The present number of the journal Psychology of Language and Communication is the second issue that appears not only in print form but also on the internet
(http://versita.metapress.com/content/121133).
The issue comprises five articles, two based on normal communication and three showing some communicative difficulties.
The opening text, by Hanna J. Batoréo (Open University at Lisbon), is entitled Cognitive and lexical characteristics of Motion in liquid medium: AQUA-motion verbs in typologically different languages. The author discusses parameters of the AQUA-motion domain and illustrates the discussion mainly with European Portuguese examples in contrast to other typologically different languages. Attention is focused on the following parameters: nature of the moving Figure, nature of Motion (passive vs. active, directed vs. non-directed, type of Motion and Containment), and nature of metaphorical projection (AQUA-motion and abstract domains). The main data came from electronically available language corpora of native European Portuguese speakers. The article shows evidence that languages may differ in lexicon in predictable and regular ways and in the way they conceptualize the reality they live in.
Studies presented in the next articles focused on Polish language data. The second article in the issue, entitled Processing negation in the context of adjectival antonymy, is prepared by Józef Maciuszek (from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow). In a series of experimental studies the author deals with processing negation in adjectives. He tries to answer two questions why we describe people by means of negatives and how we process these descriptions. Eighty-one Polish speaking students aged 19-25 years took part in the experiments. Difficulty in processing negated adjectives was measured in time of categorizing and number of mistakes. Attention is drawn to the main effect connected with negation conditions: no negation, linguistic negation, extralinguistic negation (known also as external negation), and double negation. The type of applied negation determined which adjectives (positive or negative) were categorized faster and more appropriately.
The third and fourth articles deal with children with hearing loss. The title of the third article, by Ewa Muzyka (from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin), is Acquisition of word-formation categories by children with hearing loss. The article describes children’s comprehension and production of derivational (word-formation) constructions belonging to various categories. Studies were carried out in three 30-child groups: two groups consisted of children with hearing loss: deaf and hard-of-hearing children (first- or second-grade gimnazjum students), and one (control) group of hearing children (first grade students). The instrument serving to collect material was a word-formation questionnaire specially designed to test two types of skills: comprehension (decoding) and production of (encoding) derivational constructions. The presented analyses show that there are certain similarities in the acquisition of word-formation categories by hard-of-hearing and deaf children as compared to hearing children.
The data gathered in deaf children are presented in the fourth article in the issue. The author, Piotr Tomaszewski (University of Warsaw) presents Interactions of deaf preschoolers: a comparison of the communicative behaviors of deaf children of deaf parents and of deaf children of hearing parents. The research questions were:
- How deaf children of deaf parents (DCDP) and deaf children of hearing parents (DCHP) express their communicative competence in peer during symmetrical interactions?
- What utterances with specified communicative functions most often occur in these types of dyads?
- Do DCDP and DCHP differ from each other in their preferences for communicative behaviors? If so, what are those differences?
The difference between the two groups of deaf children is that DCHP were in contact with Polish Sign Language mainly in interactions with peers and teachers, while DCDP had contact with Polish Sign Language from birth in interactions with their parents. The analyses of peer interactions show that there were no differences between deaf children of deaf parents and of hearing parents from the point of view of Polish Sign Language. Some significant differences were found in reference to present – absent objects, persons, and events.
The issue ends with the text on Lexical skills in Alzheimer’s dementia (based on the material of dialogue utterances) by Aneta Domagała (from the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University, Lublin). The article is based on studies taking the form of individual interactions in day-to-day communication. The linguistic analysis covered 1000 pages of transcripts of conversations with patients with moderate and severe intensity of dementia. The text presents a proposal for describing lexical disorders in dementia and illustrates the problems commonly occurring in patients with Alzheimer’s dementia. Disorder of lexical skill leads to communication failures. It is necessary to develop ways of treating patients with Alzheimer’s dementia in situations of day-to-day communication. Some first efforts in this field in Polish conditions have already been made (and reported in other texts by Aneta Domagała).
Barbara Bokus
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