The use of cognitive state verbs in narratives of school-age Cantonese-speaking children with and without language impairment

Hin Tat CHEUNG

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapters

Abstract

The present study examined the use of complement-taking cognitive state verbs by Cantonese-speaking children. A total of 105 language samples archived in a completed normative study were used. Forty-five samples were from children with language impairment and 60 from age-matched controls. Two types of complement-taking cognitive state verb, (1) mental state verb, such as ‘consider’ and (2) perception verb, such as ‘see’, were analyzed. The results showed that children with language impairment were less capable in using cognitive state verbs when compared with their age-matched peers. Between mental state verb and perception verb, the language impaired group showed more difficulties with the former. Besides, lexical substitutions were frequently found, with mental state verbs replaced by perception verbs, which could be caused by a different interpretation when processing the input script. Together these findings pointed to a possible specific deficit in verbal expressions of mental constructs in children with language impairment that could further be associated to their development of Theory of Mind. Copyright © 2019 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationDimensions of diffusion and diversity
EditorsJanice FON
Place of PublicationBerlin
PublisherDe Gruyter Mouton
Pages177-192
ISBN (Electronic)9783110610895, 9783110608236
ISBN (Print)9783110608120
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Jan 2019

Citation

Cheung, H. T. (2019). The use of cognitive state verbs in narratives of school-age Cantonese-speaking children with and without language impairment. In J. Fon (Ed.), Dimensions of diffusion and diversity (pp. 177-192). Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Keywords

  • Cognitive state verb
  • Narrative development
  • Cantonese
  • Language impairment

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