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Corpora as norms in language pathology. Elisabeth Ahlsén Department of Linguistics Göteborg University. Corpora as norms in language pathology. What is ”pathological”, ”normal”? Lack of data and information on everyday language use Corpora as reference material
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Corpora as norms in language pathology Elisabeth Ahlsén Department of Linguistics Göteborg University
Corpora as norms in language pathology • What is ”pathological”, ”normal”? • Lack of data and information on everyday language use • Corpora as reference material • Development of pragmatics, language in context and interaction • WHO norms • Diagnosis, remediation, evaluation • Demands on corpora • Examples of use of corpora
What is ”pathological” - ”normal”? • Speech and language pathology (research, clinical work): describe, understand, diagnose, explain, remediate, evaluate remediation • ”Normality” • Intuition • Test results • Additional data (lesion, disease, other symptoms)
Or… • Is there any problem? • If there is, what can be done? • How can we see if we succeeded?
Lack of data and information about everyday language use • Almost no such information in speech pathology • Necessary for treating most kinds of language and communication disorders
Pragmatics, context, interaction • Development of research in pragmatics, spoken language interaction, body communication • Has to become integrated in language and communication pathology
Trends in language pathology • Pragmatic tests and scales • Conversation analysis • Narration -quantitative measurements • Social approach, supported communication • AAC (augmentative and alternative communication)
WHO norms - shift in focus • Impairment - Disability - Handicap • Structure - Activity - Participation
Corpora for… • Diagnosis • Remediation • Evaluation
Corpora as reference material • Multimodal corpora needed • Sampling problem - representativity • Reference material and description • Individual variation • Activity variation • Samples of communication disorders …
Examples of use of spoken language corpus data • Discourse patterns in aphasia – Aphasic interaction corpus + matched controls • Word finding problems - strategies • Body Communication • SSPI children – SSPI children + matched controls + GSLC
Use of corpora • GSLC subcorpus - Word frequencies - TraSA measurements, e.g. Overlaps, pauses, feedback, word classes - Different activity types …
Matched controls • Quantitative and qualitative comparisons: - body communication - word finding problems - story structure & cohesion - coherence - reference - word classes - word frequencies - TraSA measurements
Some findings • People with (fairly specific) language disorders use more BC (aphasia, SLI) • Some individuals are extremely dependent on BC • BC can be compensatory: when spoken language better, less BC • Types of iconic gestures related to type of language disorder (sem-lex, comprehension affects)
More findings • Child-parent interaction (at meal times) differs considerably in - pausing - overlap - topics - vocabulary depending on whether the child has SSPI or not (case comparison only)