LANGUAGE IN INDIA

Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Volume 15:5 May 2015
ISSN 1930-2940

Managing Editor: M. S. Thirumalai, Ph.D.
Editors: B. Mallikarjun, Ph.D.
         Sam Mohanlal, Ph.D.
         B. A. Sharada, Ph.D.
         A. R. Fatihi, Ph.D.
         Lakhan Gusain, Ph.D.
         Jennifer Marie Bayer, Ph.D.
         S. M. Ravichandran, Ph.D.
         G. Baskaran, Ph.D.
         L. Ramamoorthy, Ph.D.
         C. Subburaman, Ph.D. (Economics)
         N. Nadaraja Pillai, Ph.D.
Assistant Managing Editor: Swarna Thirumalai, M.A.

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Narrative Analysis in
Malayalam Speaking Geriatrics

Sofia V Sunny, Final Year Postgraduate Student
Santhana. M, Final Year Postgraduate Student
Anjana Merin Xavier, Final Year Postgraduate Student
Satish Kumaraswami, Asst. Professor & Ph.D. Scholar

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to analyze the repaired strategy and trouble sources in normal geriatrics. 20 geriatrics (10 males &10 females) in the age range of 70-80 years with no history of speech and hearing problem, neurological problem and who spoke Malayalam as their native language participated in the present study. Narrative samples of familiar and unfamiliar tasks were taken analyzed to study types of trouble sources (phonological, morphological-syntactic, semantic, discourse) and repair strategies (repetition, unrelated, elaboration, reduction and substitution) along with the complexity and success of resolution (most successful, successful and unsuccessful) and repair complexity (simple or complex) and the repair sequences were analyzed based on self-initiated self-repairs and SI-incomplete utterances and also the data was analyzed in terms of Type Token Ratio (TTR) using the systematic procedure. The results showed that there is a highly significant difference between the trouble sources, type of repair strategies, repair sequences and resolutions in familiar and unfamiliar tasks. The comparison of TTR for both familiar and unfamiliar task revealed there is a highly significant difference for both open and closed class words and also the unfamiliar tasks have more trouble sources, repair sequences, repair strategies and resolutions. Communication skills are seen to be deteriorated as a function of age.

Key words: Narrative analysis, Trouble sources, Repair strategy, Repair sequence, Type token ratio

Introduction

Narrative plays a very significant role in the life of a person as it is an extension of linguistic development. Narratives are a type of discourse in which people describe a series of events from an actual or fictional world in the past (Labov & Waletzky, 1967; Labov, 1972; Polanyi, 1989). Narrative Skills build upon vocabulary skills. Having robust narrative skills helps build reading comprehension and fluency. Narrative Analysis is a methodical procedure for recording the naturally occurring talk produced in everyday human communication.

Aging is a usual phenomenon and is expectable. The linguistic and communication patterns of the old are quite different from that of the younger groups. Geriatric individuals need to put in a lot of effort to convey their message across others. As we age, our ability to communicate effectively will get influence by some normal changes in speech, language, swallowing, and hearing (Busacco, 1999). Also there is a great deal of variation in the language skills of older adults. The differences are most likely due to the individual's life history, language competence, communication environment, and cognitive abilities. Some age-related changes in language are due to normal cognitive declines that occur as one grows older, including a decrease in attention, decline in memory, and slower speed of processing information. In general, older adults tend to use simpler sentence structure than younger adults. They tend to use more fragmented sentences in conversation, especially as age increases.

This is only the beginning part of the article. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE IN PRINTER-FRIENDLY VERSION.

Sofia V Sunny
Final Year Postgraduate Student
Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Mangalore-575015
Karnataka
India
sofiaaslp@gmail.com
sophiasunny91@gmail.com

Santhana. M.
Final Year Postgraduate Student
Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Mangalore-575015
Karnataka
India
santhanamuralidharan@gmail.com

Anjana Merin Xavier
Final Year Postgraduate Student
Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Mangalore-575015
Karnataka
India
amx.aslp@gmail.com

Satish Kumaraswamy
Assistant Professor & Ph.D. Scholar
Dr. M. V. Shetty College of Speech and Hearing
Mangalore-575015
Karnataka
India
sat8378@yahoo.com
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