A Quantitative Study of Right Dislocation in Cantonese Spoken Discourse.
Christy Choi-Ting Lai, Sam-Po Law, Anthony Pak-Hin Kong
PMID 28139167WHAT IT FOUND
Cantonese right dislocations were uncommon in monologue, most frequent in personal recounts and lowest in sandwich descriptions, and mostly near narrative ends.
Explicit emotion did not explain their use. SLPs may see more of these structures in less structured tasks.
Key findings
01The rate of right dislocations was 1.4 per 100 utterances in procedural description, 2.1 in story-telling, and 3.2 in personal recount, and the genre difference was significant.
02Most right dislocations appeared near the end of narratives, and the uneven distribution was significant when the three genres were combined.
03In story-telling, 31% of right dislocations involved explicit emotion expressions, and in personal recount 28.5%, but the associations were not significant.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The participants were neurologically unimpaired native Cantonese speakers, so the findings do not describe people with communication disorders. Only monologue tasks were analyzed, and the authors report that right dislocation was much less frequent than in conversation, so these rates may not apply to interactive speech. The story-telling and personal recount rates were not reliably different after correction, so the clear genre contrast is mainly between procedural description and the other two tasks. The planning load effect was inferred from position within the narrative, not directly measured, so it does not prove that planning pressure caused right dislocation. The affective hypothesis was not supported, so explicit emotion words cannot be expected to explain right dislocation use in these tasks. The analysis rested on 117 right dislocations produced by 63 speakers, so the findings depend on a limited set of examples.
Declared interests
The supplied publication types list NIH extramural research support. The article text does not include an author conflict-of-interest statement.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the higher rate in personal recount than sandwich descriptions as proof that planning pressure causes right dislocation. The study observed patterns in healthy Cantonese monologues, and the story-telling and personal recount difference was not reliable after correction.