연령층에 따른 노인의 비유언어 이해와 인지-언어 능력 간 상관성 = Correlation between Figurative Language and Cognitive-linguistic Ability in Older Adults by Age

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Figurative language is used in multiple communicative contexts and contributes to raising the quality of communication. Cognitive-linguistic ability declines with aging, and older adults have difficulty in understanding the nonliteral meaning of figurative language. In this study, we examined if figurative language comprehension would show an age-related decline in three elderly groups. We also explored the association between figurative language type and cognitive-linguistic ability in each group. We selected 18 young old, 23 middle old, and 19 oldest old subjects, and administered figurative language comprehension tasks including proverb, figure of speech (metaphor/simile), and idiom. Participants also performed several cognitive-linguistic tasks like divided attention, executive function, confrontation naming, and generative naming. The study leads to three main results. Firstly, figurative language comprehension and cognitive-linguistic abilities mostly declined with age. Secondly, there was a significant difference among three groups in figurative language comprehension. Lastly, the correlation between type of figurative language and cognitive-linguistic factor was different in three groupsProverb comprehension in young old group was related to confrontation and generative naming. And figure of speech comprehension was associated with all cognitive-linguistic tasks. In middle old group, there were significant correlations between proverb comprehension and executive function, figure of speech comprehension and generative naming, and idiom comprehension and generative naming. Proverb comprehension was positively correlated with divided attention in oldest old group. The results support that figurative language comprehension has shown age-related effects in elderly people. Findings also demonstrate several cognitive-linguistic tasks related to comprehension of figurative language. This contributes to raising clinical efficiency in cognitive-linguistic intervention for the elderly. Especially, the result may be useful in the intervention of figurative language comprehension, and be at the base of considering the cognitive-linguistic correlation by and large.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

비유언어는 다양한 의사소통 맥락에서 활용될 뿐 아니라 의사소통의 질을 향상시키는데, 노화로 인해 인지-언어 능력이 저하되면 비유언어의 함축적인 의미를 이해하는 능력도 제한된다. 본 연구에서는 노인의 연령별로 비유언어 이해 능력에 차이가 있는지 살펴보고, 비유언어의 하위 유형에 따라 인지-언어 능력과 어떠한 상관성을 보이는지 분석하였다. 이를 위해 연소 노인 18명, 중고령 노인 23명, 초고령 노인 19명을 대상으로 속담, 비유(은유/직유), 관용구를 포함한 비유언어 이해, 그리고 분리주의력, 집행기능, 대면이름대기, 생성이름대기 등의 인지-언어 능력을 알아보았다. 그 결과, 첫째, 연령이 높아질수록 비유언어 이해및 인지-언어 능력이 대체로 저하되었다. 둘째, 비유언어 이해 능력에 있어 초고령 노인, 중고령 노인, 초고령 노인 집단 간의 차이가 유의미하였다. 셋째, 노인의 세 연령 집단에서 비유언어의 유형별로 인지-언어 능력과의 상관성이 다르게 나타났다. 연소 노인 집단에서 속담 이해는 대면이름대기 및 생성이름대기, 비유 과제는 모든 인지-언어 과제와 유의한 상관성이 있었다. 중고령 노인 집단의 경우 속담 이해와 집행기능, 비유 및 관용구 이해와 생성이름대기 능력 간에 높은 상관성이 있었고, 초고령 노인 집단에서는 속담 이해와 분리주의력 간에 높은 상관관계를 보였다. 본 연구를 통해 노인의 세분화된 연령에 따라 비유언어의이해 능력에 차이가 있음을 알 수 있었다. 또한 노인의 비유언어 이해에 영향을 미치는 인지-언어적 과제를 제시할 수 있었다. 이는 노인에 대한 인지-언어적 중재 시 임상적 효율성을 높이는 데 기여할 것이다. 특히 노인의 비유언어 이해를 다룰 때 인지-언어적 상관성을통합적으로 고려하기 위한 근거로서 유용하게 활용될 수 있을 것이다.

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