Lisa Bonnici - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Lisa Bonnici
Since the 1980s, the functions of non-traditional LIKE have been extensively examined (Romaine an... more Since the 1980s, the functions of non-traditional LIKE have been extensively examined (Romaine and Lange, 1991; Dailey O’Cain, 2000; Fuller, 2003; D’Arcy, 2005). Functions of LIKE have most commonly been positioned in two subgroups—a discourse introducing or quotative LIKE (Romaine and Lange, 1991), and a discourse (also, pragmatic, focuser) LIKE (Underhill, 1988; Andersen, 2001; D’Arcy, 2005). Until recently, discourse LIKE has been contentiously debated as to its discourse marker status. Some scholars argue that because LIKE can alter the meaning of an utterance, it cannot lie in the discourse marker category (Fuller, 2003). D’Arcy (2005), which traced the syntactic development and grammaticalization of this elusive form, resolves the debate by naming a new category of LIKE—that of Approximator LIKE, which has distinct historical origins to Discourse LIKE (2005). Building on D’Arcy’s findings, this study investigates listeners’ ability to discern Discourse LIKE from Approximator L...
Scottish language, 2011
1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wide... more 1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wider range of words for different species and kinds offish should be found in the local dialect than would be the case in a community which only purchases and consumes the product. This diversity is undoubtedly due largely to practical concerns: some fish are good to eat, while others are not; similarly (although by no means identically), some fish may be more readily attractive to buyers, while others may not. Although it would be possible to make and perpetuate these distinctions without having separate terms, it is easier for separate terms to exist for different fish species or types. By the same token, it is also necessary (at least with some fish) to have different words for different stages in their maturity process. If, for instance, you land a fish which is not sexually mature and do not throw it back, you are in a sense cutting your own throat. Again, knowledge of what to look for...
Scottish Language, 2011
1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wide... more 1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wider range of words for different species and kinds offish should be found in the local dialect than would be the case in a community which only purchases and consumes the product. This diversity is undoubtedly due largely to practical concerns: some fish are good to eat, while others are not; similarly (although by no means identically), some fish may be more readily attractive to buyers, while others may not. Although it would be possible to make and perpetuate these distinctions without having separate terms, it is easier for separate terms to exist for different fish species or types. By the same token, it is also necessary (at least with some fish) to have different words for different stages in their maturity process. If, for instance, you land a fish which is not sexually mature and do not throw it back, you are in a sense cutting your own throat. Again, knowledge of what to look for in this respect is largely visual rather than linguistic; having contrastive terms is likely to help maintain the distinction, however. (1) In the case of the fishing communities on the east coast of Scotland, previous surveys (of which more will be said below) have recorded some sense of this diversity. It must be recognised, however, that the surveys involved are now rather old (the now in entries for the Scottish National Dictionary and its offshoots refers, for instance, to the 1950s at the latest) or are geographically limited (such as Downie 1983 or Lawrie 1991); others demonstrate somewhat questionable methodologies (such as Schlotterer 1996). This patchy coverage has to be viewed in relation to the unprecedented change and contraction which has affected the Scottish fishing industry over the last fifty to sixty years. Much that was once central to the inhabitants of fishing communities is now relatively detached from everyday experience. It was felt necessary, therefore, for a new survey of the dialect lexis of the present and former fishing communities of the east coast of Scotland, informed by recent dialectological and sociolinguistic methodologies, to be conducted to give a sense of knowledge and use of individual words and phrases and of semantic fields in these communities. Although information on the loss and use of lexical material in a range of different semantic fields was assembled, for the purposes of this essay the concern is with knowledge of terms for fish of different species and at different stages in their maturity cycle. These aims need to be viewed within the framework of linguistic attrition. A number of different viewpoints in relation to this concept are possible, from the language attrition of L1 in an L2 environment (as discussed by Schmid 2011) through to the semi-speaker continuum described and analysed by a number of scholars in relation to the process of 'language death' (Dorian 1981; Sasse 1992). Less developed, although a growing field, is the discussion of what happens to highly distinctive traditional dialects, in particular as largely phonologically distinguished regional koines appear to be replacing them (see, for instance, Hinskens 1996, Watt 2002, Ferrari-Bridgers 2010). Even on those occasions, however, lexical attrition has rarely been touched upon (exceptions to this include Agutter and Cowan 1981, Macafee 1994, Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 1995: 702, Hendry 1997, McGarrity 1998 and Britain 2009:124-5; it is striking that a number of these resources deal with Scottish situations). The fishing communities of the Scottish East Coast: an overview Only an idea of the complexity and diversity of the fishing communities of the Scottish east coast can be provided in this brief space. They differ in size, in vitality and in religious connections. What was (and occasionally is) fished from particular ports also differed considerably. Communities were genuinely affected by what fish species were fished and landed, with inshore and deep sea fisheries making different demands upon individual fishermen, their families and the greater community. …
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2009
... Authors: Bonnici, Lisa Marie. ... Source: ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cal... more ... Authors: Bonnici, Lisa Marie. ... Source: ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Davis. More Info: Help Peer Reviewed: Publisher: ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. ...
ling.upenn.edu
There exists no definitive means of diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) beyond autopsy. Linguisti... more There exists no definitive means of diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) beyond autopsy. Linguistic degradation is a hallmark feature of AD, and the language of AD patients shows promise as a new means of earlier diagnosis and a measurement of decline in cognitive functioning. In particular, while grammatical complexity remains stable, idea density (ID), a measurement of the number of meaningful ideas expressed per 10 words, has demonstrated a strong correlation with the advance of AD in writing (Kemper et. al 1991). ID is a measure of how much information is conveyed in an utterance relative to the number of words. ID measures individuals' efficiency of expression. High scores reflect an economy of expression, whereas low scores reflect vague and repetitious expression. Past research on ID has largely focused on written language, which is progressively more difficult to obtain as AD progresses. While some methods for capturing ID have been developed for speech, (e.g. Mitzner et al. 2003) they have failed to account for fundamental structural differences between written and oral language (Chafe 1985; Chafe & Tannen 1987), relying on traditional sentence boundaries and devaluing subject elision (e.g. I went last year, [I] didn't go this year) common in oral speech. Thus, these methods cannot be considered linguistically sophisticated in their approach to analyzing oral speech. Additionally, previous methods have been poorly documented, and have at times failed to distinguish grammatical complexity from ID, hence inconsistent in their treatment of similar ideas. With the goals of resolving the shortcomings of past ID methodologies and of investigating correlations between ID in oral speech and progression of AD, this paper discusses our linguistically informed quantitative approach and results. Our goal was to create a system reliable across multiple coders and accessible to linguists and non-linguists alike, while also accounting for variation across speaking styles (Labov 1972) and dialects (Kortmann & Schneider 2004). Our method has demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability on a number of features: transcription reliability (total word count correlation between two raters on six narratives ICC = .9810), utterance divisions prior to ID analysis (ICC = .9745), and ID analysis itself (CCI = .9662). Three groups were tested: patients diagnosed with AD, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and normal controls; all data were collected through the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Using a one factor ANOVA, we found that ID scores significantly distinguish the three groups (F = 4.05, p = .03). In normal aging adults, ID remains stable over time; on the other hand, AD leads to a rapid decline in ID. This approach is novel in its focus on targeting oral narratives about patients' lives, memories more readily available to patients and easily collected as AD progresses, thus offering a more fine grained means of measuring linguistic degradation related to AD over time. By quantifying fluency and coherence, linguistic analyses thus contribute to and extend the range of official medical diagnoses.
Current Protocols in Neuroscience, 2012
While past research has demonstrated that low idea density (ID) scores from natural language samp... more While past research has demonstrated that low idea density (ID) scores from natural language samples correlate with late life risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease pathology, there are no published rubrics for collecting and analyzing language samples for idea density to verify or extend these findings into new settings. This paper outlines the history of ID research and findings, discusses issues with past rubrics, and then presents an operationalized method for the systematic measurement of ID in language samples, with an extensive manual available as a supplement to this article (Analysis of Idea Density, AID). Finally, reliability statistics for this rubric in the context of dementia research on aging populations and verification that AID can replicate the significant association between ID and late life cognition are presented.
Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 2009
Sociolinguistics in Scotland, 2014
The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2012
OBJECTIVE: The Nun Study showed that lower linguistic ability in young adulthood, measured by ide... more OBJECTIVE: The Nun Study showed that lower linguistic ability in young adulthood, measured by idea density (ID), increased the risk of dementia in late life. The present study examined whether ID measured in late life continues to predict the trajectory of cognitive change.Method.ID was measured in 81 older adults who were followed longitudinally for an average of 4.3 years. Changes in global cognition and 4 specific neuropsychological domains (episodic memory, semantic memory, spatial abilities, and executive function) were examined as outcomes. Separate random effects models tested the effect of ID on longitudinal change in outcomes, adjusted for age and education. RESULTS: Lower ID was associated with greater subsequent decline in global cognition, semantic memory, episodic memory, and spatial abilities. When analysis was restricted to only participants without dementia at the time ID was collected, results were similar.Discussion.Linguistic ability in young adulthood, as measured by ID, has been previously proposed as an index of neurocognitive development and/or cognitive reserve. The present study provides evidence that even when ID is measured in old age, it continues to be associated with subsequent cognitive decline and as such may continue to provide a marker of cognitive reserve.
Current Anthropology, 2007
… of California at …, 2010
Page 1. Analysis of Idea Density (AID): A Manual Vineeta Chand 1 , Kathleen Baynes 2 , LisaBonnic... more Page 1. Analysis of Idea Density (AID): A Manual Vineeta Chand 1 , Kathleen Baynes 2 , LisaBonnici 3 , Sarah Tomaszewski Farias 1 1 Department of Neurology, 2 Center for Mind and Brain, 3 Department of Linguistics, University of California at Davis Page 2. AID Manual 2 ...
Language and Linguistics Compass, 2010
... García, MaryEllen. 2006. Contemporary Spanish sociolinguistics: stop the insanity! Debating H... more ... García, MaryEllen. 2006. Contemporary Spanish sociolinguistics: stop the insanity! Debating Hispanic studies: reflections on our disciplines, ed. by LuisMartín-Estudillo, FranciscoOcampo, and NicholasSpadaccini. Hispanic Issues On Line 1(1).127131. Guardado, Martin. ...
Since the 1980s, the functions of non-traditional LIKE have been extensively examined (Romaine an... more Since the 1980s, the functions of non-traditional LIKE have been extensively examined (Romaine and Lange, 1991; Dailey O’Cain, 2000; Fuller, 2003; D’Arcy, 2005). Functions of LIKE have most commonly been positioned in two subgroups—a discourse introducing or quotative LIKE (Romaine and Lange, 1991), and a discourse (also, pragmatic, focuser) LIKE (Underhill, 1988; Andersen, 2001; D’Arcy, 2005). Until recently, discourse LIKE has been contentiously debated as to its discourse marker status. Some scholars argue that because LIKE can alter the meaning of an utterance, it cannot lie in the discourse marker category (Fuller, 2003). D’Arcy (2005), which traced the syntactic development and grammaticalization of this elusive form, resolves the debate by naming a new category of LIKE—that of Approximator LIKE, which has distinct historical origins to Discourse LIKE (2005). Building on D’Arcy’s findings, this study investigates listeners’ ability to discern Discourse LIKE from Approximator L...
Scottish language, 2011
1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wide... more 1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wider range of words for different species and kinds offish should be found in the local dialect than would be the case in a community which only purchases and consumes the product. This diversity is undoubtedly due largely to practical concerns: some fish are good to eat, while others are not; similarly (although by no means identically), some fish may be more readily attractive to buyers, while others may not. Although it would be possible to make and perpetuate these distinctions without having separate terms, it is easier for separate terms to exist for different fish species or types. By the same token, it is also necessary (at least with some fish) to have different words for different stages in their maturity process. If, for instance, you land a fish which is not sexually mature and do not throw it back, you are in a sense cutting your own throat. Again, knowledge of what to look for...
Scottish Language, 2011
1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wide... more 1. Introduction In communities dedicated to the fishing trade it is almost inevitable that a wider range of words for different species and kinds offish should be found in the local dialect than would be the case in a community which only purchases and consumes the product. This diversity is undoubtedly due largely to practical concerns: some fish are good to eat, while others are not; similarly (although by no means identically), some fish may be more readily attractive to buyers, while others may not. Although it would be possible to make and perpetuate these distinctions without having separate terms, it is easier for separate terms to exist for different fish species or types. By the same token, it is also necessary (at least with some fish) to have different words for different stages in their maturity process. If, for instance, you land a fish which is not sexually mature and do not throw it back, you are in a sense cutting your own throat. Again, knowledge of what to look for in this respect is largely visual rather than linguistic; having contrastive terms is likely to help maintain the distinction, however. (1) In the case of the fishing communities on the east coast of Scotland, previous surveys (of which more will be said below) have recorded some sense of this diversity. It must be recognised, however, that the surveys involved are now rather old (the now in entries for the Scottish National Dictionary and its offshoots refers, for instance, to the 1950s at the latest) or are geographically limited (such as Downie 1983 or Lawrie 1991); others demonstrate somewhat questionable methodologies (such as Schlotterer 1996). This patchy coverage has to be viewed in relation to the unprecedented change and contraction which has affected the Scottish fishing industry over the last fifty to sixty years. Much that was once central to the inhabitants of fishing communities is now relatively detached from everyday experience. It was felt necessary, therefore, for a new survey of the dialect lexis of the present and former fishing communities of the east coast of Scotland, informed by recent dialectological and sociolinguistic methodologies, to be conducted to give a sense of knowledge and use of individual words and phrases and of semantic fields in these communities. Although information on the loss and use of lexical material in a range of different semantic fields was assembled, for the purposes of this essay the concern is with knowledge of terms for fish of different species and at different stages in their maturity cycle. These aims need to be viewed within the framework of linguistic attrition. A number of different viewpoints in relation to this concept are possible, from the language attrition of L1 in an L2 environment (as discussed by Schmid 2011) through to the semi-speaker continuum described and analysed by a number of scholars in relation to the process of 'language death' (Dorian 1981; Sasse 1992). Less developed, although a growing field, is the discussion of what happens to highly distinctive traditional dialects, in particular as largely phonologically distinguished regional koines appear to be replacing them (see, for instance, Hinskens 1996, Watt 2002, Ferrari-Bridgers 2010). Even on those occasions, however, lexical attrition has rarely been touched upon (exceptions to this include Agutter and Cowan 1981, Macafee 1994, Wolfram and Schilling-Estes 1995: 702, Hendry 1997, McGarrity 1998 and Britain 2009:124-5; it is striking that a number of these resources deal with Scottish situations). The fishing communities of the Scottish East Coast: an overview Only an idea of the complexity and diversity of the fishing communities of the Scottish east coast can be provided in this brief space. They differ in size, in vitality and in religious connections. What was (and occasionally is) fished from particular ports also differed considerably. Communities were genuinely affected by what fish species were fished and landed, with inshore and deep sea fisheries making different demands upon individual fishermen, their families and the greater community. …
Studies in Language Companion Series, 2009
... Authors: Bonnici, Lisa Marie. ... Source: ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Cal... more ... Authors: Bonnici, Lisa Marie. ... Source: ProQuest LLC, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Davis. More Info: Help Peer Reviewed: Publisher: ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway, PO Box 1346, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. ...
ling.upenn.edu
There exists no definitive means of diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) beyond autopsy. Linguisti... more There exists no definitive means of diagnosing Alzheimer's Disease (AD) beyond autopsy. Linguistic degradation is a hallmark feature of AD, and the language of AD patients shows promise as a new means of earlier diagnosis and a measurement of decline in cognitive functioning. In particular, while grammatical complexity remains stable, idea density (ID), a measurement of the number of meaningful ideas expressed per 10 words, has demonstrated a strong correlation with the advance of AD in writing (Kemper et. al 1991). ID is a measure of how much information is conveyed in an utterance relative to the number of words. ID measures individuals' efficiency of expression. High scores reflect an economy of expression, whereas low scores reflect vague and repetitious expression. Past research on ID has largely focused on written language, which is progressively more difficult to obtain as AD progresses. While some methods for capturing ID have been developed for speech, (e.g. Mitzner et al. 2003) they have failed to account for fundamental structural differences between written and oral language (Chafe 1985; Chafe & Tannen 1987), relying on traditional sentence boundaries and devaluing subject elision (e.g. I went last year, [I] didn't go this year) common in oral speech. Thus, these methods cannot be considered linguistically sophisticated in their approach to analyzing oral speech. Additionally, previous methods have been poorly documented, and have at times failed to distinguish grammatical complexity from ID, hence inconsistent in their treatment of similar ideas. With the goals of resolving the shortcomings of past ID methodologies and of investigating correlations between ID in oral speech and progression of AD, this paper discusses our linguistically informed quantitative approach and results. Our goal was to create a system reliable across multiple coders and accessible to linguists and non-linguists alike, while also accounting for variation across speaking styles (Labov 1972) and dialects (Kortmann & Schneider 2004). Our method has demonstrated excellent inter-rater reliability on a number of features: transcription reliability (total word count correlation between two raters on six narratives ICC = .9810), utterance divisions prior to ID analysis (ICC = .9745), and ID analysis itself (CCI = .9662). Three groups were tested: patients diagnosed with AD, patients with mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and normal controls; all data were collected through the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Research Center. Using a one factor ANOVA, we found that ID scores significantly distinguish the three groups (F = 4.05, p = .03). In normal aging adults, ID remains stable over time; on the other hand, AD leads to a rapid decline in ID. This approach is novel in its focus on targeting oral narratives about patients' lives, memories more readily available to patients and easily collected as AD progresses, thus offering a more fine grained means of measuring linguistic degradation related to AD over time. By quantifying fluency and coherence, linguistic analyses thus contribute to and extend the range of official medical diagnoses.
Current Protocols in Neuroscience, 2012
While past research has demonstrated that low idea density (ID) scores from natural language samp... more While past research has demonstrated that low idea density (ID) scores from natural language samples correlate with late life risk for cognitive decline and Alzheimer's disease pathology, there are no published rubrics for collecting and analyzing language samples for idea density to verify or extend these findings into new settings. This paper outlines the history of ID research and findings, discusses issues with past rubrics, and then presents an operationalized method for the systematic measurement of ID in language samples, with an extensive manual available as a supplement to this article (Analysis of Idea Density, AID). Finally, reliability statistics for this rubric in the context of dementia research on aging populations and verification that AID can replicate the significant association between ID and late life cognition are presented.
Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 2009
Sociolinguistics in Scotland, 2014
The Journals of Gerontology Series B: Psychological Sciences and Social Sciences, 2012
OBJECTIVE: The Nun Study showed that lower linguistic ability in young adulthood, measured by ide... more OBJECTIVE: The Nun Study showed that lower linguistic ability in young adulthood, measured by idea density (ID), increased the risk of dementia in late life. The present study examined whether ID measured in late life continues to predict the trajectory of cognitive change.Method.ID was measured in 81 older adults who were followed longitudinally for an average of 4.3 years. Changes in global cognition and 4 specific neuropsychological domains (episodic memory, semantic memory, spatial abilities, and executive function) were examined as outcomes. Separate random effects models tested the effect of ID on longitudinal change in outcomes, adjusted for age and education. RESULTS: Lower ID was associated with greater subsequent decline in global cognition, semantic memory, episodic memory, and spatial abilities. When analysis was restricted to only participants without dementia at the time ID was collected, results were similar.Discussion.Linguistic ability in young adulthood, as measured by ID, has been previously proposed as an index of neurocognitive development and/or cognitive reserve. The present study provides evidence that even when ID is measured in old age, it continues to be associated with subsequent cognitive decline and as such may continue to provide a marker of cognitive reserve.
Current Anthropology, 2007
… of California at …, 2010
Page 1. Analysis of Idea Density (AID): A Manual Vineeta Chand 1 , Kathleen Baynes 2 , LisaBonnic... more Page 1. Analysis of Idea Density (AID): A Manual Vineeta Chand 1 , Kathleen Baynes 2 , LisaBonnici 3 , Sarah Tomaszewski Farias 1 1 Department of Neurology, 2 Center for Mind and Brain, 3 Department of Linguistics, University of California at Davis Page 2. AID Manual 2 ...
Language and Linguistics Compass, 2010
... García, MaryEllen. 2006. Contemporary Spanish sociolinguistics: stop the insanity! Debating H... more ... García, MaryEllen. 2006. Contemporary Spanish sociolinguistics: stop the insanity! Debating Hispanic studies: reflections on our disciplines, ed. by LuisMartín-Estudillo, FranciscoOcampo, and NicholasSpadaccini. Hispanic Issues On Line 1(1).127131. Guardado, Martin. ...