台灣年長者語言產生特性

Language Production in Taiwan Older Adults

邱倚璿(Yi-Shiuan Chiu) ； 王靜誼(Ching-I Wang)

《輔仁社會研究》 4期 (2014/01) Pp. 85-127

摘要

老化現象不僅是個體發生的現象，也是整個社會文化的現象。本研究探討長者的語言產生特性，來澄清長者是否存有語言內容重複、多話以及離題的現象。實驗一邀請年長者與年輕人參與開放性與參照主題敘述作業。結果發現兩組受試者各自於兩種敘述作業表現相似，顯示個體內語言表達的穩定性，再者，年長者有較慢說話速度，較少內容、較高離題機率以及較高命題重複機率，反映出年長者在敘述主題時，未能有效規劃而易詞窮，並有較高內容重複特性，惟需注意的是，本實驗之年長者教育程度與年輕人未能有效配對，因此，此結果同時是受到教育訓練的影響。實驗二中，實驗者與年長者建立三週關係後，第四週運用參照主題敘述作業（第一次）、圖片理解作業、記憶再認作業與參照主題敘述作業（第二次），瞭解年長者圖片理解、推理、記憶與語言表達等認知能力。結果發現年長者於第一與第二次的敘述中，語言產生規劃、速度、內容量以及離題情形相似，反映出語言表達穩定特性，而語言重複情況，則會受到同一主題練習或其他作業引導，而有降低現象。總結而言，年長者在面對陌生人時，會想與對方互動，出現較多語言內容與離題現象，而面對已經建立一段時間關係的人時，互動需求已被部分滿足，傾向以精簡總結的方式來陳述圖片，顯示年長者語言表達同時受到認知、社會互動需求與溝通目的影響。

關鍵字

老年意象 ； 語言重複 ； 語言產生 ； 離題

並列摘要

Aging is not only an accumulation of physical changes in a person over time but also a process of culture changes in a society. In this study, college students contributed their psychological knowledge to the older adults associations of Taishan District. This study focused on the older adults' language production and clarified the word repetition, verbosity and off-topic phenomena in older adults. In Experiment 1, younger and older adults are asked to describe an open topic and a reference topic. The results showed that older adults had slower speaking rates, less propositions, higher off-topic rates, and higher rates of proposition repetition. Before starting to describe a topic, older adults seldom planned their speaking content and repeated more often. In Experiment 2, the older participants had to know the experimenter for three weeks. On the fourth week, older participants were asked to describe the reference topic for the first time, comprehension task, memory task, and to describe the reference topic on the second time. The results showed that the repetition rates decreased in the second descriptions. In conclusion, older adults tended to communicate and express themselves when facing strangers which also induced more language content and off-topic speech, reflecting that the language production of older adults is influenced both by cognitive abilities and the needs of social interaction. Moreover, older adults' active attitude changes the aging image of younger adults.

並列關鍵字

Aging Image ； Language Production ； Language Repetition ； Off-topic