Cognitive Status

In their work on referring expressions and cognition, Gundel et al. (1993) propose a model called the Givenness Hierarchy which suggests that there are basic referring expressions in languages which can signal the cognitive status of their referents. Supported by cross-linguistic research, the theory proposes six cognitive statuses which have forms associated with them such that if that form is used (successfully), the referent must have at least that status on the scale. In 2002, Swabey published a doctoral dissertation researching the Givenness Hierarchy for American Sign Language (ASL) in narrative texts. She compared the distribution of referring forms cross-linguistically (between ASL and English). She also proposed form-status correlations based on her research.
This study adds to Swabey’s work by analyzing referring forms and form-status correlation in ASL texts from a non-narrative genre. These non-narrative texts, found in political monologues posted to YouTube, have a variety of referents that are not necessarily present in narratives, such as ideas, speech acts, and propositions.
One of the challenges of work on referring forms in ASL is establishing the categories of these forms. In their work on reference tracking, Frederiksen & Mayberry (2016) expanded the referential categories proposed by Swabey to look at the effect of word order, fingerspelling and other referring strategies on the discourse use of referring expressions. This study adopts the categories proposed by Frederiksen and Mayberry with a few additional categories from Swabey, which are not found in Frederiksen & Mayberry (2016).
The results of this study support many of the claims made by Swabey (2002) as well as propose a revision to one form-status correlation. This study also gives the cognitive status correlations of two forms which were not mentioned in Swabey (2002). The study also furthers the descriptions of discourse usage of referring expressions in ASL. Finally, the addition of a non-narrative genre to discourse analysis of ASL texts shows that the claim by Swabey (2002), and Frederiksen & Mayberry (2016) that ASL disfavors the use of pronouns, is true for narratives, but not necessarily for other texts.

ABSTRACT. This study examined the relationship between life satisfac-tion and physical status, emotional health, social support and locus of control in the frail elderly. A random sample of 99 low-income, frail el-derly living in the community was interviewed. Almost 40 % of partici-pants reported high levels of life satisfaction. Multiple regression analysis identified four significant predictors of life satisfaction: Perceived physical health, social support, emotional balance, and locus of control. Physical health emerged as the most significant predictor of life satisfaction ac-counting for 14 % of the variance. Social support, emotional balance and lo-cus of control each accounted for an additional 6 % of the variance in life satisfaction. All four predictors explained 32 % (R =.57) of the total vari-ance in life satisfaction. Implications for practice and recommendations are discussed. [Article copies available for a fee from The Haworth Document Deliv-

Objectives: Healthy lifestyle along with spirituality affect the physical and mental health of older adults. Regarding the older clergymen’s experience of spiritual life, this study aims to evaluate the role of health-promoting lifestyle in predicting cognitive status of older clergymen.
Methods & Materials: This cross-sectional study was conducted on 190 older clergymen living in Qom, Iran who were selected using a convenience sampling method and based on the inclusion/exclusion criteria. Health Promoting Lifestyle Profile II and Mini-Mental State Exam were used to collect data. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS V. 22 software using descriptive and inferential statistics (Correlation test, linear regression analysis, independent t-test, and ANOVA). The significance level was set at 0.05.
Results: The mean age of participants was 70.55±6.86. There was a significant positive relationship between health-promoting lifestyle and cognitive status (r= 0.295, P= 0.001). The results of multiple regression analysis showed that the dimensions of health responsibility and nutrition along with employment status explained almost 14% of the variance in cognitive status.
Conclusion: it is necessary to pay more attention to nutrition and health responsibility in health-promoting interventions of older clergymen. Further studies with a qualitative approach are recommended to understand the mechanism of the effect of spirituality on health of older clergymen.