Antonijevic Stanislava, Colleran Sarah, Kerr Clodagh, Ní Mhíocháin Treasa
Discipline of Speech and Language Therapy, School of Health Sciences, National University of Ireland Galway, Galway, Ireland.
Front Psychol. 2022 Jul 26;13:916214. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.916214. eCollection 2022.
Online assessment of narrative production and comprehension became an important component of language assessment during the COVID-19 pandemic. This study aimed to establish quantitative measures of narrative macrostructure in the production and comprehension of adult Irish-English bilinguals in an online assessment.
A total of 30 Irish-English bilingual adults participated in an online assessment of oral narrative production and comprehension. Narratives were elicited using LITMUS-MAIN for Irish and English. Story-tell elicitation method was used for all stories. Twenty participants produced Baby Birds and Baby Goats story pairs while 10 participants produced Cat and Dog story pairs. Quantitative measures of story structure, comprehension score, and the overall number of Internal State Terms (ISTs) in production and comprehension were compared across the story pairs, languages, and the output type (production vs. comprehension).
A general linear model indicated no differences in either story structure or story comprehension scores across languages for both sets of stories. Combined analysis for all participants and stories indicated no difference in the story structure scores or comprehension scores across the languages or the story pairs. While the overall number of ISTs was the same across languages, a higher number of ISTs was observed in comprehension relative to production in both languages for Cat and Dog story pair only, but not for Baby birds and Baby goats' stories. The major benefit of using online assessment was the accessibility of participants. The major drawback was the inability to control the environment and the quality of the internet connection.
While online assessment increased the availability of participants, which is a significant factor in rural Ireland characterized by low population density and the high percentage of Irish speakers, the availability of stable internet connection limited the applicability of online assessment. Measures of narrative macrostructure were stable across the languages and the story pairs. This is important because of high variability in exposure to Irish, frequent code-switching, and a high number of morphosyntactic errors due to rapid language change that characterizes Irish-English bilinguals. Identifying reliable measures of language performance for Irish-English adult speakers is an important step toward establishing developmental norms for Irish-English bilinguals.
在新冠疫情期间，叙事产出与理解的在线评估成为语言评估的重要组成部分。本研究旨在通过在线评估确定成年爱尔兰-英语双语者在叙事产出与理解中叙事宏观结构的量化指标。
共有30名爱尔兰-英语双语成年人参与了一项关于口头叙事产出与理解的在线评估。使用针对爱尔兰语和英语的LITMUS-MAIN来引出叙事。所有故事均采用故事讲述引出法。20名参与者讲述了《鸟宝宝》和《羊宝宝》的故事对，10名参与者讲述了《猫和狗》的故事对。比较了不同故事对、语言以及产出类型（产出与理解）之间故事结构、理解分数以及产出与理解中内部状态词（ISTs）总数的量化指标。
一个一般线性模型表明，两组故事在不同语言间的故事结构或故事理解分数均无差异。对所有参与者和故事的综合分析表明，不同语言或故事对之间的故事结构分数或理解分数没有差异。虽然不同语言间ISTs的总数相同，但仅在《猫和狗》的故事对中，两种语言的理解中观察到的ISTs数量相对于产出更高，而在《鸟宝宝》和《羊宝宝》的故事中并非如此。使用在线评估的主要好处是参与者的可及性。主要缺点是无法控制环境和互联网连接质量。
虽然在线评估提高了参与者的可及性，这在爱尔兰农村地区是一个重要因素，该地区人口密度低且说爱尔兰语的比例高，但稳定互联网连接的可用性限制了在线评估的适用性。叙事宏观结构的指标在不同语言和故事对之间是稳定的。这很重要，因为爱尔兰-英语双语者接触爱尔兰语的情况差异很大、频繁进行语码转换，且由于语言快速变化导致大量形态句法错误。为成年爱尔兰-英语使用者确定可靠的语言表现指标是为爱尔兰-英语双语者建立发展规范的重要一步。
