Article Type : Research Article
Authors : Abhishek BP
Keywords : Bilingual; Verbal fluency; Proficiency
Language proficiency is usually assessed through
rating scales and self-reporting questionnaires. These measures are subjected
to bias and hence the findings on these measures may not reflect language
proficiency accurately In order to obtain accurate measure objective measures
has to be used. Verbal fluency skills measured through category fluency and
phonemic fluency skills is one such objective measures. The present study aims
to correlate the self-rating proficiency measures of LEAP Q with two verbal fluency
measures the study was carried on 30 bilingual participants. The participants
on the basis of their rating on LEAP Q were divided into three groups, low
proficiency, high proficiency groups and perfect or native like proficiency
groups. Correlation between the measures i.e. rating on LEAP Q and verbal
fluency measures was determined through Spearman’s correlation coefficient. The
r values obtained on correlating LEAP Q ratings (speaking domain) with category
fluency and phonemic fluency measures were greater than 0.8 for all three
groups indicating that the measures correlated. Verbal fluency measures are
time effective measures and gives useful information about bilingual
proficiency. It can be used alongside proficiency measures.
Bilingualism is the ability to communicate in more
than one language and is viewed as a continuum of language skills in which
fluency in any of the languages used may vary over time and across social
settings, conversational partners and topics [1]. It is a common phenomenon
seen in the society. Earlier views on bilingualism assumed the bilinguals to be
proficient in both the languages. However this view was diluted in the
following years with the introduction of the ‘competence’ factor also called as
proficiency. A bilingual is assumed to have great facility and competence in
the first language but this doesn’t mean that a person's first language is the
dominant language of the person; it is the language which the person is
comfortable with. A language which is necessarily not the native language of
the speaker but the language used in locality of that person is referred to as
second language or L2 and the second language proficiency may vary from basic
to advanced levels. Questionnaires, self-rating scales, fluency tests,
flexibility tests and dominance tests are used practically to estimate
proficiency in the second language. Out of these measures, the self-rating
scale is a time economy measure to rate proficiency and has extensive usage.
Rating scales such as International Second language Proficiency Rating Scale or
rating scales clubbed with questionnaires such as Language Experience and
Proficiency Questionnaire are commonly used [2,3]. Australian Second Language
Proficiency Ratings which is now widely known as the International Second
Language Proficiency Ratings (ISLPR), due to its increasing international use,
is a scale that can be used to rate the second or foreign language proficiency
in adolescent and adult learners. It consists comprises of four domains namely
speaking, listening, reading and writing. The development of the target
language is rated from 0 (no ability to communicate in the target language) to
5 (indistinguishable from a native speaker of the same sociocultural
background). It also has ‘intermediate’ ‘plus’ or ‘minus’ levels, accounting
for a total of 12 levels in each subscale. However the proficiency rated on
self-rating scale is subjected to bias and has to be compared with an objective
measure for clarity in measurement. Verbal fluency assessment is one such
objective measure. Verbal fluency skill is a short time test for verbal
functioning [4]. It is a cognitive function that facilitates information
retrieval from memory. Successful retrieval requires executive control over
cognitive processes such as selective attention, selective inhibition, mental
set shifting, internal response generation, and self-monitoring. In other
words, it is the ability to form and express words in accordance with a pre-set
criteria. Verbal perseverations or forming words that do not belong to a
required category is a characteristic feature of disorders of verbal fluency. A
normal level of verbal fluency is very much necessary for optimal communication
and, therefore, for normal social and occupational functioning.
The two most common
parameters of verbal fluency are
Tests of verbal fluency often evaluate a person’s
ability to retrieve the desired information with minimum search parameters [5].
This test is commonly used test for assessing verbal fluency. The performance
on verbal fluency skills reflects the vocabulary size, speed of processing,
lexical access and inhibition, thus can provide an estimate of proficiency. The
aim of the current study is to compare the self-ratings on speaking domains of
LEAP Q with category fluency and phonemic fluency to verify if the parameters
correlate with each other.
To compare the self-rating on speaking domain of
LEAP-Q with verbal fluency skills.
A total of 30 participants in the age range of 18-25
years were recruited for the study. All the participants were native Kannada
speakers with English as L2. All of them were exposed to L2 (English) right
from their childhood and had a minimum of 10 years of exposure to L2 (English).
The participants were asked to fill LEAP Q [6]. The questionnaire contains 18
questions eliciting details about language acquisition and usage. Question 10
of the questionnaire requires the participants to rate their proficiency on
four domains: understanding, speaking, reading and writing using a four point
rating scale (where, 1-Zero Proficiency, 2-Low, 3-Good and 4-Perfect
Proficiency). Rating on only speaking domain was considered for analysis.
Verbal fluency skill in the second language was assessed through two tasks;
category fluency and phonemic fluency skills. In the category fluency skill,
the participants were asked to name as many lexical items as possible under the
five lexical categories (animals, birds, fruits, vegetables and common
objects). The participant was given a duration of 2 minutes to list down the
lexical items under each category. No cues were given and the number of lexical
items named under each category was noted down. For the letter fluency task, the
participant was asked to list words starting from the letters ‘F’, ‘V’ and ‘S’.
The participants were given a duration of 2 minutes to list words same as
category fluency skills and the number of correct entries under each letter was
noted and analysed.
The rating on the speaking domains of LEAP Q was taken
into consideration. Out of the 30 participants, 12 participants rated their
proficiency to be ‘good’. 10 participant’s rated ‘perfect’ proficiency and the
remaining 8 participants rated their proficiency to be ‘low’ and none of the
participants rated ‘zero’ proficiency (Table 1).
The performance on category fluency and phonemic fluency tasks was analysed with respect to the rating on speaking domain of LEAP Q. Participants who rated ‘good’ proficiency obtained a mean score of 12 on category fluency and 10 on phoneme fluency task as a whole. Participants who rated their proficiency to be ‘perfect’ proficiency obtained a mean score of 14 and 13 on category and phonemic fluency respectively. The 8 Participants who rated their proficiency to be ‘low’ obtained a mean score of 10 and 8 on category and phoneme fluency tasks The mean scores on both category fluency as well as phoneme fluency task was more for participants who had rated their second language proficiency to be perfect followed by participants who had rated their proficiency as good and low (Figures 1,2).
Figure
1:
Performance of participants on category fluency task.
The performance on category fluency and phonemic fluency was compared with the self-ratings derived on LEAP Q by employing Kruskal Wallis Test (as the data did not abide the properties of normal distribution) the 2 value 4.14 (p<0.05) showed significant difference. Further Mann Whitney U test was carried out to compare the individual groups, the Z score between the subgroups on the basis of proficiency ranged from 5.16 to 6.94 showing significant difference. Correlation between LEAP Q rating and verbal fluency tasks was carried out by using Spearman’s correlation coefficient, the r values for good proficiency group was 0.90 and 0.82 for category fluency and phonemic fluency tasks respectively. For the ‘perfect proficiency’ group, the r values were 0.95 and 0.85 respectively and for the ‘low’ proficiency group the r values were 0.91 and 0.89 for category fluency and phonemic fluency tasks respectively.
Figure
2:
Performance of participants on phoneme fluency task.
Table 1: Rating of second language proficiency of participants on speaking domain of LEAPQ.
|
Perfect Proficiency (4) |
|
Good Proficiency (3) |
Low Proficiency (2) |
Zero Proficiency (0) |
Number of participants |
10 |
|
12 |
8 |
0 |
It is an established fact that any self-rating
estimate of fluency is subjected to bias and has to be compared with objective
measures of proficiency measurement. Verbal fluency assessment is one such
measurement. The results of the present study showed good correlation between
self-ratings and the performance on verbal fluency skills (category fluency and
verbal fluency skills) showing that the measures used to tap proficiency could
effectively do so. As the correlation score was high, it can also be inferred
that the bias in self rating would have been low. The r values between the two
sub tasks of verbal fluency showed very less difference indicating that there
was no much difference between the two measures. The verbal fluency is a less
time consuming test to assess second language proficiency it can be used as an
independent measure for assessment or can be compared with the self-rating
scales to verify if these two measures are linear [7-9].
Verbal fluency tasks can be used as a supplementary
tool for proficiency estimation along with self-rating questionnaires. The
subtasks i.e. category fluency measures can reflect vocabulary size, speed of
processing etc. while phoneme fluency can provide an estimate of vocabulary
size (especially infrequent items), lexical access etc. These measures are time
effective and can be adjoined with self-rating questionnaires to tap
proficiency.