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Measuring tangentiality of discourse output among Chinese-speaking individuals with acquired neurogenic disorders: A pilot study

Anthony Pak Hin Kong1*, Kai-Yan Dustin Lau2 and Karen Tsz-Yau Chan2
  • 1 University of Central Florida, United States
  • 2 Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, SAR China

Introduction. Significant deficits in cognitive communication abilities following traumatic brain injury (TBI) are common. Among these deficits, discourse impairment is considered a clinically distinguishing feature. Specifically, tangentiality in the expression of thoughts and free speech is one of the distinctive language disturbances in TBI, hampering significantly one’s social communication skills (Prigatano, Roueche, & Fordyce, 1985). Tangential output is also characterized by a lack of continuity and consistency and wandering of train of thoughts (Andreasen, 1979). Levin, Grossman, Rose, and Teasdale (1979) noted tangential expression of ideas often attribute to cranio-cerebral trauma, and the symptom can occur in both spoken and written form. Despite how common the disturbance is in the TBI population, the current literature has yet to adequately portray and examine it; this is particularly the case for Chinese speakers. This study aimed to: (1) investigate if and how the degree of tangentiality of TBI speakers were related to the cohesion and coherence in oral discourse, (2) assess whether there is a genre effect which could affect tangentiality in discourse of TBI, and (3) quantitatively and qualitatively examine whether and how tangentiality was manifested in discourse produced by speakers with TBI. Methods. Orthographic transcriptions of language samples elicited using a story-telling task (“The tortoise and the hare” and “The Boy who Cried Wolf”) and a personal event monologue (“Important Event” and “Stroke/TBI Story”) from twelve native Chinese speakers with TBI, twelve speakers with a single stroke, and twelve matched controls were extracted from a Chinese narrative database (see details of database in Kong, Lau, & Cheng, 2019). The oral output elicitation protocol and participant assessment procedures followed those in Cantonese AphasiaBank (Kong & Law, 2018). Each narrative was first divided into terminable units (T-units) as the basic unit of analysis. According to Hunt (1970), each T-unit contained an independent clause plus any associated dependent clauses. Measures of cohesive adequacy, based on the cohesive markers used per T-unit and completeness of cohesive ties (Liles, Coelho, Duffy, & Zalagens, 1989), were then applied. With reference to the calculation in Kong et al. (2019) modified from Van Leer and Turkstra (1999), each T-unit was also rated in relation of its meaning to that of the immediately preceding T-unit (i.e., local coherence), and in relation of its meaning to the overall topic of the narrative (i.e., global coherence). Finally, adapting Body and Perkins (2004), all incoherent (or tangential) T-units identified in coherence analysis were further categorized into one of the following three types of output: (a) errors: T-units that directly contradicted the original story in terms of facts, references, sequence of actions or causal links, (b) tentative: T-units that reflected the speaker’s uncertainty, and (c) comments: T-unit that reflected the speaker’s opinion about the content of the story itself or more general issues raised by the story, which could not be tested for accuracy of recall. Final results of data and statistical analyses will be presented, with highlights of areas modified to suit the measurements for output from native Chinese speakers.

Acknowledgements

Recruitment and testing of participants with traumatic brain injury was assisted by Dr. Jie Zhu and clinicians in the Speech Therapy Department of the Guangdong Work Injury Rehabilitation Hospital (Guangzhou, China). This study was supported in part by The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 2016 Departmental General Research Funds.

References

Andreasen, N. C. (1979). Thought, language, and communication disorders: I. Clinical assessment, definition of terms, and evaluation of their reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry, 36(12), 1315-1321. Body, R. & Perkins, M. R. (2004). Validation of linguistic analyses in narrative discourse after traumatic brain injury. Brain Injury, 18(7), 707-724. Hunt, K. (1970). Syntactic maturity in school children and adults. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 35(1), iii-iv+1-67. Kong, A. P. H., Lau, D. K.-Y., & Cheng, C. Y.-Y. (2019). Analysing coherence of oral discourse among Cantonese speakers in Mainland China with traumatic brain injury (TBI) and cerebrovascular accident (CVA). International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology. Epub ahead 21 Mar doi: 10.1080/17549507.2019.1581256 Kong, A. P. H. & Law, S. P. (2018). Cantonese AphasiaBank: An annotated database of spoken discourse and co-verbal gestures by healthy and language-impaired native Cantonese speakers. Behavior Research Methods. Epub ahead 24 Apr doi: 10.3758/s13428-018-1043-6 Levin, H. S., Grossman, R. G., Rose, J. E., & Teasdale, G. (1979). Long-term neuropsychological outcome of closed head injury. Journal of neurosurgery, 50(4), 412-422. Liles, B. Z., Coelho, C. A., Duffy, R. J., & Zalagens, M. R. (1989). Effects of elicitation procedures on the narratives of normal and closed head-injured adults. Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 54(3), 356-366. Prigatano, G. P., Roueche, J. R., & Fordyce, D. J. (1985). Nonaphasic language disturbances after closed head injury. Language Sciences, 7(1), 217-229. Van Leer, E., & Turkstra, L. (1999). The effect of elicitation task on discourse coherence and cohesion in adolescents with brain injury. Journal of Communication Disorders, 32(5), 327-349.

Keywords: Oral narratives, discourse, Tangentiality, Chinese, Traumatic Brain Injury

Conference: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting, Macau, Macao, SAR China, 27 Oct - 29 Oct, 2019.

Presentation Type: Poster presentation

Topic: Not eligible for student award

Citation: Kong A, Lau K and Chan K (2019). Measuring tangentiality of discourse output among Chinese-speaking individuals with acquired neurogenic disorders: A pilot study. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 57th Annual Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2019.01.00011

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Received: 28 Apr 2019; Published Online: 09 Oct 2019.

* Correspondence: Dr. Anthony Pak Hin Kong, University of Central Florida, Orlando, United States, akong@hku.hk