Bortz Mellissa, Goral Mira
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, St John's University, Queens.
S Afr J Commun Disord. 2025 Feb 12;72(1):e1-e10. doi: 10.4102/sajcd.v72i1.1082.
Challenges associated with language assessment in multilingual people with aphasia include the lack of linguistically and culturally appropriate assessment tools. Moreover, most multilingual people with aphasia are assessed in each of their languages separately. However, many multilingual people use elements from their complete linguistic repertoire rather than communicate in one language at a given conversation.
We aimed to examine language production in multilingual speakers with aphasia within a translanguaging approach to assessment, that is, without specifying a single target language. Our four research questions inquired about the characteristics of translanguaging in elicited language production and about the influence of task, topic and individual variables on translanguaging patterns.
We elicited individual monologues and group conversations from seven people with aphasia living in the Johannesburg Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa. We coded their language output in terms of the number of words used and the languages selected.
Participants used translanguaging to varying degrees. Five participants used both isiZulu and English in their responses; two participants each used only one language (isiZulu or English). Topic and context of conversation did not seem to affect the pattern of language use.
Seven multilingual people with aphasia demonstrated the use of translanguaging during elicited language testing. An assessment procedure that allows for the use of multiple languages without restricting the conversation to one language is a feasible approach to assessing people from multilingual communities.Contribution: The study introduces an alternative approach to assessing multilingual people with aphasia and demonstrates its feasibility.
在患有失语症的多语言人群中，语言评估面临的挑战包括缺乏语言和文化上合适的评估工具。此外，大多数患有失语症的多语言人群是分别用他们的每一种语言进行评估的。然而，许多多语言人群在特定对话中会使用其全部语言能力中的元素，而不是只用一种语言进行交流。
我们旨在采用跨语言评估方法，即在不指定单一目标语言的情况下，研究患有失语症的多语言者的语言产出。我们的四个研究问题涉及诱导语言产出中跨语言使用的特征，以及任务、话题和个体变量对跨语言模式的影响。
我们从居住在南非约翰内斯堡市的七名失语症患者中诱导出个人独白和小组对话。我们根据所使用的单词数量和所选语言对他们的语言输出进行编码。
参与者不同程度地使用了跨语言。五名参与者在回答中同时使用了伊齐祖鲁语和英语；两名参与者分别只使用了一种语言（伊齐祖鲁语或英语）。对话的话题和背景似乎并未影响语言使用模式。
七名患有失语症的多语言者在诱导语言测试中表现出了跨语言的使用。一种允许使用多种语言而不将对话限制在一种语言的评估程序是评估多语言社区人群的可行方法。贡献：该研究引入了一种评估患有失语症的多语言者的替代方法，并证明了其可行性。
