Lam Boji P W, Yoon Jiyoung
Department of Audiology and Speech-Language Pathology, University of North Texas, Denton.
Department of Spanish, University of North Texas, Denton.
J Speech Lang Hear Res. 2023 Dec 11;66(12):4967-4983. doi: 10.1044/2023_JSLHR-23-00133. Epub 2023 Oct 27.
Verbal fluency evaluation in bilingual speakers should include dual-language assessment to obtain a comprehensive profile of word retrieval abilities. This study is the first to compare classic semantic, action, emotional, and phonemic fluency in terms of the magnitude of their performance gaps between the dominant and nondominant language in unbalanced bilingual speakers. We also examined the quantitative relationship between language dominance and verbal fluency performance.
Twenty-six bilingual adults completed a comprehensive set of classic semantic ("animals," "vegetables"), action ("do"), emotional ("happy," "sad," "afraid"), and phonemic ("F," "A," "S") fluency tasks in their dominant language (English) and nondominant language (Spanish) in two sessions on separate days. Participants also completed subjective and objective measures of language proficiency.
All tasks yielded fewer correct responses in the nondominant language. The between-languages performance gap was the largest for "animals" and the smallest for emotional fluency. "Happy" yielded the most balanced performance among all semantic tasks and a positivity bias that was unaffected by language dominance. Finally, language dominance scores computed by a newly developed formula indicated relationships between self-rated proficiency and fluency performance.
This study provides preliminary, normative data of classic semantic, action, emotional, and phonemic fluency that could be used to gauge unbalanced bilingual speakers' performance. Significant impacts of language dominance on "animals" demand caution in using this widely used classic semantic category in evaluating bilingual speakers' performance. The data also underscore the robustness of positivity biases in emotional fluency and the validity of using subjective measures to supplement neuropsychological assessment of fluency performance.
对双语者进行言语流畅性评估时应包括双语评估，以全面了解词汇检索能力。本研究首次比较了不平衡双语者在经典语义、动作、情感和音素流畅性方面，其优势语言和非优势语言之间表现差距的大小。我们还研究了语言优势与言语流畅性表现之间的定量关系。
26名双语成年人在两天的两个时间段内，分别用其优势语言（英语）和非优势语言（西班牙语）完成了一系列经典语义（“动物”“蔬菜”）、动作（“做”）、情感（“高兴”“悲伤”“害怕”）和音素（“F”“A”“S”）流畅性任务。参与者还完成了语言熟练度的主观和客观测量。
所有任务在非优势语言中的正确反应都较少。语言间的表现差距在“动物”任务中最大，在情感流畅性任务中最小。在所有语义任务中，“高兴”的表现最为平衡，且存在不受语言优势影响的积极偏向。最后，通过新开发的公式计算出的语言优势得分表明了自我评定的熟练度与流畅性表现之间的关系。
本研究提供了经典语义、动作、情感和音素流畅性的初步规范性数据，可用于评估不平衡双语者的表现。语言优势对“动物”任务有显著影响，这要求在使用这个广泛使用的经典语义类别来评估双语者表现时要谨慎。数据还强调了情感流畅性中积极偏向的稳健性，以及使用主观测量来补充流畅性表现的神经心理学评估的有效性。
