ACQ Vol 11 No 1 2009

MULTICULTURALISM AND DYSPHAGIA

disconnected from the real world. He also said that even commonly used terms for which professionals think that they share definitions are used with a range of meanings and applications. Wilson went on to suggest that debates about precision and accuracy in definitions are often dismissed as “nit-picking”. Stage one of our journey concluded with recognition that language was used variably within the profession, either because it refers to a complex multifaceted phenomenon, or because it refers to a group of different phenomena. A single sentence definition may not be possible for something so complex. We began to consider whether a conceptual model may be a better tool to explore possible definitions of language. Conceptual models of language Conceptual models represent and delineate the facets of complex constructs, and relationships between these facets. Con­ ceptual models provide a framework for reasoning. While they are idealised and abstract, they are evaluated on the basis of their coherence with experience and their usefulness in explain­ ing the world (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2006). Wilson (2005, p. 73) stated: “What we do is driven by how we think, and how we think is largely determined by the con­ cepts we use.” Each individual’s conceptual model underpins what they do and what they believe their role is (Wallach & Ehren, 2004). Figure 1 represents the importance of conceptual models for practice and the role of the professional.

periods of reflection and integrating new information or experiences as they came to hand. It involved explicitly representing our existing but tacit beliefs about language, which were based on our professional experience as much as on research findings. Over a two-year period, we gradually developed what we have called our Conceptual Model of Language and Related Constructs (Walsh, 2007; Walsh & Stassi, 2007) (Figure 5 on page 20). The model is necessarily complex, reflecting the nature of language. The following sections explore individual aspects of the model. The internal language system Within our model, the internal language system in the brain is considered as a constantly self-organising, extremely complex system of symbolic representations that carry all information about an individual concept. Language development pro­ gresses over time from early single idiosyncratic symbols with some lexical (word) features, to symbols grouped according to certain lexical features, to conventional symbols within complex (and overlapping) hierarchies, to multiple and complex linking within hierarchies and other organisational systems, as illustrated in figure 2. Time and increasing complexity Figure 2. The internal language system organisation over time As a child develops, more “information” is built into the symbolic representation for a concept (Shelton & Caramazza, 1999). Over time, visual, tactile, semantic, morphemic, likely occurrence, situational, syntactic, pragmatic, spoken word features (phonological), written word features (orthographic) and other features are added. The addition of new information allows the continual creation of new and/or more complex organisational systems of symbols. In other words, a major reorganisation of storage and links between symbols takes place. Our conception of the internal language system is therefore quite unlike a static filing system or a dictionary. In figure 2, each shaded rectangle represents a concept. In early life, each concept is stored as a single entity without organisation, but as the number of concepts/words grows, basic organisation takes place: grouping words into, for example, semantic categories, i.e., “horse” is an animal, or “horse” is linked with concepts of situational co-occurrence (“horse” + “in the field” but not “in the lounge”); (Yeh & Barsalou, 2006). Over time, hierarchical and/or parallel organisation takes place, so that words are stored with preferential links to other words (Shelton & Caramazza, 1999), e.g., “horse” may be linked to a farm animal category, or links are developed between appropriate “noun + verb” combinations (e.g., horse + neigh). Over time these conceptual reorganisations and preferential links are influenced by newly learned features of the word, such as information about how a word/word class is pluralised. As the child grows, phono­ logical awareness influences organisation. For example, “horse” might be preferentially linked or organised into a group of words with the onset /h/ or those with the rime / Os /. As the child develops and interacts with the world, lexical organisation is based on environmental demands and priorities. For example, learning to spell influences organisation; once a child has learnt sufficient written words, the brain undergoes a “lexical reorganisation” to favour retrieval of words accord

Conceptual model

Concepts and beliefs

Practice

Behaviour and outcomes

Role

Expectations and satisfaction

Figure 1. Conceptual model and professional practice The second stage of the journey, therefore, was to look for a conceptual model which precisely articulated all the facets of language. Searches through speech pathology and related professional literature yielded a number of processing models (which explained “how” language worked), but these models did not explain “what” language actually “was”. Eventually we foundDuchan’s (2006, p. 736) illuminating statement: “Conceptual frameworks are easy to ignore; like the air we breathe, their presence is everywhere, once they are looked for. Yet they are often taken for granted, underestimated and under-examined.” It seemed, as Duchan suggested, that the speech pathology profession had perhaps taken for granted and not sufficiently examined one of its central concepts. The only viable next step on our journey was to articulate and examine our own conceptual model of language. Articulating our personal conceptual model of language Articulating our personal conceptual model was an extended stop-start process involving long stimulating discussions,

S p eech P athology A ustralia

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