Psycholinguistics

Titik Sudartinah
English Language and Literature Study Program
Yogyakarta State University
 Psycholinguistics

Week 1

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2011 1

The Meaning and Scope
of Psycholinguistics

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 2

Read the following poem and see how it describes the brain.

The Brain is Wider

Emily Dickinson

The brain is wider than the sky,

For put them side by side,
The one the other will include
With ease, and you beside.
The brain is deeper than the sky,
For, hold them blue to blue,
The one the other will absorb
As sponges, buckets do.
The brain is just the weight of God,
For lift them, pound for pound,
And they will differ, if they do,
As syllable from sound.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 3

 Language as a Means of
Communication
Linguistics Psycholinguistics

components process

Language

Speaker Message Listener

Information

encodes decodes

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 4

Linguistics

 Object: language The structural

components of
a language

Psycholinguistics

Language as a
 Object: speech
process
process

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 5

 The Emergence of Psycholinguistics
In 1952, the Social Science
Research Council in USA
an interdisciplinary
conference: three linguists
In 1954 and three psychologists

the publication of Charles E. Osgood &

Thomas A. Sebeok’s entitled
Psycholinguistics: a Survey of Theory
and Research Problems
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 6
 Definitions
 the psychology of language learning

It is the study of psychological and neurobiological

factors that enable humans to acquire, use, and
understand language (Psycholinguistics, 2006). In other
words, the studies done in psycholinguistics helps us to
understand the psychology of how we learn and
understand language, whether it is our first, second, or
even third language.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 7

 the study of the mental processes involved
in the comprehension, production, and
acquisition of language

Much psycholinguistic work has been devoted to the

learning of language by children and on speech
processing and comprehension by both children and
adults. Traditional areas of research include language
production, language comprehension, language
acquisition, language disorders, language and thought,
and neurocognition. (Encyclopedia Britannica)

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 8

 the study of psychological states and mental
activity associated with the use of language

An important focus of psycholinguistics is the largely

unconscious application of grammatical rules that enable
people to produce and comprehend intelligible
sentences. Psycholinguists investigate the relationship
between language and thought, a perennial subject of
debate being whether language is a function of thinking
or thought a function of the use of language. However,
most problems in psycholinguistics are more concrete,
involving the study of linguistic performance and
language acquisition, especially in children. The work of
Noam Chomsky and other proponents of
transformational grammar have had a marked influence
on the field. (the Columbia Encyclopedia sixth ed)

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 9

 the study of language processing
It studies how word, sentence, and discourse meaning
are represented and computed in the mind. It also
studies how complex words and sentences are
composed in speech and how they are broken down into
their constituent parts during listening and reading. In
short, it seeks to understand how language is done.

 the study of language behavior: how real

(rather than ideal) people learn and use
language to communicate ideas

 the study of the influence of psychological

factors on the development, use, and
interpretation of language (Medical Dictionary)
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 10
 Sub-disciplines within
Psycholinguistics

 Theoretical psycholinguistics
→ language theories related to human mental processes
in using language (phonological, diction, syntax,
discourse and intonation arrangement)
 Developmental psycholinguistics
→ the process of language acquisition (both L1 & L2)
 Social psycholinguistics
→ the social aspects of language, that language is a
string of thought and insights

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 11

 Educational psycholinguistics
→ the educational aspects in formal education: the role
of language in the teaching of reading, language
proficiency
 Neuro-psycholinguistics
→ the relation between language and the brain: what
happens to language input and how output is
programmed and formed inside the brain
 Experimental psycholinguistics
→ the act and effect of using language
 Applied psycholinguistics
→ the application of all above subfields into other
subjects

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 12

 Scope
 how language is acquired and produced by users
 how brain works on language
 language acquisition
 the difference between children language acquisition and
language learning
 linguistic interference
 language development
 the role of motivation in foreign language learning

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 13

 Questions Psycholinguistics
Answers
 What is the origin of language? How is it produced,
perceived, comprehended, and remembered?
 What is the origin of thought? How is language
represented in the mind?
 What is the nature of language as a verbal behavior?
 How is language acquired? How is it used for different
communicative purposes?
 To what extent is language a biological growth?
 What role does habit formation play in language
acquisition?
 What is the essential relation between language and
information?

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 14

 What is the communication structure of language?
 Is language purely a stimulus-response bond or is it also
a creative behavior?
 How does it go wrong?
 What role does creativity play in linguistic acquisition and
production?
 How do the learning conditions of the L1 differ from
those of L2?
 What kind of internalization process takes place when
language is learned?
 To what extent can the language acquisition process of
children all over the world be held similar?

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 Psycholinguistics
Week 2

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 1

 Language Perception
& Production
Behaviorism
Rationalism
Pragmatism

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 2

 S : [tene cucak]
 T : Hooh.
 S : [ketane cucak]
 T : Rusak. Numpak apa kuwi?
 S : [upa ɔpɔ kae]
 T : Weeh, ilang. (tertawa)
 S : [lucu]
 T : Hmm?
 S : [lucu le ɔmɔ]
 T : Lucu.
 S : [lucu le ɔmɔ]
 T : Heeh..le omong lucu jarene.
 S : [bab bab bab mam mam gon tetop hoo gon tetop]
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 3
Theoretical Background:
Chomsky
 Human language must be innate ― available
to us by virtue of being human, specified
somehow in our genetic makeup
innate properties available to all
human languages (universal grammar)
 It is the aspect of creativity that differs
languages
language is not produced by
imitation only, but it is a creative behavior
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 4
 Components of the mind, including language
and other systems of knowledge, are largely
innately determined.

 Experience interacts with innate properties to

form ‘competence’

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 5

Epistemologies
Theories of the nature of knowledge and of learning as the
process of attaining such knowledge

Perspective Epistemology Contributors

Empiricism Behavioristic Locke; Thorndike

Rationalism Cognitive Descartes;

Piagiet
Pragmatism/ Situative Dewey; Mead
Sociohistoricism Vygotsky
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 6
Behaviorism
 The theory that human behavior is determined by
conditioning rather than by thoughts or feelings, and
that psychological disorders are best treated by
altering behavior patterns
 An approach to psychology based on the
proposition that behavior can be studied and
explained scientifically without recourse to internal
mental states
 Skinner: humans could construct linguistics stimuli
that would then acquire control over their behavior in
the same way that external stimuli could
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 7
 Organisms are seen as ‘responding’ to
conditions (stimuli) set by the outer
environment and inner biological processes

 Believes that behind every response lies a

stimulus that elicits it
e.g. to feel pain → groan, writhe, moan
to desire food → eating/hunting
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 8
 Intended as the logical doctrine to the effect
that the very meanings of the words refer to
the mind, its mental states and activities, are
to be analyzed in behavioral terms
every mentalistic term = behavioral term

e.g. love? being unconscious?

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 9

Rationalism
 the theory that reason is the foundation of certainty in
knowledge
 Reason is the chief source and test of knowledge;
‘innate ideas’
 All languages resemble each other in syntax
Why?
a schema of universal grammar, deep structure or
innate presettings → basis in the brain → set pattern
for experience → fix the rules for the formation of
meaningful sentences → readily translatable
languages
e.g. My beloved friend came to our house.
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 10
Pragmatism
 a philosophy that evaluates assertions solely by
their practical consequences and bearing on human
interests
 Ideas are instruments and plans of action
 Based on the principle that the usefulness,
workability and practicality of ideas, policies and
proposals are the criteria of their merit
 Possession of any kind of language is a mastery of
a body of techniques
“to look for the meaning of a term one must look for
its use”
e.g. a broom? a street vendor?
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 11
Language Perception &
Production
Language
HUMAN Human Mind
NATURE
others

creativity

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 12

 ideas Language
Human Mind
Perception

comprehension mental
creativity
grammar
Language articulation
Production

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 13

Mental Grammar

an abstract system of unconscious

knowledge about language that includes
knowledge about sentence structure, word
order, meaning, and sounds
e.g. Bites the dog man.
They live in a brown house.
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 14
Perception
 The process whereby sensory stimulation is
translated into organized experience
e.g.
“ Aku mungsuhe kancane mungsuhmu”
 Perceptual organization reflects innate
properties of the brain
 Perception and brain functions are identical
(isomorphic); to study perception = to study
the brain
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 15
 the appearance of the object from a place
where there is a brain (or, in lower animals,
some suitable nervous structure), with sense-
organs and nerves forming part of the
intervening medium

e.g. The Star? tree? rabbit?

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 16

Language Production
Imagine the situation of the following dialogues.
 First dialogue
A: Where’s my briefcase?
B: There’s your briefcase!
Person B points to the briefcase the same moment he
says There’s.
 Second dialogue
A: Where’s my coat and briefcase?
B: There’s your briefcase!
Person B points to the briefcase the same moment he
says briefcase.
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 17
Model for Speech Production
(Levelt)

 Conceptualization
 Formulation
 Articulation
 Self-monitoring

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Conceptualization
 Linguistic concepts are formed as two
concurrent and parallel modes of thought.
→ syntactic thinking: segmented and linear,
creates the strings of syllable, word, phrase,
sentence
→ imagistic thinking: global and synthetic,
tends to develop gestures to punctuate and
illustrate conversation

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 19

Formulation

 Think about this sentence:

Rapid righting with his uninjured hand saved

him from losing the contents of the capsized
canoe.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 20

 Slips of the tongue/spoonerism
→ an actual word or phrase is created, often
with a humorous twist to the meaning which
was intended
e.g. the best in bread → the breast in bed

What is relevant to psycholinguistics is not

what is being said, but how it is being said or
misspoken.
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 21
 Further examples:

1. a reading list a leading list

2. big and fat pig and fat
3. fill the pool pill the fool
4. drop a bomb bop a dromb
5. sesame seed crackers sesame street crackers

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 22

Articulation
 The electrical impulses streaming from the
brain in the form of speech are transformed
into audible and comprehensible production

 Analogy in orchestra
conceptualization? formulation? articulation?

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 23

Self-monitoring

Examples:

1. The last I knowed about it (I mean knew about

it), he had left Vancouver.
2. She was so drank (I mean drunk), that we
decided to drive her home.
3. I think it costs just about … uh … twenty-five
dollars.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 24

Bock and Levelt (1994) Model of Speech Production
Message

Functional

Word exchanges Lexical Function

Selection Assignment

Processing
Grammatical Encoding

Positional

Stranding errors Constituent Inflection

Assembly

Processing

Sound errors Phonological Encoding

to output systems

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 25

Comprehension
 the process by which listeners come to an
interpretation for a stream of speech. This is
called the construction process
The Construction Process

 The process in which listeners use these

interpretations for their intended purpose
The Utilization Process
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 26
The Construction Process
constituents of
raw surface
speech structure
utilization
proposition proposition

finished
interpretation interpretation

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 27

 Psycholinguistics
Week 3

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 1

 First Language Acquisition

How Children Learn Language

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 2

 Language Acquisition

 Language acquisition is the process by which

language develops in humans.
 First language acquisition concerns the
development of language in children
 Second language acquisition focuses on
language development in adults.
 Historically, theories and theorists may have
emphasized either nature or nurture as the most
important explanatory factor for acquisition.
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 3
Chomsky’s Universal Grammar
→ children are born with a hard-wired
language acquisition device (LAD) in their
brains
→ without an innate ability for language,
human infants would be incapable of
learning such complete speech patterns in
a natural human environment

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 4

 Learning Condition of L1
 The L1 is picked up at home in the most natural
situations, guided and controlled by those who
are near and dear to a child,
 The learning of L1 takes place along with other
aspects of biological growth such as walking
 The learning of L1 is governed by the principles
of proximity, usefulness, concreteness,
particularity and interest

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 5

 Factors Affecting L1 Acquisition

 Physical environment
→ the material surroundings of a child, e.g. dog,
house, cat, tree, table
 Social environment
→ family and neighborhood
 Physical and economic resources
→ the economical condition of the family

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 6

 Motivation
→ internal: the need for food, warmth, shelter;
constant care, love and affection
→ external: social interaction, self expression,
creative behavior

e.g. children sometimes talk to cat, dog or dolls

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 7

An outstanding feature of the early
language learning experience is
egocentricity
→ children only pick up language items
that are absolutely essential for them
→ the earliest pronouns: I, me, my, mine

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 8

 Stages of Language Acquisition

 Pre-babbling
It is difficult to test children when they are first
born. We can measure their interest in speech
sounds by measuring their sucking rate. By
doing this we have discovered that they come
pre-equipped to head phonetic contrasts even
for languages not spoken around them.
→ the first cry of an infant functions as the
crude starting point which makes possible all
activities of the lungs and the speech organs
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 9
 Babbling
→ sounds produced in the first few months after
birth which include sounds that do and do not
occur in the language of the household.

Even deaf children babble. They seem to be

testing out their vocal apparatus, and perhaps
tuning the articulation to their own audition. They
babble with hand gestures similar to the vocal
babbling of hearing children.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 10

 Holophrastic
→ refers to the one-word stage in which children
produce one-word sentences (usually between
12 and 18 months)

At this stage utterances are one word long,

though they often contain complex messages.
Children have been shown to understand
differences in word order at this stage even
though they can't produce sentences with
different word orders.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 11

 Two-word stage
→ around the beginning of the second year;
children begin to produce sentences of two
words with clear syntactic and semantic
relations.

Most children go through a stage where

sentences seem to be limited to two words.
There can be a large variety of two-word
patterns, however, and the sentences continue
to encode much more complex meanings.
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 12
 Telegraphic speech
→ utterances of children after the two-word
stage when many grammatical morphemes are
omitted

After the two-word stage there is an explosion in

the child's capacity to form sentences, and
developmental patterns are more difficult to
describe. At this point it is better to simply test
particular aspects and constructions from adult
grammars to determine which aspects the
children have acquired.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 13

 Example

Mother Baby
doll da

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 14

 Internalization of Linguistic System

 The entire language learning is a process of

internalization of systems.
 Internalization of linguistic systems occurs at a
variety of levels.
→ an infant is bombarded by the language
utterances of the people around

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 15

 Auditory organs

Random Articulation Internalization

stimulated by the an infant takes in

pleasurable experiences whatever it can
of the child, the main
stimulus: reflex;
produces non-distinctive
sounds

Production

Getting familiar with internalizes the basic

the basic sound system of a
etc morphological sets of language:
the language phonology; produces
distinctive sounds

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 16

 MLU

 mean length of utterance

 A measure used to refer to the number of words
or morphemes in a child’s utterance
 More accurate measure of acquisition stage
than chronological age of child

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 17

 Parentese & Baby Talk

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 18

Parentese
 refer to the sort of speech which children receive
when they are young
 Characteristics:
- shorter syllables
- parsing down words to phonemes
- highly repetitive usage
- raising pitch
- slowing down the pace of speaking
- simplifying the subject matter and sentence
structure

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 19

About what?

names for relatives

good and bad behavior
animal names
eating
sleeping
bathroom matters

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 20

Baby Talk

uses sounds and nonsense words

involves the use of vocabulary and syntax
that is overly simplified and reduced
involves modification in vocabulary

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 21

 Speech & Language
Milestones

0 – 7 years old children

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 22

 Pre-birth
 Auditory skills begin to develop
 Necessary for sound association

0 - 6 months
 Cooing and babbling;
 Continual awareness of sound (turns to sound,
stops crying when spoken to);
 Uses eye gaze to indicate interest
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 7 – 12 months
 First true words appear (they are often people, or
nouns);
 Same syllable is repeated (mama, dada);

 Child demonstrates increased understanding of

12daily
months
routines.
 Child says 3-5 words;
 Child recognizes his/her name & understands
simple instructions;
 Initiates familiar words, gestures, and sounds;
 Child understands common objects and actions
(e.g., cookie, eat, juice).
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18 months
 Child uses about 10-20 words at age 18 months
including names;
 Recognition of pictures of familiar persons,
objects‘
 Early 2-word combinations of words emerge;
 Needs are requested verbally such as "more,
up";
 Child will point, gesture, follow simple
commands, imitate simple actions, hum or sing;
 Distinguishes print from non print.
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24 months (2 years)
 Child understands simple questions and commands;
 Identifies familiar actions/activities in pictures (i.e.
"sleeping, eating");
 Follows directions to put objects "on, off, in";
 Puts two words together on average;
 Sentence length of up to three words;
 Child will refer to self by name;
 Labels pictures;
 Start to use the negative "not go";
 Final "s" is used for plurals;
 Vocabulary jumps to 300 words during the year! In fact
between the ages of 2 and 4, kids may increase their
vocabulary to 2 words per day;
 Children will stay with one activity about 6-7 minutes.
July 27, 2012 26 psycholing/ts/2009
30 months (2.5 years)
 Child has about 450 word vocabulary;
 Child is able to give his/her first name;
 Child uses past tense, plurals, and combines
nouns and verbs;
 Begin to identify objects from a group by their
function and parts (ie. "which one has wheels?",
"which one can we eat?");
 Begin to use verbs with "ing" endings (i.e.
"eating");
 Early concepts such as "big, little" are identified;
 Child will use "no, not" and answer "where"
July 27, 2012 27 psycholing/ts/2009

questions.
3 years
 Child will name at least one color;
 Child will often talk during play, or when alone;
 Child can tell a basic story or idea;
 Child can use 3-4 word sentences;
 Begins to understand "not";
 Can identify items in a familiar category or group
(i.e. "show me the animal");
 Child can have a vocabulary of up to 1000
words;
 Children are often able to tell their name and
street.
July 27, 2012 28 psycholing/ts/2009
4 years
 Child will follow 2-3 step commands;
 Child will ask many questions, including
"who/why";
 Child talks in 4-5 word sentences;
 Understands and verbalizes spatial concepts
more readily such as "on, under, next to..";
 Child will talk in the past tense correctly.

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5 years
 Child defines objects by their function;
 Identifies spatial concepts such as "on, behind";
 Child uses 5-6 word sentences;
 Child understands many opposites;
 Child can use different tenses (past, present,
future), and many sentence types.

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6 – 7 years

 Child is developing phonological (sound/letter)

awareness skills, and sound/word segmentation
skills;
 Can generate creative sentences;
 Understands time/space concepts such as
"before/after, first/second/last".

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When to be concerned?
Most children are saying simple words, such as "mama" and "dada" by age 1.
But it's important to remember that children vary greatly in their speech
development. Even so, a doctor would likely be concerned if a 2-year-old was
not yet speaking. Children at this age can typically:
 Point to an object when it's named
 Recognize names of familiar people, objects and body parts
 Say about 50 words
 Use simple phrases by linking two words, such as "me up" (for "pick me
up")
 Use simple pronouns (he, she, me) and prepositions (with, by)
A child whose speech isn't progressing should be checked by a doctor. Speech
delays occur in up to 10 percent of young children. Causes include:
1. Being a twin
2. Slow development
3. Mental retardation
4. Autism
5. In addition, children living in bilingual homes may experience some speech
delays as they learn to interpret and use two languages. This is normal.
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THE ACQUISITION OF
PHONOLOGY, MORPHOLOGY,
SYNTAX, SEMANTIC, & DISCOURSE
IN CHILDREN

Week 4
 The Acquisition of Phonology
2

Early Perception:
 By 1-2 months of age (perhaps from birth) infants have
the basic sensory capabilities to discriminate speech
sounds → “High-Amplitude Sucking”
 6 months infants are able to discriminate any
phonological contrast, independent of the surrounding
language → “Visually reinforced head-turn”
 Between the end of their first year and the beginning of
their fifth year children learn to distinguish among words
that differ in only a single segment. Infant perception
starts to resemble adult perception

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Order of Acquisition
3

Vowel contrasts

Consonant contrasts

Manner

Voicing in stops

Fricative contrasts
psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012
 During the Preverbal Vocalization
4

 cooing (2-4 months): mainly vocalic sounds, palatal, velar (resting

place of tongue)
 babbling (rest of first year)
 Anatomical and neuromotor factors play a critical role during this
development (vocal tract length, position of tongue, velum,
neuromuscular control of the tongue)
 Increased control of laryngeal (voicing) and oral articulatory
mechanisms
 Labial and dental sounds

 Both periodic and aperiodic sounds

 Pitch and loudness manipulated

 Gradually babbling starts to resemble adult-like syllables: true

consonant+vowel psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012
 During the Second Year
5

 General increase in use of true consonants

 labials more frequent than coronals
 coronals more frequent than velars
 stops, nasals more common
 fricatives less frequent – they require more precise
articulatory control
 Vowels tend to be the basic “cardinal” vowels [i a u]
 CV is the preferred syllable structure
 Omission of word final consonant
 Omission of fricative or liquid in cluster
 Early words consist of 1 or 2 syllables

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Constraints on Speech Production
6

 Syllable deletion; e.g. animals [Qmz]

 Final consonant deletion; e.g. because [pikÃ]
 Consonant harmony; e.g. yellow [lEloU]
 Cluster reduction; e.g. pretty [pii], smile [saIl],
blocks [baks]
 Fronting of velars, palatals; e.g. cow [taU], show
[soU]
 Stopping; e.g. move [mub], juice [dus]
 Gliding; e.g. love [jÃv], red [wEd]

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Simplification Strategies
7

 Substitution; e.g. fis > fish

 Deletion: fish > ish
 Cluster reduction: spider > pider
 Metathesis: snow > nos
 Assimilation: dog > dod; duck > guck
 Chain shifts: truck as duck, duck as guck:
substitution+assimilation
 Avoidance: comprehends the word but avoids it in
articulation

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

8

 Phonological idioms: Child words which do not

follow the pattern of sound changes attested
elsewhere in the child’s productions.
 Regression: a phonological idiom taking on a less
mature form to become consistent with the rest of
the system.

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Individual Variations in Acquiring
9
Phonology
 Whether the child’s earliest productions are
segmentally detailed or whether they are better
described as maintaining the suprasegmental
pattern of the ambient language at the expense of
phonological accuracy
 Whether they avoid words which they cannot
produce and as a result give relatively accurate
renditions of the words they do produce, or whether
they attempt many words, resulting in substantial
deviations fro the adult forms.

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Perception & Production of Words
10

Audition Meaning Articulation

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Meaning

Phonology

Audition Articulation

11 psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 The Acquisition of Morphology
12

 Word comprehension: mapping auditory form onto

meanings (the concept of ‘here & now’ in parentese)
 Children start to show knowledge of
morphophonemic rules around age 4.
 In English, children also “regularize” irregular forms

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Modular Connectionist Network for the
13
Acquisition of Morphology

Root Inflection

Root IPR Inflection IPR

Audition Articulation

IPR: intermediate phonological representation

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012
 Lexicon Acquired
14

 The principle of ‘here and now’

 Content words before function words
→ nouns > verbs > adjectives
 Basic level category: generic nouns
 Overextension vs underextension

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Strategies for Acquiring Lexicon
15

 Reference: everything has referents

 Object scope: the concept of bicycle
 Extendability: black cat? white cat?
 Categorial scope: hyponymy
 Novel name/nameless category: putting new words
in the mental lexicon
 Conventionality: use of familiar words

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 The Acquisition of Syntax
16

 The stage of child language where it progresses

from mere concatenation of lexical items to adult
language
 Child acquires morphosyntax – syntax &
grammatical morphemes

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Learning a grammatical morpheme
17

 How does it sound? (including allomorphs)

 Where is it likely to occur in a sentence?
(distribution)
 What is it used for? (syntactic function)

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

 Stages in Acquiring Syntax
18

Noun compounding
(preschool)

Agentive suffix –er (8)

Instrumental suffix –er;

adjectivial –y (9-11)

Adverbial –ly (12-17)

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012
 The Acquisition of Semantics &
19
Pragmatics
 Communicative intents: egocentricism
 Discourse Organization (in Conversation)
 Competence, maxims, rules
 Speech acts
 Conversational routines: opening, turn taking, closing

 Conversational Exchange: Adjacency Pair, Question and

Answer, Complex exchanges
 Interactive Speech : Turn Taking, Simultaneous talk and
Interruption

psycholing/ts/2009 27 July 2012

Psycholinguistics

Week 5
 Language and Communication

Animal Communication
Wild Children and Language

July 27, 2012 2

 Animal Communication
 Animal communication is any behavior on the part of
one animal that has an effect on the current or future
behavior of another animal.

 The study of animal communication → zoosemiotics

 Animal communication is a rapidly growing field, and

even in the 21st century so far, many prior
understandings related to diverse fields such as personal
symbolic name use, animal emotions, animal culture and
learning, and even sexual conduct, long thought to be
well understood, have been revolutionized.
July 27, 2012 3
 Intraspecies vs Interspecies
Communication
 The sender and receiver of a communication
may be of the same species or of different
species.

 The majority of animal communication is

intraspecies (between two or more individuals of
the same species).

 However, there are some important instances of

interspecies communication (between two or
more individuals of different species).
July 27, 2012 4
 What is this bird doing?
With whom does he communicate?

July 27, 2012 5

 Interspecies Communication

Prey to Predator
Predator to Prey
Symbiotic Species

July 27, 2012 6

 Prey to Predator
 warning coloration: species such as wasps that are
capable of harming potential predators are often brightly
colored, and this modifies the behavior of the predator,
who either instinctively or as the result of experience will
avoid attacking such an animal. Hoverflies are colored in
the same way as wasps, and although they are unable to
sting, the strong avoidance of wasps by predators gives
the hoverfly some protection.
 mimicry
 canines such as wolves and coyotes may adopt an
aggressive posture, such as growling with their teeth
bared, to indicate they will fight if necessary
 rattlesnakes use their well-known rattle to warn potential
predators of their poisonous bite.
July 27, 2012 7
 Sometimes, a behavioral change and warning coloration
will be combined, as in certain species of amphibians which
have a brightly colored belly, but on which the rest of
their body is colored to blend in with their surroundings.
When confronted with a potential threat, they show their
belly, indicating that they are poisonous in some way.

 A more controversial example of prey to predator

communication is stotting, a highly noticeable form of
running shown by some antelopes such as Thomson's
gazelle. In the presence of a predator; it has been argued
that this demonstrates to the predator that the particular
prey individual is fit and healthy and therefore not worth
pursuing.

July 27, 2012 8

 Predator to Prey

 Some predators communicate to prey in ways

that change their behavior and make them
easier to catch, in effect deceiving them. A well-
known example is the angler fish, which has a
fleshy growth protruding from its forehead and
dangling in front of its jaws; smaller fish try to
take the lure, and in so doing are perfectly
placed for the angler fish to eat them.

July 27, 2012 9

 Symbiotic Species

 Interspecies communication also occurs in

various kinds of mutualism and symbiosis. For
example, in the cleaner fish/grouper system,
groupers signal their availability for cleaning by
adopting a particular posture at a cleaning
station.

July 27, 2012 10

 Intraspecies Communication

Forms of Communication
Functions of Communication
Evolution of Communication

July 27, 2012 11

 Forms of Communication
 The best known forms of communication involve the
display of distinctive body parts, or distinctive bodily
movements
e.g. the Herring Gull
food
Parent Nest Chick

brightly colored bill, tap the bill on

yellow with a red the ground
spot
 Accidental swallowing of pieces of brightly colored
plastic or glass is a common cause of mortality among
gull chicks).
July 27, 2012 12
 Another important form of communication is bird
song, usually performed mainly by males,
though in some species the sexes sing in
alternation (this is called duetting and serves
mainly purposes of strengthening pair-bonding
and repelling competitors).

 Bird song is just the best known case of vocal

communication; other instances include the
warning cries of many monkeys, the territorial
calls of gibbons, and the mating calls of many
species of frog.
July 27, 2012 13
 olfactory communication
e.g.
- Many mammals → glands that generate distinctive and
long-lasting smells, and have corresponding behaviors
that leave these smells in places where they have been.

- Bees carry with them a pouch of material from the hive

which they release as they reenter, the smell of which
indicates if they are a part of the hive and grants their
safe entry.

July 27, 2012 14

 Functions of Communication
 agonistic interaction: everything to do with contests
and aggression between individuals. Many species have
distinctive threat displays that are made during
competition over food, mates or territory; much bird song
functions in this way.
 courtship rituals: signals made by members of one sex
to attract or maintain the attention of potential mate, or to
cement a pair bond.
 food-related signals: many animals make "food calls"
that attract a mate, or offspring, or members of a social
group generally to a food source. Perhaps the most
elaborate food-related signal is the dance language of
honeybees studied by Karl von Frisch.
July 27, 2012 15
 alarm calls: signals made in the presence of a threat
from a predator, allowing all members of a social group
(and often members of other species) to run for cover,
become immobile, or gather into a group to reduce the
risk of attack.

 metacommunications: signals that modify the meaning

of subsequent signals. The best known example is the
play face in dogs, which signals that a subsequent
aggressive signal is part of a play fight rather than a
serious aggressive episode.

July 27, 2012 16

 Evolution of Communication

 By comparing related species within groups, it is found

that movements and body parts that in the primitive
forms had no communicative function could be
"captured" in a context where communication would be
functional for one or both partners, and could evolve into
a more elaborate, specialized form.

 The early ethologists assumed that communication

occurred for the good of the species as a whole, but this
would require a process of group selection which is
believed to be mathematically impossible in the evolution
of sexually reproducing animals.
July 27, 2012 17
Interpretation of animal communication

 It is important to note that while many gestures

and actions have common, stereotypical
meanings, researchers regularly seem to find
that animal communication is often more
complex and subtle than previously believed,
and that the same gesture may have multiple
distinct meanings depending on context and
other behaviors. So generalizations such as "X
means Y" are often, but not always accurate.
e.g. dog’s tail wag
July 27, 2012 18
 Animal Communication and Human
Behavior
 Ethologists have argued that facial gestures such as
smiling, grimacing, and the eye-brow flash on greeting
are universal human communicative signals that can be
related to corresponding signals in other primates.
 Humans also often seek to mimic animals'
communicative signals in order to interact with the
animals. For example, cats have a mild affiliative
response involving closing their eyes; humans often
close their eyes towards a pet cat to establish a tolerant
relationship. Stroking, petting and rubbing pet animals
are all actions that probably work through their natural
patterns of interspecies communication.

July 27, 2012 19

Animal Communication and Linguistics
 Human languages are characterized for having a
double articulation. It means that complex linguistic
expressions can be broken down in meaningful
elements (such as morphemes and words), which in
turn are composed of smallest meaningless phonetic
elements, or phonemes. Animal signals, however, do
not exhibit this dual structure.

 In general, animal utterances are responses to

external stimuli, and do not refer to matters removed in
time and space. Matters of relevance at a distance,
such as distant food sources, tend to be indicated to
other individuals by body language instead, for
example wolf activity before a hunt, or the information
conveyed in honeybee dance language.
July 27, 2012 20
 Human language is largely learned culturally, while
animal communication systems are known largely by
instinct.

 In contrast to human language, animal communication

systems are usually not able to express conceptual
generalizations.

 Human languages combine elements to produce new

messages (a property known as creativity). One
factor in this is that much human language growth is
based upon conceptual ideas and hypothetical
structures, both being far greater capabilities in
humans than animals. This appears far less common
in animal communication systems.

July 27, 2012 21

Wild Children & Language
Wild?
 A feral child (feral, i.e. "wild" or
undomesticated)
→ a human child who, from a very young age,
has lived in isolation from human contact and
has remained unaware of human social
behavior, and unexposed to language.
→ also includes children who have been
purposely kept apart from human society, e.g.
kept in a room in solitary confinement.

 How do they learn language??

23 July 27, 2012

Language Acquisition in the Wild

Quite obviously, feral, isolated and

confined children who entered isolation
before they could learn to talk never
learned human language while in the wild,
since they had nobody to teach them.
They cannot spontaneously learn
language.

24 July 27, 2012

 What many feral children do learn is to mimic
animal sounds, and especially the sounds of
their host families. Those that have lived with
wolves are often reported as barking or whining,
and those that have lived wild on their own are
sometimes adept at recognizing and imitating
the sounds of many different birds.

 What makes feral children particularly interesting

to scientists researching the critical period
hypothesis is whether or not they learn to
speak after their return to human society.
25 July 27, 2012
The Critical Period Hypothesis
contends that the ability to learn a
language is limited to the years before
puberty after which, as a result of
neurological changes in the brain, the
ability is lost
unless they are exposed to language in
the early years of life, humans lose much
of their innate ability to learn a language,
and especially its grammatical system.

26 July 27, 2012

What Language to Teach?

Since language acquisition is so difficult

for feral children who've missed out on the
critical period, some attempts have been
made to teach children sign language.
However, sign language is a language in
its own right and requires the same
neurological development.

27 July 27, 2012

After Returning to Civilization
 The ability of feral children to learn language on
their return to human society is very varied.
 Some children acquire normal language ability,
but only if found before the onset of puberty. E.g.
Isabelle → in two years she covered the stages
of learning that usually take six years.
 Some also learnt to speak normally, but it is
assumed that they could speak before their
period of isolation.

28 July 27, 2012

Famous Examples

List
Romanian Dog-Boy
Ugandan Monkey-Boy

29 July 27, 2012

Charles F. Hockett (1974)
Facts about Human Language
 Human is capable of producing brand new sentences
never before uttered in the history of the universe
→ mental grammar

 Children develop complex grammars rapidly and

without formal instruction and grow up to give
consistent interpretations to novel sentence
constructions that they have never before encountered
→ universal grammar

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 2

 Design Features of Language
Vocal-auditory channel

 Human communication utilizes sounds produced by a

vocal system and received by an auditory system.
 The system leaves the rest of the body free to engage in
other activities
 E.g. people also talk in the dark

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 3

 Sounds are transmitted in all
directions

 The auditory system with two ears make it possible

to detect and locate the source of the sounds with
precision.
 Important for survival

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 4

 Transitory

 Sounds are heard and they rapidly disappear,

allowing successive exchanges

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 5

 Interchangeable

 Senders of sounds can also act as receivers and vice

versa.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 6

 Total Feedback

 The senders of sound signals can also hear the

sounds they are sending, so they can adjust or
change the signals.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 7

 Specialization

 The biological power of language signals is small

but the result or consequence can be immense.
 The signals are produced solely for the purpose of
communication.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 8

 Semanticity

 The sound signals are meaningful.

 The series of sounds are assigned with meaning.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 9

 Arbitrariness

 There is no necessary connection between the

form of the signal and the thing being referred to.
 Onomatopoeic words?

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 10

 Convention

 The system and the meanings are conventional –

agreed upon by the speech community

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 11

 Discreteness

 The sounds that make up the signal can be

separated.
 Sentences can be parsed into phrases, phrases into
words, words into morphemes, morphemes into
phonemes.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 12

 Displacement

 Human beings can communicate about things,

activities, and ideas that are not tied to a certain
place or time.
 They even talk about things that do not exist.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 13

 Productivity

 The system is open for new inventions and

development.
 New words, terminologies, expressions are coined
or created.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 14

 Socialization

 Or Traditional Transmission
 Human language is not something inborn.
 Human beings learn their first language through a
process of socialization in a teaching-learning
environment.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 15

 Duality of Patterning

 The order of sounds that make up a signal may be

changed to form a new word because they consist
of phonological elements (phonemes) that do not
carry meaning.
 E.g. tap, pat, apt

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 16

 Prevarication

 A message may be a truth or a lie or nonsensical.

 Human beings can lie and negate.
 The negation occurs only in verbal language

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 17

 Reflexivity

 Human language can be used to talk about itself.

 Parts of speech are correctly used unconsciously.
 E.g. run is a verb, room is a noun

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 18

 The system can be learned

 A speaker can learn another language and use it.

 It is possible to translate from one language to
another.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 19

Which is the most important?
 Vocal-auditory channel  Discreteness
 Sounds transmission  Displacement
 Transitory  Productivity
 Interchangeable  Socialization
 Total feedback  Duality of patterning
 Specialization  Prevarication
 Semanticity  Reflexivity
 Arbitrariness  The system can be
 Convention learned

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 20

Assignment
Do you agree or disagree with the following quote?
Why?

“It’s about as likely that an ape will prove to have

a language ability as that there is an island
somewhere with a species of flightless birds
waiting for human beings to teach them to fly.”
(Chomsky, On the Nature of Language)

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 21

Sign Language, Written
Language & the Deaf

Week 7
 Oral vs Written Language
Oral Communication Written Communication
• Dynamic form of • Static form of transfer
transfer • More precise
• More effective in • Sophisticated and
expressing meaning to intricate
the audience
• Uses words with fewer
syllables, shorter
sentences, and self-
referencing pronouns

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 2

 Sign Language?
• any means of communication through
bodily movements, especially of the hands
and arms, used when spoken
communication is impossible or not
desirable
• employs a delicately nuanced combination
of coded manual signals reinforced by
facial expression and perhaps augmented
by words spelled out in a manual alphabet
• Used to bridge the gap between
communicators, one of whom has hearing
impairment
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 3
• a language which uses manual
communication instead of sound to convey
meaning - simultaneously combining
hand-shapes, orientation and movement
of the hands, arms or body, and facial
expressions to fluidly express a speaker's
thoughts
• sign languages develop in deaf
communities, which can include
interpreters and friends and families of
deaf people as well as people who are
deaf or hard of hearing themselves

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 4

 Language Barrier?

• When people using different sign

languages meet, communication is
significantly easier than when people of
different spoken languages meet. Sign
language in this respect gives access to an
international deaf community.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 5

 American Sign Language
• a complete, complex language that
employs signs made with the hands and
other movements, including facial
expressions and postures of the body
• the first language of many deaf North
Americans, and one of several
communication options available to deaf
people
• the fourth most commonly used language
in the United States

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 6

Is Sign Language the Same?

• No one form of sign language is

universal

BSL ≠ ASL ≠ FSL

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 7

 Compare with Spoken
Language?
• In spoken language, the different
sounds created by words and tones
of voice (intonation) are the most
important devices used to
communicate
• In sign language, sight is the most
useful tool a deaf person has to
communicate and receive
information
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 8
• ASL is completely separate from
English

e.g. in asking question:

English → using a particular tone
ASL → tilting body forward, raising
eyebrows & widening eyes

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 9

 Linguistics of Sign

H O L M E
Handshape/Handform

Orientation/Palm Orientation

Location/Place of Articulation

Movement

Facial Expression
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 10
 Why Emphasizing Early
Language Learning?

Deaf Parents

Deaf Child L1 Acquisition

ASL

Hearing Parents

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 11

 How do the deaf learn
written language?
 initially associating the speech sounds
with the environmental experiences

 discovering the meaning of the written

vocabulary items and then induce the
syntactic relations that pertain to those
items, just as hearing people do with
speech

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 12

 A number of Distinct Advantages to
the Written Language Approach:
1) The learning medium is appropriate
2) Written language knowledge need not be
acquired by the instructor
3) Instruction can begin early
4) All hearing-impaired children can benefit
5) Written language acquisition is
compatible with other approaches
6) Written language knowledge can
facilitate speech
7) Written language can raise intellectuality
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 13
 The differences between oral, sign
and written language
Types of Oral Sign Written
lang. language language language
Attributes
Means of sounds signs, verbal signs
transmission gestures (writing)

Users hearing hearing all people

people impaired
people
Complexity ++ + +++
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 14
 Look at the following verbal signs

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 15

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 16
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 17
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 18
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 19
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 20
 Review

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 21

Psycholinguistics

Week 8
Linguistic Competence &
Performance

and their relation to Language Learning

 Review
 Stages in L1 acquisition
pre-babbling → babbling → holophrastic
→ two word stage → telegraphic speech

Mother Baby
doll da

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 3

 Children’s Interaction

 Children’s interaction development with

the world outside involves both the
verbal and non-verbal aspects
→ language and experience

Competence Performance

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 4

 Essence of Linguistic Competence
 Linguistic Competence
→ the speaker’s ability to comprehend and
produce a language in accordance to the norms
of the language he is using/acquiring
 Language competence develops through
language use.
 Proficiency: development of language
competence through language use.
 Basic language use skills:
 Speaking, listening, reading and writing

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 5

 Redefining Language Competence

 Organizational Competence
 Grammatical Competence
 Textual Competence

 Pragmatic Competence
 IllocutionaryCompetence
 Sociolinguistic Competence

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 6

 Grammatical competence (Unconscious
knowledge of possible grammatical structures in
an idealized speaker)
 What eats John?
 What does John eat?

 Performance (Actual production and

comprehension of language in specific instances
of language use)
 Whe..When are you coming?
 I don’t… well uhm, maybe tomorrow.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 7

 Experience
 Verbal/linguistic experience
 Non-verbal/paralinguistic experience

→Even before a child is in the position to

utter the units of his language, his contacts
with the world outside assume specified
roles in the formation of linguistic
competence
→ pre-verbal experience
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 8
 Pre-Verbal Experience
 Forms the earliest elements of the babies’
linguistic competence
 Much before the first word or utterance is
produced, the child manifest patterns of
behavior
→ the result of an intrinsic cognitive modification
(linguistic competence)
e.g.
 Most children looked at their parents with lots of
expression on their face and readiness for
verbal utterance when the doorbell rang.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 9

 The child at a very early age receives stimuli
from the social and physical environment, and in
reading to these stimuli he reveals the working
of the rudimentary cognitive structure
e.g.
 When the parents utter the word ‘doll’, the child
lifts a doll and point it towards the parents as if
he is saying: Take, here is the doll or Mummy,
do you want the doll?
→ the result of elementary comprehension of adult
language
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 10
 The Formation of Linguistic
Competence

Contacts with the world

First utterance
Pre-verbal behavior

Stimuli

Actual use of language

Performance

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 11

 Linguistic Performance
 The actual use of language in all its
manifestation: listening, reading, speaking,
writing.
 Competence → the possession of a
specific language ability
Performance → the actual operation of
linguistic competence in terms of the four
basic skills of language
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 12
 Important Notes
 It is the development and possession of the
language skills rather than knowledge of the
aspects of language which results in the
acquisition of linguistic competence.
 Intellectual or cognitive possession of the
aspects of language → the result of the
individual mastery of the language skills
It is possible for an individual to have an
intellectual possession of the knowledge of
the aspects of a given language without the
ability to speak, write or read the language
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 13
 The essence of performance consists in
the actual use of the language in any of
the four basic skills.
→ competence is actualized in a set of
operation in the performance

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 14

 Linguistic Competence: a Process
of Development

 Competence begins taking shape at the

earliest phase of a child’s pre-verbal
behavior
→ several months after birth
 Some surveys have been conducted to
study the pre-verbal behavior pattern of
children between the age of 5 – 15 months
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 15
 Results
 Children made very primitive and rudimentary
attempts to communicate with the adults even at
the age of as early as 5 months
→ the pattern of behavior is expected to be
voluntary
 Attempts made are not only to get their intention
fulfilled but also to call the attention of the
parents and others
→ by means of articulations which belong only
to the random articulation category to the stage
of distinctive sound production

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 16

 The behavior patterns vary very much;
there is a definite progress in:
- communicational ability
- motor ability
- explicitness of behavior
- clarity and force of articulation
- greater response to adults demands
(result of greater comprehension)

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 17

 - increase in the number of nonsense units
with definite semantic content
- increase in the number of gesticulation
which accompanied any utterance
- increase of the vowel and consonant
sounds
- increase in the number of noun phrases

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 18

 Progressively responding to the requests
of adults with increase both in the intensity
of the intonation and facial expressions
that accompanied the utterance while the
responses were made

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 19

 Conclusion
 Linguistic competence is a progressively
emerging factor that is difficult or almost
impossible to mark its beginning
 Linguistic competence goes deeper than and far
beyond the earliest complete utterance in the
structure of the language
→ it has its deep pre-verbal roots in
comprehension
 Language acquisition = the development of
linguistic competence

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 20

 Language Errors
 The most usual errors made by children
under the age of three: the use of plurals
and past tenses

generalizing -s
using –ed in
analogues
manner mans, oxes

goed, spitted
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 boys, girls, toys
21
 Find and Explain
1. Why don’t you eat faster, son? I am eating spoon,
Mum.
2. Look he climbing up the tree.
3. My hairs gone white.
4. She spitted my begs.
5. Uncle drinking cigar.
6. That glass broke, daddy.
7. Please, be sitted, sir.
8. She is seeing at me.
9. I ran him ahead.
10. Daddy rubbing the table.
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 22
Sentence Processing
 Journalists say that when a dog bites a
man that is not news, but when a man
bites a dog that is news.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 2

 Sentence Processing
Syntactic Level

Semantic Level

Pragmatic Level

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 3

 Syntactic Level
Chomsky:

Sentence production
Meaning → [syntax + ?] → Sound

Sentence understanding
Sound → [Syntax + ?] → Meaning

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 4

 Meaning
Logical Form (LF)
D-structure S-structure
Sound
Phonetic form (PF)

How would linguists and psycholinguists view the

following set of sentences?

1. The dog catches a ball.

2. Dog catch ball.
3. Catches dog a ball the.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 5

 Semantic Level
refers to the meanings of individual content words
and their relations in sentences
semantic factors can also manipulate in the degree
to which the content words in a clause can be
integrated (French, 1981):

1. The little baby drank the milk. – Well integrated.

2. The aunt saw the door and left. – Poorly integrated.
3. My tasty owner spilled the captain madly. –
Anomalous.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 6

 The sentences varied also in syntactic complexity as
in:

1. The boy hit the ball. – Simple

2. The boy hit the ball and ran. – Compound
3. After hitting his sister, the bother cried. – Complex
4. The ate fat grass green cattle the. – Scrambled

French (1981) presented such sentences word by

word in rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP):
~ At a slow speed, fourteen words per sec.
~ At a fast speed, twenty words per sec.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 7

 Pragmatic Level
involves the use of context (situational or linguistic –
preceding or following sentences, discourse topic) and
knowledge of the world
sentence comprehension depends partly on the plausibility
of the event that it describes:

1. A plausible sentence: a highly likely event in which the

agent and the patient play typical roles for a given action
or verb
e.g. The mother feeds her baby milk.
2. An implausible sentence: a highly unlikely event
e.g. The baby feeds its mother milk
3. A neutral sentence: depicts an event in which the agent
and the patient can exchange their roles
e.g. The baby smiles at the mother.
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 8
 A grammatical judgment requires only superficial
processing of a sentence.
e.g. The patient was treated by the doctor.

Normal adults may rely on plausibility when the

sentence structure is unusually complex, as are
centered-embedded sentences:
1. The cat that the dog that the man stroked bit
miawoed.
2. The boy whom the girl whom the man kissed saw
left.
3. The man that the cat that the dog stroked bit
miawoed.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 9

 See page 125 for the processes of
sentence production

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 10

 Models of Sentence Production
There are two models of sentence production:
1. The top-down serial production model.
Sentence production involved several levels:
a. Conceiving a message.
b. Formulating a syntactic frame.
c. Selecting content words .
d. Specifying phonetic shapes.
e. Instructing the articulators.
2. The parallel model.
→ the message, syntactic, and lexical modules
are acting asynchronously in parallel in
cascade.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 11

Speech Errors & Slips of the
Tongue
 From thought to speech or written
text
CONCEPTUALIZING Slips of the mind

FORMULATING

Slips of the tongue

ARTICULATING

SELF-MONITORING Corrector

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 13

 Tongue twisters
Ask a friend to read the following 3 times rapidly and
repeat 3 times from memory.

The balloon had no gun and could get

the ballet.
From the belly a gun will not get me a
ballot.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 14

 Types of Slips of the Tongue
Anticipation → using a language element (like a
phoneme, or perhaps an entire word) before it is
appropriate; e.g. "a worderful world" -- “a
wonderful world".
Perseveration → using a language element that
was appropriate earlier in a sentence but is no
longer appropriate; e.g. he pulled a pantrum
Substitution → substituting one language element
for another. e.g. "morphines" -- "morphemes"
Transposition/exchange/shift → switching the
positions of two language elements; e.g.
"butterfly" -- "flutterby" ; fancy getting your model
renosed
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 15
 Malapropism → replacing one word with
another, similar-sounding word; e.g. "the very
pineapple of politeness“ --"the very pinnacle of
politeness."
Insertion or Deletion → adding to or removing
sound from a word or series of words; e.g.
"mischievious" -- "mischievous“, "breakfas'es" --
"breakfasts.“
blend → blending two different words into one by
taking the syllables only; e.g. “beginu”

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2009 16

Bilingualism
Bilingual & Multilingual
 Bilingualism: The study of those who speak two or
more languages, when and where they speak each,
and the effect of one language on the other (Chaika;
p.25)

 Bilingualism: How two or more languages are

acquired or learned (Steinberg; p.329)

 Bilingual: A person who knows more than one

realization of language in the same modality (the
same sound or sign) or two languages based on
different modalities (Steinberg; p.242)
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 2
Being multilingual?
 Interest strongly to other foreign languages
 Growing up in a multilingual community
 The children of multilingual-parents or expatriate

 Early bilinguals
→ those who have acquired their languages before
about age 6
 Late bilinguals
→ those who have learned their languages in
adolescence

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 3

Factors of Multilingual Occurrence
 Migration
→ new society = new language
 Religion
→ learning the language of the scripture
 Geography
→ trading
 History
→ colonialism
 The society relationship
→ different tribes = different language
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 4
Types of Bilingualism
 Coordinate bilingualism
→ someone who learns two or more languages
in different places
→ a child who learns a foreign language at the
school in the origin society
 Compound bilingualism
→ someone who learns two or more languages
in one place at the same time
→ a child who grows up in multilingual family

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 5

Simultaneous acquisition
1. Speakers of the different languages use only
one language each when talking to the child.
e.g. :Mother speaks only German while father
speaks only Indonesian.

2. Speakers use two different languages while

speaking to the child.
e.g.: Mother and father use both German and
Indonesian.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 6

Sequential acquisition
 Parents speak one language and the community at
large speaks another.

e.g.: A couple of Jakarta come to Bantul, they speak

Indonesian with their child. At the age of 4,their child
will speak Javanese with his playmates and speak
Indonesian at home with parents.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 7

Multilingual Behavior

 Code-switching
 Code-mixing
 Interfering
 Translating

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 8

Transfer Effects
 The greater the similarity between two languages in
terms of their syntax, vocabulary, and sound system,
the more rapid one acquire those two languages.

 The better knowledge and proper environment will

facilitate acquisition of the other language.

 Double trouble phenomenon

When a multilingual who can speak France and
Japanese while he is a native English try to use
France, his Japanese unexpectedly come to mind.
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 9
Negative Effects

 Bilingualism caused retardation in language

development.
 More stutterers among bilinguals than among
monolinguals.
 Extensive use of two languages may subtly alter a
bilingual’s phonetic, semantic, and syntactic structure
and behavior.
 The bilinguals were slower and less accurate than the
monolinguals in every condition.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 10

Positive Effects

 Parents of the children may have in some way

affected the outcome.
 It enables people to communicate with members of
other cultures.
 Further cooperation and understanding among
nations and peoples.
 The children were raised either monolingually or
bilingually by their parents under the guidance of the
researchers.
 The bilinguals to be superior to the monolinguals.
 This can add to the cognitive flexibility of the child .
27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 11
What experts say…

 Taylor: Bilinguals may experience a slight

disadvantage in language-processing speed over
monolinguals, but this disadvantage is far
outweighed by the advantages of being able to
function in two languages.

 Steinberg: There is no evidence that early

bilingualism will harm the intellectual or cognitive
development of the child in any way.

27 July 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 12

CHILDREN VS
ADULTS
IN SECOND-
LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
CHILDREN VS ADULTS
 Factors involved in Second
Language Acquisition

SLA

PSYCHOLOGICAL FACTORS SOCIAL FACTORS

INTELLECTUAL NATURAL CLASSROOM

MEMORY MOTOR SKILLS
PROCESSING SITUATION SITUATION

Explication

Induction
 Psychological factors

 Intellectual processing
There are only two ways to learn the
structures and rules of SLA: someone
can explain them to you (this way is
termed ‘Explication’) or you can figure
them out for yourself (this way is
termed ‘Induction’).
 Explication & Induction

 Explication is the process whereby the

rules and structures of a second
language (L2) are explained to the
learner in his or her native language.
This term is effective for adults.
 Induction is the learning rules by self-
discovery. Children are more likely to
learn L2 by this term.
 ☺Memory

Memory is crucial to learning. It is

inconceivable that a person with a severe
memory impairment could ever learn his or
her native language, much less the L2.
The kind of simple memorization where
words, phrases and sentences are
remembered just as they are, is called ‘rote’
memorization by psychologists.
The rote memory ability of very young
children seems to be excellent in that they
easily absorb a phenomenal amount of data. At
some age it begins to decline.
 ☺Motor skills
 Good pronunciation, which is related to
the ability to control the organs of
speech such as jaws, lips, tongue,
vocal cords, etc., is clearly an essential
part of learning a foreign language.
 Evidence shows that the particular
motor skill of speech pronunciation is
best developed at a younger age.
 Social factors
 Natural situations
A natural situation for L2 learning is one
where the second language is experienced
in a situation that is similar to that in which
the native language is learned.
e.g.: an English speaking 4-year-old girl
from London who goes to Indonesia with
her parents. Through playing with
Indonesian children, she soon learns Bahasa
Indonesia
 Classroom situations
The classroom for L2 learning is a planned, or
some might say, an artificially constructed,
situation. Physically, there is a room, with the
teacher and the students inside, which is arranged
so that it is isolated from the rest of life.
Whether the classroom is in a school that is in the
community where the L2 is spoken is a matter of
some importance.
e.g.: Indonesian learning English in a classroom in
London (ESL) will have beneficial language
experiences outside of the classroom that
Indonesian learning English in a classroom in
Jakarta (EFL) will not.
Psychological and social factors affecting
second language learning for children and
adults

P sychological factors Social factors

Intellectual Situation

Inductive Explicative Memory Motor skills Natural Classroom

Children High Low High High High Low

Under 7

7-12 High Medium Med/High Med/High Medium Medium

Adults

over 12 High High Low Low Low High

 Who is better?
(Children vs Adults)

Because the answer to this question

depends on whether we are dealing with
the natural or the classroom situation,
each situation must be considered
separately in relation to the
psychological factors which affect the
learning of language.
 The natural situation

In the natural situation, younger

children will do best.
 The natural situation is more favourable
to children because adults undergo a
marked decline in the quality and
quantity of the social interaction
conducive to good language learning.
 Psychologically, while both children and adults
have optimal powers of induction, and are able
to induce the grammar of a second language
more or less equally well, nonetheless, it will
be easier for children to learn syntax than it
will be for adults. This is because adults
undergo a decline in memory, and, without
remembered data, there is nothing to analyze.
For the same reason, older children can be
expected to learn faster than adults, because
of a better memory.
 Because children possess the flexibility in
motor skills which adults do not have,
children will do much better in acquiring
native pronunciation in a second language.

In all respects of language learning, for the

natural situation, children will do better than
adults, with younger children doing better
than older children.
 The classroom situation
In the classroom situation, adults will do
better than young children.
 Not only are adults better in explicative
processing but, simply put, they know
how to be students. They have sufficient
maturity to meet the rigours of a formal
learning environment, where
concentration, attention and even the
ability to sit still for a long time, all play
a role in learning.
 Because the older child's memory and
motor skills are better than the adult's,
the advantage in explicative processing
enjoyed by the adult may not be
sufficient to overcome the
disadvantages experienced in these
areas. Thus, an older child will
probably do better than an adult in the
classroom situation.
 The best age to learn L2 in a classroom
situation is around 12 years.
 Critical Age
 One psycholinguist, Thomas Scovel, recently
has claimed that no adult can ever be
successful in learning a second language so
well that one truly sounds like a native
speaker. ‘The critical period for accentless
speech simply means that adults will never
learn to pass themselves off as native speakers
phonologically…’
In second language acquisition there is no
critical age for syntax, but there is an
absolute critical age for pronunciation.
There is a critical age for most people, but
not for all.
Danny D. Steinberg
The writer of ‘An Introduction to Psycholinguistics’
 1

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

LANGUAGE AND THE BRAIN

July 27, 2012
 What do you think about this photo?

2 July 27, 2012

 This?
3

July 27, 2012

 How many fish are there?
4

1 9 6 4 0 9 8
7 6 5 4 3 2 1
0 1 2 9 6 5 4
3 4 4 3 2 2 9
5 5 7 9 0 4 0
7 2 9 5 4 1 7
5 1 3 7 0 6 4
2 0 6 5 4 8 9

July 27, 2012

 Choose the figure that completes the series!

How do you complete the series? Recalling

memories? Thinking of new possibilities?
5 July 27, 2012
 How many triangles are there?
6

July 27, 2012

 The Human Brain
7

 Composed of nerve cells (neurons) that are the basic

information processing units of the nervous system.
 Contains about 10 billion neurons that are organized
into networks of almost unimaginable complexity
→ each neuron can be directly linked with up to
10,000 other neurons
 Weight: about 1400 grams, pinkish-white matter
 The study: neurolinguistics

July 27, 2012

 The Anatomy of the Brain
8

July 27, 2012

 The Cerebral Hemispheres
9

 The left hemisphere

→ controls the right side of the body
→ excel in analytic tasks (arithmetic)
 The right hemisphere
→ controls the left side of the body
→ excel in tasks which require overall appreciation of
complex patterns (recognizing faces, melodies)

e.g. people suffer damage to one hemisphere of the brain

(stroke/accident) → paralysis on the opposite side of the body

July 27, 2012

 Substructures in the Hemispheres
10

 Hindbrain (Occipital Lobe)

 Midbrain (Temporal Lobe)
 Forebrain (Frontal Lobe)
 Cerebrum (Parietal Lobe)
 Cerebellum

July 27, 2012

 The Hindbrain (Occipital Lobe)
11

 Medulla oblongata
→ transmits all signals between the spinal cord and
the higher parts of the brain
→ governs such autonomic functions as heartbeat
and respiration
 Pons
→ made up of tracts connecting the spinal cord with
higher brain levels
→ contains cell groups that transfer information from
the cerebrum to the cerebellum

July 27, 2012

 The Midbrain (Temporal Lobe)
12

 the main center of sensory integration in fish and

amphibians,
 plays a major integration role in reptiles and birds
 serving primarily as a connecting link between the
hindbrain and the forebrain

July 27, 2012

 Cerebellum (‘the little brain’)
13

 controls balance and coordination by smoothing out

the actions of muscle groups

July 27, 2012

 The Forebrain (Frontal Lobe)
14

 Includes the cerebral hemispheres and the

diencephalon, which contains the thalamus and
hypothalamus
→ thalamus: the main relay centre between the
medulla and the cerebrum
→ hypothalamus: an important control center for
sex drive, pleasure, pain, hunger, thirst, blood
pressure, body temperature, and other visceral
functions

July 27, 2012

 Whole Brain Thinking
15

July 27, 2012

16

July 27, 2012

Right-left brain function
 Brain Functions
17

Reading ability; sensation of pain, Planning, prediction, speech,

temperature, touch, pressure, taste discrete movements of the body

Visual
processing

Audition,
memory
processing,
Balance, sensory
coordination integration

July 27, 2012

 Language Processing in the Brain:
18
Right-Handed
 Involves both hemispheres
 Right-handed people
→ have language represented in the left hemisphere
(left lateralized for language)
→ losing left hemisphere = losing most of linguistic
competence (the ability to speak & process complex
syntactic patterns)
 The right hemisphere
→ responsible for whatever language processing
ability remains
July 27, 2012
 How many ‘t’ are in the following?
19

A flea and a fly in a flue

Were imprisoned, so what could they do?
Said the flea: ‘Let us fly’.
Said the fly: ‘Let us flee’.
So they flew through a flaw in the flue.

July 27, 2012

20

 Ali : “Father, did not you tell me that it is cowardly to

strike anyone smaller than yourself?”
 Father : “Yes, my son.”
 Ali : “Then I wish you would write and tell the
teacher. I don’t believe he knows about it.”

July 27, 2012

 The Right Cerebral Hemisphere
21

 Right-handed people who suffer damage to the right

cerebral hemisphere exhibit difficulty in
understanding jokes and metaphors in daily
conversation
e.g. He was wearing a loud tie.
 Frequently misunderstand people because they
cannot use loudness and intonation as cues to whether
a speaker is angry, excited, or merely joking
 Has a distinct role to play in normal language use

July 27, 2012

 Left-handed People
22

 Few left-handers have a mirror image

representation for language (language localization
in the right hemisphere)
 Tend to show significant language representation in
both hemispheres
→ generally less lateralized for language

July 27, 2012

 Language Processing : the Left
23
Hemisphere
 Broca’s area: speech production
→ if damaged: non-fluent speech and difficulty in
processing complex syntactic patterns
 Wernicke’s area: language comprehension
→ if damaged: comprehension disturbances
 Angular gyrus: reading
→ if damaged: reading impairment

July 27, 2012

 Listening?
24

 Recall that each hemisphere is primarily wired to the

opposite side of the body
 Most of the input to the right ear goes to the left
hemisphere of the brain

Which do you process better:

 Holding telephone receiver to the right ear or the left

one?

July 27, 2012

 REA (Right Ear Advantage)
25

 The right ear

→ words, numbers, and Morse codes
 The left ear
→the perception of melodies and environmental
sounds (e.g. bird songs)

Mind trap

July 27, 2012

 Psycholinguistics

Week 9

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 1

 Language Disorders

Caused by Brain Damage

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 2

 What is it?
• a language disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that
are responsible for language
→ for most people, these are parts of the left side (hemisphere) of the
brain
• usually occurs suddenly, often as the result of a stroke or head injury, but
it may also develop slowly, as in the case of a brain tumor
• impairs both the expression and understanding of language as well as
reading and writing
• may co-occur with speech disorders such as dysarthria or apraxia of
speech, which also result from brain damage.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 3

 Symptoms
• inability to comprehend speech
• inability to read (alexia)
• inability to write (agraphia)
• inability to speak, without muscle paralysis
• inability to form words
• inability to name objects (anomia)
• poor enunciation
• excessive creation and use of personal neologisms (jargon aphasia)
• inability to repeat a phrase
• persistent repetition of phrases
• other language impairment

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 4

 Who has Aphasia?

• anyone can acquire aphasia, but most

people who have aphasia are in their
middle to late years
• Men and women are equally affected
• approximately 80,000 individuals acquire
aphasia each year
• about one million persons in the United
States currently have aphasia

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 5

 What causes Aphasia?
• caused by damage to one or more of the
language areas of the brain
• Many times, the cause of the brain injury is a
stroke. A stroke occurs when, for some reason,
blood is unable to reach a part of the brain. Brain
cells die when they do not receive their normal
supply of blood, which carries oxygen and
important nutrients.
• Other causes of brain injury are severe blows to
the head, brain tumors, brain infections, and
other conditions of the brain

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 6

 Broca’s Aphasia

• Non fluent aphasia

• Damage to the frontal lobe
• Individuals frequently speak in short, meaningful phrases
produced with great effort, often omit small words (is,
and, the etc)
e.g. Walk dog
→ I will take the dog for a walk.
→ You take the dog for a walk.
→ The dog walked out of the yard.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 7

 • Individuals with Broca’s aphasia are able to
understand the speech of others to varying
degrees
→ often aware of their difficulties and can
become easily frustrated by their speaking
problems
• Often have right-sided weakness or paralysis of
the arm and leg because the frontal lobe is also
important for body movement

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 8

 • Expressive aphasia
→ difficulty in conveying thoughts through speech or
writing
→ knows what he wants to say, but cannot find the words
he needs

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 9

 Wernicke’s Aphasia

• Damage to the temporal lobe

• Individuals speak in long sentences that have no meaning,
add unnecessary words, and even create new “words”
• Known as receptive aphasia
→ difficulty in understanding spoken or written language
→ hear the voice or see the print but cannot make sense
of the words

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 10

e.g. You know that smoodle pinkered and that I
want to get him round and take care of him
like you want before.
→ The dog needs to go out so I will take him
for a walk.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 11

• Individuals usually have great difficulty in
understanding speech and often unaware of
their mistakes.
• Usually have no body weakness because their
brain injury is not near the parts of the brain
that control movement

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 12

 Global Aphasia
• Results from damage to extensive portions of the
language areas of the brain
• Individuals have severe communication
difficulties and may be extremely limited in their
ability to speak or comprehend language
• Lose almost all language function, both
comprehension and expression
• Cannot speak or understand speech, nor write or
read

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 13

 Anomia (Amnesia Aphasia)
• Essentially a difficulty with naming particular objects,
people, places or events
• Usually because of an accident that hits the maxillary
breasts
• The sufferer may have difficulties naming certain words,
linked by their grammatical type (e.g. difficulty naming
verbs and not nouns) or by their semantic category (e.g.
difficulty naming words relating to photography but
nothing else) or a more general naming difficulty
• Sufferers are usually aware and it is comparable to a 'tip
of the tongue' sensation experienced by most people.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 14

 Other Types of Aphasia
• Pure Word Deafness (all understanding impaired, but
expressive channels intact)
• Conduction Aphasia (speech, writing and silent reading
intact, but repetition, reading aloud and dictation
impaired)
• Apraxia (now considered a separate disorder in itself)
• Transcortical Motor Aphasia (Understanding of speech,
writing, repetition and reading intact, but impaired
voluntary speech and writing)
• Transcortical Sensory Aphasia,(Impaired comprehension
of speech and writing, but writing, reading aloud and
speech spared)

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 15

 How is it diagnosed?
• usually first recognized by the physician who treats the
individual for his or her brain injury (a neurologist)
• The physician typically performs tests that require the
individual to follow commands, answer questions, name
objects, and converse
• If the physician suspects aphasia, the individual is often
referred to a speech-language pathologist, who performs
a comprehensive examination of the person's ability to
understand, speak, read, and write.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 16

 How is it treated?

Spontaneous recovery
→ an individual recovers from aphasia without
treatment
→ occurs following a transient ischemic attack (TIA)
= a stroke in which the blood flow to the brain is
temporarily interrupted but quickly restored
→ language ability may return in a few hours/days

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 17

 Speech language therapy
→ recovery continues over a 2-year period
→ Some of the factors that influence the amount of
improvement include the cause of the brain
damage, the area of the brain that was damaged,
the extent of the brain injury, the age and health
of the individual, handedness, and educational
level
→ individual & group therapy

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 18

 Family Involvement

• Simplify language by using short, uncomplicated

sentences.
• Repeat the content words or write down key
words to clarify meaning as needed.
• Maintain a natural conversational manner
appropriate for an adult.
• Minimize distractions, such as a blaring radio,
whenever possible.
• Include the person with aphasia in conversations.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 19

 • Ask for and value the opinion of the person with
aphasia, especially regarding family matters.
• Encourage any type of communication, whether
it is speech, gesture, pointing, or drawing.
• Avoid correcting the individual's speech.
• Allow the individual plenty of time to talk.
• Help the individual become involved outside the
home. Seek out support groups such as stroke
clubs.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 20

 Dyslexia

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 21

 What is it?
• characterized by difficulties with accurate and/or
fluent word recognition and by poor spelling and
decoding abilities
• These difficulties typically result from a deficit in
the phonological component of language in
relation to other cognitive abilities
• problems in reading comprehension and reduced
reading experience that can impede growth of
vocabulary and background knowledge

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 22

 • reading is the primary problem, some definitions
of dyslexia also include difficulties with: Writing,
Spelling, Listening, Speaking, Math
• the problem in reading is not the result of
emotional problems, lack of motivation, poor
teaching, mental retardation, or vision or hearing
deficits
• Dyslexia is a persistent, lifelong condition. There's
no cure for it, but there are ways to approach
learning and be successful

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 23

 • Although kids with dyslexia have language
processing and learning difficulties in common,
the symptoms and severity can be quite different
• Kids learn some academic skills at a level lower
than others their same age and intellectual peers,
but they can do other things quite well. They may
be talented in the arts, skilled in technology, or
adept with spatial relationships

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 24

 Facts about Dyslexia
• not limited to reversing the order of letters in reading or writing or a
visual perception deficit that involves reading letters or words
backwards or upside down, as is often implied in popular culture
• dyslexia stems from a deficit in processing the phonological form of
speech
→ reading problems in dyslexia stem from difficulty decomposing
spoken words into discrete phonemes
e.g. CAT → [k], [æ], and [t]
• As a result, affected individuals have difficulty associating these
sounds with the visual letters that make up written words
→ phonological awareness can improve reading scores in children
with reading difficulties

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 25

 Dyslexia: Age 6-11
• has difficulty pronouncing words, may reverse or
substitute parts of words
• Has difficulty carrying out a sequence of directions
• Doesn't hear fine differences in words; e.g., writes "pin"
for "pen"
• Has problems stating thoughts in an organized way
• Confuses the order of letters in words
• Doesn't recognize words previously learned
• Spells a word several different ways; doesn't recognize
the correct version
• Has poor reading comprehension

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 26

 Age 12-adult

• Has difficulty remembering what he just read

• Has difficulty concentrating when reading or
writing
• Is unable to tell important information from
unimportant details
• Spells poorly; misspelling is not phonetic
• Has problems taking notes accurately
• Has difficulty organizing and completing written
projects

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 27

 Dysgraphia

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 28

 What is it?

• a difficulty to write coherently

• People with dysgraphia often can write, and may have a
higher than average IQ, but lack co-ordination, and may
find other fine motor tasks such as tying shoes difficult (It
often does not affect all fine motor skills)
• They can also lack basic spelling skills (having difficulties
with p,q,b,d), and often will write the wrong word when
trying to formulate thoughts (on paper)

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 29

 • In children, the disorder generally emerges when
they are first introduced to writing. They make
inappropriately sized and spaced letters, or write
wrong or misspelled words despite thorough
instruction
• Children with the disorder may have other
learning disabilities; however, they usually have
no social or other academic problems. Cases of
dysgraphia in adults generally occur after some
neurological trauma or it might be diagnosed in a
person with Autism

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 30

 Types of Dysgraphia
• Dyslexic dysgraphia
→ spontaneously written work is illegible, copied work is fairly good,
and spelling is bad
• Motor dysgraphia
→ is due to deficient fine motor skills, poor dexterity, poor muscle
tone, and/or unspecified motor clumsiness
→ written work is poor to illegible, even if copied by sight from
another document
→ Letter formation may be acceptable in very short samples of
writing, but this requires extreme effort and an unreasonable
amount of time to accomplish, and cannot be sustained for a
significant length of time

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 31

• Spatial dysgraphia
→ due to a defect in the understanding of space
→ has illegible spontaneously written work, illegible
copied work, normal spelling

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2008 32

 Symptoms

• A mixture of upper/lower case letters

• irregular letter sizes and shapes
• unfinished letters, struggle to use writing as a
communications tool
• odd writing grip, many spelling mistakes (sometimes)
• pain when writing
• decreased or increased speed of writing and copying
• talks to self while writing, and general illegibility
• Reluctance or refusal to complete writing tasks

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 Psycholinguistics
Week 10

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 1

 Deviant Language
Behavior

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 2

 Physiological and Psychological
Background
the mind
deviant
language language behavior
physiological
mechanism
physiological disorder
speech disorder
mental disorder

physiological disorder caused by mental abnormality

mental disorder caused by physiological abnormality

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 3
 Physiological Abnormalities

defects of the central nervous system

Total loss of language function or partial impairment: aphasia

defects of vocal mechanism

Results only in the impairment of speech production

Lungs: labored, impaired speech; vocal cords: infected → speech
disorder; tongue: paralysis → complete loss of speech

defects of the auditory mechanism

Partial/total deafness, gesticulation is the only possible means of

ordinary communication

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 4

 Study the following sentences.
1. Doggy going vely kean.
2. That chicor is broke.
3. Please, sit up the chair.
4. We’ll sit on the dable for food.
5. Moob the chair out.
6. Daddy coming to home lately.
7. You don’t dok fastly.
8. I have so much clothes.
9. Do you wunted me to see?
10. You are not habby at me.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 5

 Deviant Pronunciation
 Children below the school-going age
→ diphthongs and consonants
→ able to manipulate the tongue the way
required by particular sound
e.g. substituting [I], [r], [s] → [w], [d], [t]
 The nature of deviation
→ some children are able to use the same
consonant later in one position which they were
unable to use in another
e.g. [s] → they could say ‘sun’ but not ‘blouse’
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 6
 Physiogenic Disorder
 Disorders that affect speech mostly
stem from brain abnormalities
- brain infection
- brain tumors
- head injuries
- metabolic disturbance
- glands etc

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 7

 Psychogenic/Mental Disorder
 Abnormalities that stem directly
from the mind
1. Traumatic reactions to war &
catastrophe
2. Chromic situational stress
3. Psychoneurotic disorder (phobias)
4. Psycho-physiological disorder
5. Psychotic disorder (schizophrenic &
paranoid)
July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 8
 The Effects of Psychogenic
Disorder
 Impairment/loss of speech activity
 Lack of conceptual organization

 Lack of comprehension

 Loss of memory

 Impairment of audition

 Impairment of visual functions

 Disorder of sensory-motor function

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 9

 Deviant Language Behavior
 Language deviations result from:
 physiological disorder, excluding those of the
brain
 brain disorder of organizational and functional
origins
 psychoneurotic disorder from shocks and
traumatic experience
 psycho-physiological disorder from chromic
emotional tension
 psychotic disorder of insanity type

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 10

 Language Deviation of Children
1. Delayed manifestation of speech
→ mental retardation, aphasia, deafness,
defects in the vocal organs
→ what about in normal children?
 Sociological factors, e.g. the attitude of the parents
 The child’s relations with the rest of the children of
the family
 Lack of sufficient motivation as related to type of
personality be tends to develop
 Isolation from which several children suffer in the
hands of parents both of whom are employed
 Slight personality disorders caused by
biological/sociological backgrounds

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 11

2. Defects in articulation
→ affect the consonants more than vowels as producing
consonants needs more articulation
 Lack of parental attention in making proper corrections on time
 Parents reinforcement of the child’s wrong use of sounds by
always repeating such forms for pleasure
 Isolation, where the child mostly grow up on his own without
occasions for contrasting his language with those of other
children
e.g.
1. The pencil is nod here.
2. Mama is coogging now.
3. Doont talk to me.
4. My kair’s gone long.
5. You can bold it up.

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 12

3. Syntactic deviations
→ displacement of nouns and verbs
→ use of nouns without placing the
required articles
→ use of transitive verbs without objects,
etc
 This is considered as language disorder only
when such mistakes are prolonged beyond
the age when they ought to disappear

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 13

4. Semantic defects
→ the organization of meanings in the
formation of sentences

5. Fragmentation of sentences
→ producing sentences in broken,
unrelated units of words

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 14

 Analyze the following cases.

1. Zalfa, a 3 year old girl, likes talking

to herself a lot. She has good
pronunciation, no defects in
articulation. What is really
happening?
2. She also likes substituting the initial
letter of every word into [h]. Why?
How to overcome this?

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 15

 No final exam.
Thank You

July 27, 2012 psycholing/ts/2007 16