The Study of Cognate and Non-cognate Nouns and Verbs Naming in Mazandarani-Persian Bilinguals

Abstract

Introduction: The main purpose of this study was to investigate how words are retrieved in the picture naming tasks (retrieval is discrete serial or cascading and networked) by examining the effect of word cognateness on the ability to name. Obtaining normal data on the ability to name of Mazandarani-Persian bilingual individuals with different genders, ages, and educational groups, was another goal of this study.
 Materials and Methods: In this cross-sectional study, after completing the language proficiency questionnaire, 120 Mazandarani-Persian individuals named 109 nouns and 90 verbs in Mazandarani and Persian languages. The speed and voice of people were recorded by DMDX software.
 Results: The results show that the accuracy of the naming cognate nouns in Mazandarani, cognate verbs in Mazandarani and Persian, and the speed of naming cognate nouns in Mazandarani is more than non-cognate (P=0.000). Cognate status, gender (men), word type (noun), level of education, and Persian language had a positive effect on naming accuracy.
 Conclusion: The results of this study are an example of the effect of cognate status on naming ability and thus confirming the cascaded activation model. Also, gender (men), word type (noun), level of education, and Persian language has a positive effect on naming accuracy.