psycholinguistic 1

7/27/2019 Psycholinguistic 1

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Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguists study how word meaning,

sentence meaning, and discourse meaning are

computed and represented in the mind. They

study how complex words and sentences are

composed in speech and how they are broken

down into their constituents in the acts of

listening and reading.
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Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of

thepsychological and neurobiological factors that enable

humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce

language. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were largelyphilosophical ventures, due mainly to a lack of cohesive

data on how the human brain functioned. Modern research

makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science,

linguistics, and information theory to study how the brainprocesses language.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguisticshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information_theoryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguisticshttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_sciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurosciencehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languagehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiologyhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology


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Purpose:

To figure out what people have to knowabout language in order to use it how thatknowledge is used to process language.


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Issues:

How do you form an

utterance in your mindand utter it?

How do you take inlang. you hear & figure

out what it is? How do babies learn

lang.? How do you learn a L2?


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Discussion:

1. Language acquisition: overview

2. Theories of first language acquisition

3. Language learning in early childhood4. Explaining second language learning


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Language Acquisition


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The object of study

Language acquisition is the study of theprocesses through which humans acquirelanguage.

By itself, language acquisition refers to firstlanguage acquisition, which studies infants'acquisition of their native language, whereassecond language acquisition deals withacquisition of additional languages in bothchildren and adults.


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Language and communication

It is a commonly held view that language evolved as

a tool for communication.

1. Human language can be seen primarily as a socially,

or culturally determined tool for communication.2. Alternatively, language can be seen primarily as a

cognitive mechanism for structuring utterances and

perhaps also thoughts.


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Acquiring language

One of the complexities of acquiring language

is that it is learned by infants from what

appears to be very little input.

This has led to the long-standing debate

between the two different groups of scholars:


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Nativist theoriesChomky is the preeminentname hereplace the distinctiveness oflanguage in specific genetic endowment for a

specifically genetically instructed languagemodule. Under that view, there is minimallearning involved in acquiring a language.

Empiricists like Hobbes and Locke argued thatknowledge emerge ultimately from abstractedsense impressions.


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The precise form of language must be

acquired through exposure to a speech

community. Words are definitely not inborn,

but the capacity to acquire language and useit creatively seems to be inborn. N. Chomsky

calls this ability the LAD (Language Acquisition

Device).


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Co-evolutionary theory

There are also co-evolutionary proposals:

Language is not an instinct and there is no

genetically installed linguistic black box in our

brains. Language arose slowly throughcognitive and cultural inventiveness.

Language began as a cognitive adaptation and

genetic assimilation. Cognitive effort andgenetic assimilation interacted as language

and brain co-evolved.


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Human language is made possible by special

adaptations of the human mind and body that

occurred in the course of human evolution,

and which are put to use by children inacquiring their mother tongue


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A Critical Period for

Language Acquisition

Critical Period Hypothesis: Exposure to language

before puberty is necessary for language acquisition.

Children with delayed exposure to language:

Sample utterances :

Mike paint.

Applesauce buy store.

Small two cup.

I like hear music ice cream truck.

Think about Mama love Genie.


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Milestones in

Language Development

Language Stage Beginning Age

Crying! Birth (sensorimotor)

Cooing! 6 weeks

Babbling! 6 months

Intonation patterns! 8 months

One-word utterances! 1 year

Two-word utterances! 18 months

Word inflections! 2 years

Questions, negations! 2 1/4 years (pre-operational)

Rare and complex constructions! 5 years

Mature speech! 10 years


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Pre-Verbal Language

Development

Crying: Non-linguistic Though some language specific

elements.

Cooing: Non-linguistic. Exercising the articulatoryapparatus. Imitation and the beginning of turn-taking.

Babbling: here infants are clearly producing syllablelike sounds. No meaning attached to the babble. Syllablesare often found in repetitive sequences (babababa). Childrenclearly utilise their babling to tune their vocalisation to thesounds of the local language.

Babbling as part of the biologically determined maturation oflanguage abilities.

Babbling drift: Around 9-14 months infants restrict theirbabbling to native language sounds.


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First words

Shortly before their first birthday, babies begin tounderstand words, and around that birthday, theystart to produce them. Words are usually producedin isolation; this one-word stage can last from two

months to a year. Children's first words are similar all over the planet.

About half the words are for objects:food (juice,cookie), body parts (eye, nose), clothing (diaper,sock), vehicles (car, boat), toys (doll, block),household items (bottle, light), animals (doggie,kitty), and people (mama, dada, baby).

There are words for actions, motions, and routines,like (up, off, open, peekaboo, eat, and go, and

modifiers, like hot, all gone, more, dirty, and cold.


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The Influence of Experience

on Phonological Processing


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Lexical Development

Children start producing their first words around 12

months.

Words are used holophrastically: A word stands for

an entire sentence.

By 24 months they have an expressive vocabulary of

between 50 to 600 words.

Experience matters for vocabulary growth.

Privileged children hear about 2,100 words/hour.

Disadvantaged children hear only about 600 words/hour.


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Syntactic Development

18-24 Months: Two-word utterances

95% of utterances: Correct word order.

Telegraphic speech (few function words).


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Syntactic Development

How do children fit long thoughts into two wordutterances?

Children appear to use vertical constructions of

utterances (Moskowitz, 1991).

Breaking thoughts down into two-word utterances.

Child: Tape corder. Use it. Use it.

Adult: Use it for what?

Child:Talk. Corder talk. Brenda talk.Adults use horizontal constructions.

- Complete word-by-word specification of thoughts.


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24-48 Months: Complexity and length of

utterances increase rapidly. > normal

conversation.

How do children achieve this rapid increase in

sentence complexity and length?

.


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Childish creativity

Despite the obvious impact the environment has onthe

choice and general direction of mother-tongue

learning,children are prone to come up with all kinds of words

and expressions which they have never heard in their

environment. Daughter: Somebodys at the door.

Mother: There is nobody at the door.

Daughter: There is yesbody at the door

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