Original Research Article
Year: 2021 | Month: October-December | Volume: 6 | Issue: 4 | Pages: 11-16
DOI: https://doi.org/10.52403/ijshr.20211003
Discourse Analysis in Tamil Speaking Individuals with Parkinson’s Disease
Maria J*, Samyuktha N**, Yuva Yoga Shree B***, V. Thiruvalluvan****, Aravind Kannan*****
*Assistant Professor, **Lecturer, ***Post Graduate Student, *****Professor, MERF-ISH, Chennai.
****Professor, CAS in Linguistics, Annamalai University, Chidambaram
Corresponding Author: Maria J
ABSTRACT
Background: Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system. Though PD is primarily a motor speech disorder during the initial stages, as the disease progresses, a gradual decline in linguistic aspects is observed as well. The effects of disease (PD) on cognition, word retrieval, syntax, and speech/voice processes may act together to manifest uniquely in spoken language tasks. There is a dearth of studies focusing on the discourse abilities in PD, especially in Indian context.
Aim: The present study aims at investigating the micro and macrostructure discourse by using personal narrative task in Tamil speaking individuals with idiopathic PD and comparing it with the neuro-typical individuals
Method: Two groups comprising 5 Tamil-speaking individuals with idiopathic PD in the age range of 60–85 years and 5 neuro-typical individuals were included in the study. To assess their discourse skills, participants were engaged in a personal narrative task. The analyses done were based on macro and micro structural aspects of discourse. The raw scores were subjected to suitable statistical analysis.
Results: There was a statistical significance between the Parkinson & Normal group on Total number of words, No. of Different words, No. of content words, No. of Functional words, Free morphemes, Complex structure per utterances & Relevant piece per utterance in microstructural aspects. However there was no significant difference observed in the macrostructural aspects due to smaller sample size.
Conclusion: It can be concluded that in addition to speech impairment, language structure is also affected in persons with PD. Intervening at the level of discourse is an important aspect as it enhances the quality of life.
Keywords: Parkinson’s disease, Discourse, Tamil speaking, Micro analysis, Macro Analysis.