WHAT IS PSYCHOLINGUISTICS?

PREPARED BY

DUYGU KÖKLÜ(07271019) & TÜLAY KAYALI (09271046)

SUBMITTED TO:

YAŞAM UMUT BILDIRCIN

PART AA1) PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: WHAT IS IT?

Psycholinguistics explores the relationship between the human mind and language treating language user as an individual. Its main aim to understand the ways which shape the relationship between human mind and communication. It is mainly consisted of six major areas:

1) Language prossesing: What stages are needed when people engage in four major skills

2) Language storage and access: How we store and use the vocabulary through grammar rules.

3) Comprension theory: How we relate our world knowledge with the new information.

4) Language and the brain: Relationship between our neurological activities in our brain and our speech.

5) Language in exceptional circumstances: The effect of brain damage and language impairments on human language.

6) First language acquisiton: How and through what stages infants acquire their first language.

Psycholinguistics is associated with a wide range of areas such as phonetics, semantics, and pure linguistics. Also, researchers on neurolinguistics and psycholinguistics share a lot of information.

. Psycholinguistics asists the knowledge on number of areas such as:

* first language education * medical and psysiological problems which affect

language * syntactic structure * phonology and phonetics * lexicography * language learning

A2) LANGUAGE, SPEECH AND COMMUNICATIONTo understand whether language skiil is pecular to human

race, this approaches can be used: Establishing general criteria for the definiton of

language and then deciding whether communicaiton system of other species fits it.

Establishing whether other species can acquire language

Establishing the evolution of language and its links to human race

Communication:

The term includes any type of information exchange between two individuals. However, language is not the only type of communication. For example, traffic lights carry out messages in symbolic form without using language.

People can communicate through paralinguistic techniques

which do not involve vocalisation such as body language, winks, and such as other non-linguistic means of communicaiton. However, communication takes place only when a person explain some kind of message.

Language: There are four important characteristics of language: * Language is voluntary. (controlled by individuals) * Language is symbolic. (arbitrary connection between

the words and their representation) * Language is systematic. (some necessary structures

and rules in terms of grammar and word combinations) * Language takes place in two different forms: speech and

writing.

Speech:Vocalisation The most important feature of speech

In order for a language user to produce speech sounds, two factors are needed:

a) Interrelationship between articulators that we use. b) The ability both to breathe and produce sounds at the same

time which is the specific to human race.

There are two types of speech which are regarded less meaningful than others:

- expletives such as Oh! and Ow. - phatic utterances such as Nice day! and All right!

A3) LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

There are three important issues related to language and the brain:

Comparison The role of human brain while acquiring language when

compared to other creatures

Localisation Where the language is located in the brain,

LateralisationThe contribution of right and left sides of brain to language acquisition?(whether there is critical period for first language learning)

A4) ‘KNOWING’ A WORDThe best way of analysing a word is to examine it as a meaning unit which cannot be broken into smaller free standing pieces.

Psycholinguistic studies on vocabulary and use of it consist of three areas:

- lexical entries - lexical storage - lexical access Content vs function words * Content words include the meaning looked up in a

dictionary (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) * Function words contribute to the syntactic structure

of the text.

In order to be able to understand a vocabulary when we encounter it in speech and writing, a lexical entry for a content word must provide information about form and meaning:

Form ** Phonological/orthographic information ** Morphological information

Meaning ** Syntax ** Range of senses

LEXICAL STORAGE & LEXICAL ACCESS Storage assists access Weal links and strong links Spreading activation

AN INFORMATION PROCESSING APPROACHAN INFORMATION PROCCESSING APPROACH

Perception and pattern recognition The storage of data

Processing as subject to limitations

Processing as constructive operation Levels of representation

DECODING IN READING

Lower and higher level processing:

Lower level processes include decoding andaccessing lexical entries. Higher level processes include applyingbackground knowledge to the text.

Decoding A major issue in studying reading is:

To what extent does the spoken word contribute to the process?

What are the sub-titles of decoding?

a) A sub-lexical route b) Analogy c) Neighbourhood effects

ISSUES IN LISTENING

At the higher levels of processing, there are strongparallels between listening and reading. Here are a few issues which pose challenges to thelistening researchers: The linearity issue

The non-invariance issue

The normalisation issue.

The accommodation issue.

LONG TERM MEMORY AND

SCHEMA THEORY

Theories of memory distinguish between; a) Working (or Short Term) Memory currently

relevantinformation storing

b) Long Term Memory permanent information storing (Language competence is stored in LTM )

Schema Theory A schema is a set of interrelated features associating with an entity or concept. Our world knowledge is said to be stored in the form of schemas.

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The relationship between language and cognition

Studies of Down’s Syndrome suggest a connection between cognitive impairment and failure to acquire full linguistic competence. Down’s suffers show;

limitations of attention, short term memory and perceptual discrimination difficulty with symbolic representation of any kind All of this appears to affect; language performance, phonological development is slow, only a limited vocabulary is acquired, utterances usually remain short and telegraphic

Specific Language Impairment: Children achieve a linguistic competence that is less than complete:

having restricted vocabularies, making relatively basic errors of grammar. They may show problems of comprehension as well as problems of

production: finding it difficult to follow the utterances of others or to put thoughts into words.

Specific Language Impairment(SLI) appears to affectlanguage but not other faculties

Autism represents a combination of cognitive and socialimpairment. One theory suggests that autistic children lack atheory of mind – the ability to see the world from the point ofview of another person.

All aspects of communication seem to suffer in autisticindividuals, with the possible exception of phonology.

Modularity Language is modular: a sperate faculty, supported by cognitive processes but not dependent upon them.