Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

• sadegh eftekhary far ¹
• Mohammad Reza Pahlavannezhad ²

¹ Ph.D. Candidate in Cognitive Linguistics at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran.

² Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran

Abstract

This research investigates and analyzes the speech samples of three Persian speaking children, 4-5-years-old girls, who are suffering from Developmental Language Disorder (Specific Language Impairment). The theoretical framework of the research is the expanded model of Conceptual Metaphor Theory. Based on this model that proposed by Kovecses (2020), metaphor processing takes place in four levels that have a schematic hierarchy. These schematic levels from depth to surface include image schema, domain, frame and mental space. In metaphor processing, the mapping between the source and destination domains is done simultaneously in all four mentioned levels. Among these levels, the outer level is mental space and its processing is done online in the working memory. The other three levels (image schema, domain and frame) are located in long-term memory and are processed offline. The method of conducting this research is descriptive, and analytical. The data of this research was collected by the Speech Therapist through the Told-P3 Language Development Test from three children who have referred to the speech therapy center. The collected data is at the single word level.  During the execution of the test, the examiner has checked both comprehension and expression of single words and has classified the data based on the answers of the subjects. The collected data are only descriptive and analytical, and no comparison has been made between the subjects. The results of this research show that this model can be used in examining and analyzing the speech of people with language disorders. Also, these children did not have comprehension and conceptual problems to produce words and had more problems in oral language. Therefore, the analysis of the speech of these children based on this model shows that in order to teach these children the vocabulary of expressive language, instead of going directly to the teaching of the phonetic label of the words, we should have a level of education that is related to strengthening the metaphorical understanding of the words. Especially, it seems that first of all, if domain and frame levels, which are intermediate levels in the metaphorical processing of words, are strengthened by means of teaching methods, the results can be more impressive and the child's access to phonetic label could be Facilitated

Keywords

• specific language impairment
• expressive language
• extended model of conceptual metaphor
• schema
• processing

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