Dworzynski Katharina, Howell Peter, Au-Yeung James, Rommel Dieter
University College, London, UK.
J Multiling Commun Disord. 2004 Jul 1;2(2):81-101. doi: 10.1080/14769670310001625354.
Recent research into stuttering in English has shown that function word disfluency decreases with age whereas content words disfluency increases. Also function words that precede a content word are significantly more likely to be stuttered than those that follow content words (Au-Yeung, Howell and Pilgrim, 1998; Howell, Au-Yeung and Sackin, 1999). These studies have used the concept of the phonological word as a means of investigating these phenomena. Phonological words help to determine the position of function words relative to content words and to establish the origin of the patterns of disfluency with respect to these two word classes. The current investigation analysed German speech for similar patterns. German contains many long compound nouns; on this basis, German content words are more complex than English ones. Thus, the patterns of disfluency within phonological words may differ between German and English. Results indicated three main findings. Function words that occupy an early position in a PW have higher rates of disfluency than those that occur later in a PW, this being most apparent for the youngest speakers. Second, function words that precede the content word in a PW have higher rates of disfluency than those that follow the content word. Third, young speakers exhibit high rates of disfluency on function words, but this drops off with age and, correspondingly, disfluency rate on content words increases. The patterns within phonological words may be general to German and English and can be accounted for by the EXPLAN model, assuming lexical class operates equivalently across these languages or that lexical categories contain some common characteristic that is associated with fluency across the languages.
近期针对英语口吃现象的研究表明，功能词的不流畅性会随着年龄增长而降低，而实词的不流畅性则会增加。此外，位于实词之前的功能词比位于实词之后的功能词更有可能出现口吃现象（欧阳、豪厄尔和皮尔格林，1998年；豪厄尔、欧阳和萨金，1999年）。这些研究使用了音系词的概念来研究这些现象。音系词有助于确定功能词相对于实词的位置，并确定这两类词的不流畅模式的起源。当前的调查分析了德语语音中的类似模式。德语包含许多长复合名词；在此基础上，德语实词比英语实词更复杂。因此，德语和英语在音系词中的不流畅模式可能会有所不同。结果表明了三个主要发现。在音系词中占据早期位置的功能词比在音系词中出现在后期的功能词具有更高的不流畅率，这在最年轻的说话者中最为明显。第二，在音系词中位于实词之前的功能词比位于实词之后的功能词具有更高的不流畅率。第三，年轻说话者在功能词上表现出较高的不流畅率，但随着年龄增长这种情况会下降，相应地，实词的不流畅率会增加。音系词中的模式可能在德语和英语中具有普遍性，并且可以由EXPLAN模型来解释，假设词汇类别在这些语言中具有等效作用，或者词汇类别包含一些与跨语言流畅性相关的共同特征。
