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Mid Test Psycholinguistics

This document contains the answers to six questions from a psycholinguistics midterm test for a student named Nurul Rifa Mutia. 1) It summarizes the underlying reason for the existence of psycholinguistics as a field of study, which is to understand how linguistic concepts interact with human cognitive processes like language acquisition and production. 2) It evaluates the evidence for a critical period in language acquisition, finding that while younger learners have advantages, there is a sensitive period rather than a strict critical period. 3) It explains that mute but hearing individuals can comprehend speech through developing a mental grammar from exposure.

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270 views4 pages

Mid Test Psycholinguistics

This document contains the answers to six questions from a psycholinguistics midterm test for a student named Nurul Rifa Mutia. 1) It summarizes the underlying reason for the existence of psycholinguistics as a field of study, which is to understand how linguistic concepts interact with human cognitive processes like language acquisition and production. 2) It evaluates the evidence for a critical period in language acquisition, finding that while younger learners have advantages, there is a sensitive period rather than a strict critical period. 3) It explains that mute but hearing individuals can comprehend speech through developing a mental grammar from exposure.

Uploaded by

nurul rifaa
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Name : Nurul Rifa Mutia

Class/Student Number : 6C/2223190096


Subject : Psycholinguistics
Lecturer : Rosmania Rima, M.Pd.

MID TEST
1. What is the underlying reason of the existence of psycholinguistics as one of linguistic
fields?
Answer
Basically, linguistic is the scientific study of human language, and psycholinguistic is the
study of the relationships between linguistic itself behavior and psychological processes,
including the process of language acquisition (cognitive science).
William O’Grady explain in the book “Contemporary Linguistics’ that psycholinguistic
study how word meaning, sentence meaning, and discourse meaning are computed and
represented in the mind. In short, psycholinguists seek to understand how language is
done and it has related to language processing. In order to understand how these
linguistic concepts, interact with other aspects of human processing to enable language
production and comprehension, psycholinguistics exist as one of linguistic fields.

2. The hypothesis of biologically based critical period for language was first overtly
suggested by Lenneberg (1967), and asserts that if no language has been learnt by the
onset of puberty, it can never be learned in a normal and functional sense. Present and
evaluate the evidence in order to provide an answer to the question as to whether or not a
critical period exist for the acquisition of language!
Answer
The hypothesis of a critical period for language acquisition is not a new idea. Penfield &
Roberts and vigorously advocated by Lenneberg, a biological base of the idea has been
thoroughly researched and to a certain extent, validated by the result of studies, such as
those by Newport & Supalla (case of deaf children who exposed to sign language from
birth), Curtiss (case of feral children, who were not exposed to human language because
of being brought up in the wild) and Asher & Garcia (case of cuban immigrant that
arrived in U.S between 1-6 years did much better on a test of reading English rather than
those who were aged 7-9 years on arrival). Although the evidence comes from a variety
of areas, namely feral children, deaf children and second language acquisition, no one
study can provide critic-free conclusive evidence. The feral children who lack of
language may be happened because of an abusive environment, deaf children do not
show total incapability for language learning once they hit puberty, and second language
learning studies rely on a questionable generalisation of their data to native language
acquisition. All the studies above demonstrate differences between younger and older
learners of a language, and the theorist majority agree that children have an advantage
over adults in language acquisition.
The evidence generally supports the notion of a period prescribed by age where language
is more easily learned, but with some considerable modifications to Lenneberg’s initial
idea and with various explanations. One modification that has often been discussed is the
weakening of the concept to a sensitive period, the period where an organism is sensitive
to particular forms of stimulus inputs and physiologically and psychologically ready for
the acquisition of a particular response. Based on Lenneberg’s hypothesis of whether
there is a critical period or not, it seems reasonable to conclude that there is an optimal
window of opportunity for language acquisition and is more correctly named as a
sensitive period rather than a critical period.

3. Can person who are mute but hearing develop the ability to comprehend speech?
Answer
Yes, they can. Persons who are mute but hearing can develop the ability to comprehend
speech without their being able to produce speech. These mute persons developed a
grammar, a mental grammar based on speech comprehension. Such a grammar enables
them to comprehend the speech to which they were exposed. Consequently, the sentences
that they can comprehend reflect the essential characteristics of language, in example the
comprehension of and unlimited number of grammatical and novel sentences, recognition
of synonymy and ambiguity, etc.

4. How ‘sign language’ differ from sign and gesture?


Answer
Gestures are simple, unstructured signals used to convey basic ideas. Each individual
gesture is called a sign. Each sign has three distinct parts : the handshape, the position of
the hands, and the movement of the hands. But although both sign and gestures involve
using hands, they are different. Sign is like speech and is used instead of speaking,
whereas gestures are mostly used while speaking.
Then, there are two general categories of language involving the use of signs: alternate
sign language and primary sign language. by definition, alternate sign language is a
system of hand signals developed by speakers for limited communication in a specific
context where speech cannot be used. In contrast, a primary sign language is the first
language of group of people who do not use a spoken language with each other,

5. Can animal communication be regarded as language? Why?


Answer
Language is a complex system which consists of phonetics, syntax, semantics,
pragmatics.
Some intelligent animals may get trained and be able to command hundreds of
vocabulary, but the vocabulary does not have meaning for them. In example they may
know that the word of “blue” means one of colour, but they do not know how to make
use of that word. In other words, they do not understand languages, and so animal
communication can not be regarded as language.
For other reason, as diverse and rich as these and other animal signal are, they are not
language. the main reason is the signals are just emotional. Their only function is to
manipulate another animal’s behavior, not to share and exchange information. Without
those functions, animal signals do not qualify as language.

6. There are at least 3 factors involved in second language acquisition: psychological, social
situation, other psychological variable. Explain them!
Answer
These are factors which involve in Second Language acquisition, the individual factors:
age, personality, motivation, experiences, cognition, native language, the external factors:
curriculum, instruction, culture and status, motivation, access to native speakers, the
affective factors: self-esteem, inhibition, risk taking, anxiety, empathy.
The individual factors:
- Age
The age of the learner influence the L2. Children having strong literacy skills in their
own language, seem to be in a better position to acquire a new language in more
effective way than older learners.
- Personality
Introverted or anxious learners usually perform slower progress, especially in the
development of oral skills. They are less likely to take opportunities to speak. And
more outgoing students will not worry about the inevitability of making mistakes.
They do not care about taking risks; they get more chances to do much more practice
in the TL.
- Motivation
People do certain activities because they give them pleasure, develop a certain skill or
they are morally the right thing to do.
- Experiences
Learners who have already developed general knowledge and experience are in a
stronger position to develop a new language than those who have not.
- Cognition
Generally speaking, apparently students with greater cognitive abilities make a faster
progress.
- Native language
The external factors:
- Curriculum
Particularly of the ESL students, it essential that the totality of their educational
experiences should be suitable to their needs.
- Instruction
If language lerners are exposed to appropriate and effective learning experiences in
their classrooms, they will make faster progress. The job of the language teachers
should be to provide suitable and effective input through their instructions.
- Culture and status
Social factors can affect motivation, attitudes and language learning success, children
just like adults are quite sensitive to social dynamics and power relationships, and
immigrant learners are quickly labelled identities such as successful/unsuccessful, etc
- Access to native speaker
Since native speakers of the TL can act as linguistic models and since they can
provide effective feedback for the TL learners, it is very advantageous to have the
opportunity to interact with the native speakers, not only in the classroom setting but
also outside of it.

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