Is there a ‘universal’ core? Using semantic primes to select vocabulary across languages in AAC

Abstract

Core vocabulary lists and vocabulary inventories vary according to language. Lists from one language cannot and should not be assumed to be translatable, as words represent language-specific concepts and grammar. In this manuscript, we (a) present the results of a vocabulary overlap analysis between different published core vocabulary lists in English, Korean, Spanish, and Sepedi; (b) discuss the concept of universal semantic primes as a set of universal concepts that are posited to be language-independent; and (c) provide a list of common words shared across all four languages as exemplars of their semantic primes. The resulting common core words and their corresponding semantic primes can assist families and professionals in thinking about the initial steps in the development of AAC systems for their bilingual/multilingual clients.

Keywords:

• Bilingual AAC
• core vocabulary
• semantic primes
• vocabulary selection

Authors’ Contribution

The work presented herein was partially funded by an internal grant from San Francisco State University and a grant from Ability Central awarded to Dr. Gloria Soto. We are grateful for their support. Special thanks to Dr. Kyung-Im Han and Ms. Maryvi Morales for their assistance in different project activities. We would also like to express our gratitude to Dr. Dan Slobin for his valuable feedback during the reviewing process. His insightful comments and suggestions have been instrumental in improving the quality of the work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s)