Projects / Programmes
Development of a standardized test of the sentence comprehension ability in Slovenian-speaking adults
| Code |
Science |
Field |
Subfield |
| 6.05.02 |
Humanities |
Linguistics |
Theoretical and applied linguistics |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| H350 |
Humanities |
Linguistics |
| Code |
Science |
Field |
| 6.02 |
Humanities |
Languages and Literature |
sentence comprehension, reading time, psycholinguistics, syntactic complexity
Researchers (5)
Organisations (1)
| no. |
Code |
Research organisation |
City |
Registration number |
No. of publicationsNo. of publications |
| 1. |
1540 |
University of Nova Gorica |
Nova Gorica |
5920884000 |
14,072 |
Abstract
Understanding a sentence such as "John gave a book to Mary yesterday", is a complex mental phenomenon that includes both conscious and unconscious aspects of cognition as well as a coordination of various cognitive functions in the mind of a native speaker operating at the levels familiar from the traditional division of labor in the study of language: phonetics, phonology, lexicon, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Some contemporary theories of language acknowledge the central role of syntax in this scenario. From the functional perspective, the question is how the brain actually computes the intended meaning of the sentence on the basis of its syntactic structure. Most contemporary psycholinguistic theories acknowledge a fundamental role of *working memory* in this process, viz. a cognitive system which enables temporary storage and as well as manipulation of information in real time.
At the same time, the latest research trends in theoretical and experimental linguistics and psycholinguistics include an increasing use of databases and corpora of rich naturalistic linguistic materials accompanied by actual speakers’ markers of linguistic performance. Measuring and benchmarking linguistic performance in sentence comprehension provides a wealth of important and often critical information to understanding many aspects of language use in normal as well as special circumstances, the latter including i) native language acquisition by children, ii) multilingualism and second (and further) language acquisition; iii) language use across the lifespan; and iv) language disorders such as aphasia, agrammatism and specific language impairment (SLI).
There is currently no standardized test of normal (non-pathological) sentence comprehension of Slovenian-speaking adults in their cognitive prime that and takes into account the fine-grained aspects of the syntactic structure of Slovenian language and also includes working memory measures. The goal of the proposed research is to develop a reliable standardized test of real time sentence comprehension in Slovenian-speaking adults based on the measures of verbal working memory. This will be done by 1) collecting larger-scale performance data on a number of carefully preselected sentence types, from different age groups across the lifespan; 2) analyzing the resulting corpus of data by modern statistical methods; 3) validating the results by performing modern reliability checking procedures, such as test-retest (repeatability), internal consistency and inter-rater reliability tests; and 4) working out a standardized point system corresponding to different performance levels in each sentence type that can be used as a base reference in future testing. A special attention will be devoted to the quality of the psychometric properties of the test as concerns ts validity and reliability.
The proposed test will be the first of its kind in Slovenia and it will bring the studies in sentence comprehension in Slovenian in contact with the current world-class research in experimental linguistics and psycholinguistics, while at the same time opening the door to further comparative studies of different kinds of population of Slovenian speakers in terms of their sentence comprehension ability.
Significance for science
The proposed research is expected to provide a wealth of novel data concerning real-time sentence comprehension that can be used for many scientific and practical purposes. First and foremost, our standardized test will provide important benchmarks of linguistic performance associated with a neurotypical adult population, which can then be used to provide relative performance measures in a different groups or populations of non-typical language users including: 1) children acquiring their native language; 2) multilingual speakers; 3) older adults; 4) patients with pathologies such as aphasia or short-term memory deficits. This comparative perspective will shed an important light into understanding the linguistic function and the dynamics of linguistic performance in the respective populations. The proposed standardized test adds to the increasing body of cross-linguistic corpora of real-time data used in experimental and clinical research on language, which so far has not included the data from Slovenian speakers. This test can be used in scientific studies, for instance, for analysis of linguistic complexity associated with processing a particular sentence type (e.g. different types of relative clauses), or for checking models of sentence processing, which is essential for understanding the workings of a human sentence processing mechanism or parser. In the practical perspective, the proposed test will contribute to developing better diagnostic tools for patients with language disturbances. It will also be useful in education, in particular, as concerns assessment of knowledge of Slovenian as a second/foreign language. This also goes in line with the priorities suggested for the new national language policy in Slovenia for the period 2019-2023, especially as concerns developing the speakers' linguistic capacity in normal and special circumstances, developing a comprehensive language infrastructure, and the use of language technologies for the purposes of linguistic education. In a larger perspective, this research contributes to a number of old questions in linguistics and philosophy, e.g. how children learn their native language, how a bilingual mind works, and how perception of language changes over time and/or under influence of various external and/or non-linguistic factors.
Significance for the country
The proposed research is expected to provide a wealth of novel data concerning real-time sentence comprehension that can be used for many scientific and practical purposes. First and foremost, our standardized test will provide important benchmarks of linguistic performance associated with a neurotypical adult population, which can then be used to provide relative performance measures in a different groups or populations of non-typical language users including: 1) children acquiring their native language; 2) multilingual speakers; 3) older adults; 4) patients with pathologies such as aphasia or short-term memory deficits. This comparative perspective will shed an important light into understanding the linguistic function and the dynamics of linguistic performance in the respective populations. The proposed standardized test adds to the increasing body of cross-linguistic corpora of real-time data used in experimental and clinical research on language, which so far has not included the data from Slovenian speakers. This test can be used in scientific studies, for instance, for analysis of linguistic complexity associated with processing a particular sentence type (e.g. different types of relative clauses), or for checking models of sentence processing, which is essential for understanding the workings of a human sentence processing mechanism or parser. In the practical perspective, the proposed test will contribute to developing better diagnostic tools for patients with language disturbances. It will also be useful in education, in particular, as concerns assessment of knowledge of Slovenian as a second/foreign language. This also goes in line with the priorities suggested for the new national language policy in Slovenia for the period 2019-2023, especially as concerns developing the speakers' linguistic capacity in normal and special circumstances, developing a comprehensive language infrastructure, and the use of language technologies for the purposes of linguistic education. In a larger perspective, this research contributes to a number of old questions in linguistics and philosophy, e.g. how children learn their native language, how a bilingual mind works, and how perception of language changes over time and/or under influence of various external and/or non-linguistic factors.
