Middle Eastern Journal of Disability Studies

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Barani Zaghe N, Mehri A, Jalaie S, Moradi R. Cognate Status on Kurdish–Persian Bilingual Individuals’ Ability to Retrieve Cognate and Non–Cognate Verbs. MEJDS 2019; 9 :24-24
URL: http://jdisabilstud.org/article-1-860-en.html

Background & Objective: In bilingual people, lexical selection, in addition to contending the competition between semantically related lexical representations, competing for word selections also occurs between languages, which makes word retrieval a bit difficult. There are two views to explain how bilingual speakers select the correct words for the presented image in the intended language. The first one assumes that lexical access in the target language is achieved by an imbalance in the activation levels of the two lexicons, but the second view assumes that selection of the target word in the intended language is achieved by means of a lexical selection mechanism sensitive only to the activation of the lexical items of the intended language. Cognate status can influence recalling and retrieval of words from bilingual is a lexical system. Cognates are word pairs with similar forms and the same meaning in two languages; in contrast, non–cognate words have a common meaning and a different form. The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether cognateness affects verbal recalling performance in balanced Kurdish–Persian bilinguals and ultimately to achieve a model or hypothesis that would explain the retrieval of vocabulary in bilingual individuals.
Methods: This study was a cross–sectional and comparative study. The population of this study was all Kurdish–Persian bilinguals in Kurdistan province. The participants completed the language experience and proficiency questionnaire. They were also administered the original version of the Persian verbs picture naming test by using DMDX software in two Kurdish and Persian languages, with a 7–day interval. Paired t–test, Pearson and spearman correlations and independent t–test were used to analyze the data.
Results: In comparing the cognate verbs with non–cognate verbs, the speed and accuracy of recalling cognate verbs were higher than non–cognate verbs in both languages. Whereas the corresponding comparison of cognate and non–cognate verbs of the first language with cognate and non–cognate verbs of the second language indicates that the second language (Persian language) words in both verb type (cognate and non–cognate) are retrieved more easily. There was a significant difference between the accuracy of recalling the cognate and non–cognate verbs of the first language (p˂0.001) and the accuracy of recalling non–cognate verbs between the first and second languages (p˂0.001). In addition, there was a significant relationship between the level of education and the accuracy of recalling non–cognate verbs (p=0.002). Comparing the speed and accuracy between male and female groups showed a significant difference between the two groups' inaccuracy of recalling non–cognate verbs in first (p=0.003) and second languages (p˂0.001).
Conclusion: Based on the findings of this study, it can be concluded that the cognate status and phonological similarities can affect on word retrieval and picture naming abilities in bilingual individuals. Based on the results “Cascade Activation Model” can explain the word retrieval in bilinguals was well.