Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of English language and Linguistics, faculty of Language and Literature, University of Kurdistan, sanandaj, Iran

2 Department of English Language and Linguistics, Kermanshah Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kermanshah, Iran

3 Associate Professor of Linguistics, Allameh Tabatabai University, Tehran, Iran

4 Department of English language and Literature, faculty of Humanities, Razi University, Kermanshah, Iran

Abstract

Coherence is one of the discourse–building features whose absence in the discourse of senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s type causes their discourse becomes misunderstanding. So, the present study aims to investigate coherence in the discourse of Kurdish senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s type. The methodological nature of this quantitative study is ex post facto type and the statistic population of this study included 20 subjects (10 senile dementia of the Alzheimer’s type subjects and 10 normal elderly subjects) who were matched based on age (63-75), gender (male and female), illiteracy, and Kurdish language (Kalhori dialect) speaker. To determine the severity of dementia, the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale was administered and subjects with a score (0.5 ≤ score< 2) were selected. Then subjects answered the questions about their daily routines, families, and celebrating Eid Nowrouz. The data were analyzed based on Laine et al view and SPSS 16.0, independent T-test was used to obtain the statistic results. The findings indicate that there is a significant difference between the discourse of SDAT and NE subjects in the use of global coherence with (P=0/004) and local coherence with (P=0/003). The results showed that the use of global and local coherence has less frequency in the discourse of SDAT subjects; however, the absence of global coherence is more obvious. In the other word, local coherence has more frequency than global coherence.

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