constructions, description section and verbal fluency which have been put on a separate table. Please see overleaf for tables:
- 37 -
TABLE 1
RESULTS OF THE 30 SUBJECTS ON SECTION B OF THE TEST
TASK
K W
W O
N A
G O
P O
E A
E L
J A
A A
R O
N A
D O
B
L A
T B
M A
P W
J A
S O
M
J A
L A
S N
M O
S A
G A
H V
M K
SW
TOTAL REQUIRED
10
O A Z 10
POINTING
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
SIMPLE AND SEMI COMPLEX
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10 10
COMPLEX COMMANDS
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
VERBAL AUDITORY
18
17
18
16
18
18
18
17
18
18
18
17
18
18
17
18
17
18
18
18
18
17
16
18
18
18
17
18
18
18
45
45
45
45
44
45
43
45
45
45
45
44
45
45
45
45
45
44
45
45
45
45
44
45
45
45
45
45
45
43
42
42
42
42
42
42
41
42
42
42
42
42
42
42
40
42
42
42
42
42
42
41
42
42
42
41
42
42
42
42
45 42
SEMANTIC CATEGORIES
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
SYNONYMS
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
ANTONYMS
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
GRAMMATICALITY JUDGEMENT
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
SEMANTIC ACCEPTABILITY
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
REPETITION OF WORDS/NON
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
37
SERIES
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
3
NAMING
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
SEMANTIC OPPOSITES
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
MORPHOLOGICAL OPPOSITES
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
9
10
10
10
9
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
MENTAL ARITHMETIC
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
15
LISTENING COMPREHENSION
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
3 20 10 10 10 15 5
COMMANDS
5 18
DISCRIMINATION SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION1
2
WORDS AND LEXICAL DECISION
- 38 -
TABLE
RESULTS OF THE 30 SUBJECTS INDICATING THE NUMBER OF WORDS USED
2
5
5
5
5
5
O A Z 5
289*
3
3
3
3
3
4
4
3
4
3
3
3
3
3
4
3
4
3
4
3
3
3
3
3
4
3
3
3
3
4
294
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
299
5
5
5
5
4
4
4
5
5
4
4
5
5
5
4
5
4
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
4
5
4
5
304
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
4
309
7
6
7
7
7
7
7
7
6
6
6
7
7
7
7
7
7
6
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
7
SENTENCE CONSTRUCTIONS (No of words used)
K W
W O
N A
G O
P O
E A
E L
J A
A A
R O
N A
D O
B
L A
T B
M A
P W
J A
S O
M
J A
L A
S N
M O
S A
G A
H V
M K
SW
TOTAL REQUIRED
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
5
*Respective numbering on the test
NB: In this section subjects were required to construct sentences using the words that had been given to them respectively. For example, they could construct a sentence using man/chair/sitting as “The man is sitting on the chair”. The table indicates a perfect result by the subjects on this section.
289. Subjects constructed the correct sentence but using different patterns (some of them used 3 while others preferred to use 4 words). See examples Below: “Paka nie ot”
or
“Paka nie i ot”
Cat in house
cat inside house
The cat is in the
The cat is inside the house
Which are both correct in Luo - 39 -
TABLE 3
NUMBER OF WORDS UTTERED BY SUBJECTS
TASK
VERBAL FLUENCY (Number of words from subjects)
K W
W O
N A
G O
P O
E A
E L
J A
A A
R O
N A
D O
B
L A
T B
M A
P W
J A
S O
M
J A
L A
S N
M O
S A
G A
H V
M K
SW
% correct
6
O A Z 6
264
5
5
6
5
6
6
6
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
5
5
5
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
6
100%
266
7
7
7
7
7
8
8
7
8
7
7
7
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
7
7
7
8
8
8
8
8
8
100%
268
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
7
7
8
8
8
8
8
7
8
8
8
8
8
8
8
7
7
8
8
8
8
100%
The subjects performed very well in this section as well. They were able to produce the number or verbs required in the given duration of time they were supposed to do it.
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As can be seen on table 1, we find that there was a perfect performance by the subjects on the following sections: pointing, simple and semi complex commands, complex commands, semantic categories, synonyms, antonyms, grammaticality judgement, semantic acceptability, repetition of words and non-sense words and lexical decision, series, Verbal auditory discrimination, naming, sentence constructions, semantic opposites, description, mental arithmetic, and listening comprehension. These have been summarized in the table below.
Task
Percentage score
Pointing%
100
Simple and semi complex commands%
100
Complex commands%
100
Semantic categories%
100
Synonyms%
100
Antonyms%
100
Grammaticality judgement%
100
Semantic acceptability%
100
Repetition of words and non-sense words and lexical decision %
100
Series%
100
Naming %
100
Sentence constructions%
100
Semantic opposites%
100
Description%
100
Mental arithmetic%
100
Listening comprehension%
100
Below is the statistical analysis of the verbal auditory discrimination, syntactic comprehension 1 & 2, derivational morphology and morphological opposites sections respectively.
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7.2.1 VERBAL AUDITORY DISCRIMINATION Descriptive Statistics N Minimum Maximum VERBAUD I Valid N (listwise)
30
16
18
Mean
Std. Deviation 17.63 .615
30
30
20
10
Std. Dev = .61 Mean = 17.63 N = 30.00
0 16.00
16.50
17.00
17.50
18.00
VERBAUDI
¼ of 17.63 = 4.4075 2 of 0.615 = 1.23
As can be seen from the above histogram, the subjects performed well on the task. No more than a quarter of the values had more than 2 standard deviations from the mean. There were some errors found nevertheless and this can be termed minor since some subjects lost concentration during the test and some could simply point to a wrong picture because they were not keen on the correct answer. The good performance by majority of the subjects indicates the pictures were legible and understandable to the subjects.
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7.2.2 SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION 1 Descriptive Statistics N Minimum Maximum SYNCOM PR Valid N (listwise)
30
43
45
Mean
Std. Deviation 44.73 .583
30
30
20
10
Std. Dev = .58 Mean = 44.73 N = 30.00
0 43.00
43.50
44.00
44.50
45.00
SYNCOMPR
¼ of 44.73 = 11.1825 2 of 0.583 = 1.166
The performance in this section was also nearly perfect and the minor errors achieved were attributed to the fact that the subjects got tired and lost concentration because the sentences were confusing to them. Most of the sentences required very good concentration since they represented the same picture but were constructed using a different pattern.
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7.2.3 SYNTACTIC COMPREHENSION 2 Descriptive Statistics N Minimum Maximum SYNTCOM P Valid N (listwise)
30
40
42
Mean
Std. Deviation 41.83 .461
30
30
20
10
Std. Dev = .46 Mean = 41.83 N = 30.00
0 40.00
40.50
41.00
41.50
42.00
SYNTCOMP
Again the performance of this section was done considerably well by the subjects
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7.2.4 DERIVATIONAL MORPHOLOGY Descriptive Statistics N Minimum Maximum DERIMOR P Valid N (listwise)
30
9
10
Mean
Std. Deviation 9.93 .254
30
30
20
10
Std. Dev = .25 Mean = 9.93 N = 30.00
0 9.00
9.50
10.00
DERIMORP
Subjects performed pretty well in this section. Nevertheless there occurred some minor errors as can be derived from the statistics above. This could be attributed to the fact that the subjects left the verb unchanged even though they were supposed to transform it into an adjective.
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7.2.5 MORPHOLOGICAL OPPOSITES Descriptive Statistics N Minimum Maximum MORPOP P Valid N (listwise)
30
9
10
Mean
Std. Deviation 9.93 .254
30
30
20
10
Std. Dev = .25 Mean = 9.93 N = 30.00
0 9.00
9.50
10.00
MORPOPP
Subjects performed very well in this section. A couple of minor errors were evident though and this could be attributed to the fact that one subject performed code switching between Luo and English.
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RESULTS FOR SECTION C OF THE TEST – TRANSLATIONS SECTION
ENGLISH-DHOLUO TABLE 1A TASK
K W
W O
N A
G O
P O
WORD RECOGNITION
10
10
10
10
TRANSLATION OF WORDS
20
20
20
TRANSLATION OF SENTENCES
12
12
GRAMMATICALITY JUDGEMENT
16
16
E A
E L
J A
A A
R O
N A
D O
B
L A
T B
M A
P W
J A
S O
M
J A
L A
S N
M O
S A
G A
H V
M K
SW
Percentage scores
10
O A Z 10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
100%
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
100%
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
100%
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
100%
KISWAHILI-DHOLUO TABLE 1B TASK
K W
W O
N A
G O
P O
WORD RECOGNITION
10
10
10
10
TRANSLATION OF WORDS
20
20
20
TRANSLATION OF SENTENCES
12
12
GRAMMATICALITY JUDGEMENT
16
16
E A
E L
J A
A A
R O
N A
D O
B
L A
T B
M A
P W
J A
S O
M
J A
L A
S N
M O
S A
G A
H V
M K
SW
Percentage scores
10
O A Z 10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
10
100%
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
20
100%
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
12
100%
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
16
100%
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As seen on the above tables (1A and 1B), it is evidenced that the subjects did not have any problem in translating the sentences. All of them were able to translate the sentences without any difficulties.
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8 CHAPTER EIGHT 8.1 DISCUSSION As can be seen from the results in this study, it is evidenced that the adapted version of the Luo Bilingual Aphasia Test is good for future use by brain damaged subjects in the test of bi/multilingual aphasia. This is because the results achieved from the normal subjects indicate a very good performance.
A high percentage of them had no difficulties in the various tasks and so performed very well. Therefore it is right to conclude that non-brain damaged multilingual subjects can separate their languages at will and use each language in appropriate contexts. Therefore they can
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Links to other references: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilingualism http://www.inst.at/trans/16Nr/03_2/wachira16.htm http://www.ethnologue.com/show_map.asp?name=KE http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swahili_language - 52 -
http://www.glcom.com/cyberswahili/swahili.htm http://www.glcom.com/hassan/swahili_history.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_English_language
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