Annual Review of Applied Linguistics (2001) 21, 3–22. Printed in the USA.

Copyright © 2001 Cambridge University Press 0267-1905/01 $9.50

1. ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY

AND LINGUISTICS *

Norman Segalowitz

Over four decades ago the so-called Chomskyan revolution appeared to lay the
foundation for a promising new partnership between linguistics and psychology.
Many have now concluded, however, that the hopes originally expressed for this
partnership were not realized. This chapter is about what went wrong and where
we might go from here. The discussion first identifies three reasons why initial
efforts at partnership may have been inherently flawed—divergent criteria for
choosing among competing theories, different ideas about what was to be
explained, and different approaches to questions about biology and environment. I
then argue that recent developments—especially in associative learning theory, in
cognitive neuroscience, and in linguistic theory—may provide a more solid basis
for partnership. Next, the chapter describes two possible ways that bridges
between the disciplines might develop. One draws on recent psychological
research on attention focusing and on linguistic research concerning language
constructions. The other draws on the concept of affordances and perspective
taking. The chapter concludes that an enduring partnership between linguistics and
psychology may indeed now be possible and that there may be a special role for
applied linguistics in this new development.

The relationship between psychology and linguistics has been a curious

one. Both aim to understand the fundamental nature of language so there ought to
be a very close working association between them. Chomksy (1965, 2000) has
even suggested, on more than one occasion, that the work of linguistics can be
interpreted as part of psychology. Indeed, 40 years ago the relationship was close.
Nevertheless, relatively speaking, psychological research on language today is far
less driven by recent advances in theoretical linguistics than it was then; similarly,
a great deal of work in theoretical linguistics makes little reference to current
developments in psychology. The current state of affairs is easily confirmed by

3
4 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

comparing works cited at the end of journal articles and textbooks in the two
disciplines; apart from historical background references, one finds relatively little
bibliographical overlap in a great number of writings. The sad truth is that many
psychologists interested in language have not kept up with recent developments in
linguistics, especially in what is referred to as the dominant paradigm (Universal
Grammar) and, it would also seem that many linguists are not aware of what is
happening in psychology, especially in cognitive psychology and cognitive
neuropsychology.

The debate about the fundamental nature of language has involved mostly
theoretical linguists and experimental psychologists. Applied linguists certainly
have an interest in this debate, but they have typically addressed quite different
issues from those of concern to theoretical linguists. Davies (1999), for example,
lists the following research areas applied linguists engage in: how to provide better
language instruction, diagnose speech pathologies, train translators and interpreters,
compose valid language examinations, evaluate school bilingual programs, measure
literacy, analyze the language of a text, advise on educational or forensic matters
related to language. The opportunity for close relations between psychology and
applied linguistics in each of these domains is great, and a volume could no doubt
be written about each. The present review, however, focuses on what has become,
for better or worse, the dominant question that has brought psychologists and
linguists into discussion with each other—the question about the fundamental nature
of language. As will be seen, there is emerging a new perspective that may be of
special interest to applied linguists.

Why then, have the disciplines drifted apart? Can the answer suggest how
a future collaboration might be more successful? Is a new partnership in the
making? In this review, I identify some past barriers to cooperation between
psychology and linguistics. I argue that these barriers appear to be dropping due to
the rise of new research methodologies, and that we are now entering a time that
may see a new convergence between the disciplines. Finally, I speculate about
some possible directions that convergence could take, concluding that there may be
an especially important role for applied linguists in this future collaboration.

The Past Four Decades

The Chomskyan revolution in linguistics of the late 1950s and 1960s

stimulated a profound change in the way psychologists viewed language, making
possible a new kind of collaboration with linguists (Lyons, 1991). This partnership
was based on the belief that psychologists and linguists could now share a vision
about the fundamental nature of language (Miller & Chomsky, 1963). Initial
studies based on this new view were very encouraging, but ultimately the two
disciplines drifted apart and the level of collaboration dropped significantly. A
number of reasons for this drift have been discussed thoroughly elsewhere (e.g.,
Abrahamsen, 1987; McCauley, 1987; Reber, 1987; Sampson, 1997; Tomasello,
1998). However, three points in particular are worth considering here because,
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 5

with hindsight, they might suggest why the partnership was bound to fail and they
may point to a better way to build a bridge in the future.

Divergent Theory Building Criteria

In the 1960s, many psychologists treated the new insights from linguistics
as a description of the grammar posited to underlie language competence. It was
natural, therefore, to ask whether this linguistic grammar might serve as a specific
theory of the brain’s mental grammar. The story of how psychologists attempted to
test this idea is interesting, but too long and complex to relate here; the important
point is that after some early successes, most psychologists failed to be convinced
that the then current theories of linguistic grammar could usefully serve as a theory
of the brain’s grammar (Reber, 1987; Tomasello, 1998). Psychological theory and
linguistic theory appeared to be incompatible at some important level and
psychologists and linguists, by and large, gave up looking for ways to reconcile
their differences.

Why? Among the reasons for this failure is the following. Within their
respective disciplines, linguists and psychologists necessarily have to choose from
time to time between contending theoretical explanations for the phenomena they
investigate. The choice is usually made, ideally, by deciding which contending
theory best provides an account that generalizes over all relevant data in the domain
while, at the same time, remaining as economical as possible in terms of theoretical
elegance and simplicity. These decision guidelines serve as economy criteria for
theory building and are intended to ensure that newly accepted theories do a better
job than the ones they displace. The problem in the past was that linguists and
psychologists generally differed regarding what the relevant data should be when
applying these economy criteria. Psychologists tended to prefer theories that
explained facts about language processing and development, while linguists
generally favored theories that accounted for sentence relatedness as reflected in
native speakers’ intuitions. Initially, when the set of linguistic phenomena to
account for was relatively small, psychological and linguistic theories about
language could appear, without much difficulty, to be compatible with each other.
Over time, however, more and more data about language intuitions and language
processing were gathered. Theory building in the two disciplines inevitably moved
in divergent directions, reflecting the fact that the theory builders, in trying to
account for very different kinds of data, were using different economy criteria
(Watt, 1970).

Divergent Approaches to Explanation

A related reason for the disciplines drifting apart has been their differing
approaches to explanation. The dominant paradigm of linguistics, as it emerged
during the revolution in linguistic theory in the late 1950s, asserted that there exists
an innately determined, autonomously functioning Universal Grammar (UG), a
“language faculty” or “organ of mind” (Chomsky, 1975; Lightfoot, 1999; Pinker,
6 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

1994). The goal of UG linguistics has been to provide a full characterization of this
organ. The language faculty is distinguished from general cognitive systems
insofar as it specifies, for all human languages, the way patterns underlying
language are related to each other and to surface forms of the language. This organ
of mind is said to predispose us to process linguistic information in ways that are
highly specific to the language domain and unrelated to general cognitive
processing. By consulting native speaker intuitions, it has been claimed that we can
make inferences about the nature of this organ of mind.

In contrast, the dominant approach in psychology generally has been to

focus on the cognitive and neurocognitive processes that underlie adaptation.
Questions about language, then, are questions about how the human brain solves
problems of communication, and the answers must take into account the variegated
structure of the brain and its considerable, though not unlimited, plasticity (Bates,
1994). During the past four decades, many psychologists were able to accept, in
principle at least, the UG inspired idea that there might be a highly specialized,
cognitive module dedicated to language. After all, examples of brain specialization
abound. Acceptance of this idea no doubt was further facilitated by the popular
computer metaphor of the mind central to much of cognitive psychology.
Nevertheless, there emerged a serious explanatory gap between psychologists and
linguists on this issue. Psychologists generally were unsure how one could study
the language faculty in relation to brain function, given that the faculty was
characterized chiefly in terms of abstract, mathematical formalizations not
mappable in any direct way onto observable behavior or brain systems.

Linguists objected that it was inappropriate to search for such simple,

direct correspondences between the abstract characteristics of language and
observable behavior and brain activity. In terms of Marr’s (1982) distinctions
regarding explanation, UG is a Level 1 theory, a computational theory of what is to
be explained, not how language is implemented. The point of contention for many
linguists and psychologists is whether the computational level of explanation is the
only level that is appropriate and, if not, then how to link that level to explanations
of the mechanism that are psychologically satisfying (see Black, 1970; Chomsky,
1970a; 1970b; Jackendoff, 1999). Ultimately, the issue appears to reduce to how
separate or modular (Fodor, 1983) one believes language is in relation to other
forms of cognition; if language is not separate, then the computational approach is
not so compelling and may even be inappropriate (Marr, 1982, p. 356).

Recently, it should be noted, there has been an upsurge of interest in some

new sources of data that may speak to the issue of a language faculty. This is
research on individuals for whom there is a large discrepancy between their
language and other cognitive abilities, or who have language disabilities that appear
to be inherited (e.g., Gopnick & Crago, 1991; Smith & Tsimpli, 1995; Van der
Lely, 1997). Some have interpreted these cases as support for the language faculty
hypothesis (Newmeyer, 1997; Pinker, 1994); however, the topic remains
controversial (see, for example, especially Bates, 1994; Bates, in press; and
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 7

Leonard, 1998, for discussion). Regardless of where one stands with respect to
these particular studies, the fact is that debate over the status of the constructs
“language faculty” and “organ of mind” has not moved closer to a mutually
accepted resolution in several decades, and this has served to weaken enthusiasm
for the partnership.

Divergent Approaches to Biology and Environment

A third factor in the drift apart has been a difference between the way most
psychologists and most UG linguists approach the question about how biology and
environment contribute to language. UG linguists have generally been unimpressed
with psychologists’ attempts to turn to learning-based explanations for language
acquisition, citing the lack of sensitivity in their models to the deeper complexities
of language structure. To many psychologists, however, it has often appeared that
UG linguistics made recourse to what Dawkins (1986) called, in a different context,
“the argument from personal incredulity.” This is the argument that, because one
personally cannot see how a phenomenon can be explained within one framework,
the only available alternative must therefore probably be true, even in the absence
of specific evidence for it. The child’s acquisition of a first language is a case in
point here. UG linguists point out that all children master their first language
despite the very complex and—from the child’s point of view—arbitrary structure
underlying it, and this acquisition is surprisingly rapid and occurs in an
environment that provides few supportive instructional clues (Chomsky, 1965;
Jackendoff, 1994; Lightfoot, 1999). Here we have the problem of the “poverty of
the stimulus” or Plato’s Problem. How is it that the child comes to know so much
about language without support of the environment? To explain this early mastery,
it was argued (and still is, for example, in Lightfoot 1999; but see Newmeyer,
1998, for a more nuanced position) that there must exist an innately determined,
brain-based, language-specific organ of mind that somehow predisposes the child
appropriately. The choice of this innateness solution to the problem of language
acquisition is generally defended on the grounds that it is inconceivable that any
plausible solution will ever be found solely within a general learning theory
framework.

The UG linguists’ proposal that there exists a language organ dissociated

from general cognition was received by psychologists with some interest at first.
However, over time discussion became increasingly polarized, and this may be due
in some measure to the way the case for an innate language faculty was made. UG
advocates were perceived as dismissing learning frameworks virtually out of hand,
claiming that they could never, in principle, provide a satisfactory account of
language, even though no testable proposal was offered for the biological
alternative (in part, no doubt, because psychological tests were not thought to be
appropriate). The result was an impasse with no understanding among researchers
in either discipline of what kind of evidence, even in principle, could persuade
researchers in the other discipline and thereby help advance the discussion.
Psychologists and linguists, by and large, went their separate ways. Psychologists
8 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

focused on learning questions and UG linguists concentrated on developing fuller

and more refined mathematical formalizations of the underlying properties of
language structure. Almost no one pursued a neurocognitive search for the basis of
innate universal language structures.

With hindsight, it might be concluded that these three contrasting ways of

addressing questions about language—divergent criteria for choosing among
competing theories, different ideas about what is to be explained, and dissimilar
ways of addressing questions about biology and environment—probably doomed the
partnership from the beginning. On a more optimistic note, perhaps we can now
draw lessons about what is needed if interdisciplinary collaboration is to be
successful in the future. Of course, one cannot legislate change. The differences
just recounted were part and parcel of the two research cultures that existed at the
time. Ultimately, we will see if new generations of researchers shift their views to
make convergence possible. I think we are now witnessing such a shift in the
making, for the reasons described in the next section.

Seeds of Convergence?

Recent developments suggest we may soon see a new era of collaboration

between linguistics and psychology that, one hopes, will be more enduring. Three
examples are noted here and the final one will be elaborated with respect to some
possible avenues for convergence in the future.

Modeling Associative Learning

Until recently, many people thought that a simple associative learning

system could not, even in principle, acquire behavior that had the rule-governed
look of the language used by very young children. It was widely believed that
learning systems consisting only of simple associative mechanisms could never
abstract linguistic categories without some built-in (or “innate”) predisposition to
do so. However, the emergence of powerful new techniques for modeling
associative learning, such as connectionist networks (Bechtel & Abrahamsen, 1991;
Elman, Bates, Johnson, Karmiloff-Smith, Parisi, & Plunkett, 1996; Rumelhart &
McClelland, 1987) and latent semantic analysis (Landauer & Dumais, 1997) are
challenging these beliefs. Bechtel (1996), for example, has shown that, at least in
principle, it is possible to train a connectionist network to acquire knowledge of
abstract categories that underlie rule-governed behavior without building into the
network prior knowledge of the rules or the categories. Rumelhart and McClelland
(1987) demonstrated that a connectionist network can learn to correctly inflect
regular and irregular verbs for the past tense and to generalize this behavior to new
exemplars. All that the associative network contains at the start of learning is the
ability to make and modify associations between its internal elements as a function
of error correction feedback.
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 9

Not everyone has concluded that such research succeeds in demonstrating

that associative learning alone can account for the origins of rule-governed language
abilities and this provides a solution to Plato’s problem (Bechtel, 1996, p. 74–75;
Pinker & Prince, 1988). Nevertheless, one can see a noteworthy shift in the
debate. Connectionist models and latent semantic analysis can now be viewed, at a
minimum, as existence proofs demonstrating the existence of associative learning
systems with the following interesting properties: they can acquire rule-like
behavior without prior knowledge of the rules, without having to “compute” the
rule in the course of learning and without having a predisposition for working with
rules built into them. The question, then, about “what knowledge must be in the
head” for language to be learned (Bechtel, 1996) has now become an empirical
question, whereas before it was one chiefly of speculation. The matter can now be
decided by more modeling and experiments that match the output of ever more
sophisticated associative models to data about what people do when they use
language. That there has been a basic shift in the tone of debate can be seen by
comparing, for example, linguists Wexler and Culicover (1980) with Pinker (1999),
all supporters of the language faculty construct. In their book, Wexler and
Culicover dismissed associative approaches to language learning in a line or two
and then concluded “In particular, no theory of acquisition can explain the
acquisition of the rich and intricate system of syntax” (1980, p. 2). Pinker (1999),
on the other hand, discusses the data offered by connectionists on their own terms.
Thus, although far from being resolved, questions about the “poverty of the
stimulus” and “Plato’s Problem” now appear amenable to research, given the
powerful new modeling techniques developed in recent years.

Advances in the Neurosciences

Advances in recent decades in the neurosciences and in neurolinguistics

have changed our appreciation of how language is implemented in the brain,
compared to how matters were understood forty or more years ago. Our grasp of
modularity, brain plasticity, domain specificity—topics central to many of the
concerns of linguists and psychologists—has changed dramatically in the last four
decades, chiefly because of the emergence of powerful new brain imaging
techniques and the increased collaborative work of neuropsychologists and
cognitive psychologists (Rugg, 1999). Questions about the brain that were
stimulated by UG linguistics—questions about a possible organ of mind, about the
language faculty, about innate knowledge—are undergoing reformulation in light of
what is now known about the brain. In many respects, these advances may have
rendered some of the previous theoretical differences irrelevant because the nature
of the questions has changed (Bates, 1994, in press-b). For excellent reviews of
the numerous developments in this field, see Brown and Hagoort (1999b),
Gazzaniga (2000), Grodzinsky, Shapiro, and Swinney (2000), and Stemmer and
Whitaker (1998).

Two points merit comment here. First, complex functional systems such
as attention and memory that in the past were referred to as “faculties” have been
10 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

fractionated into components that are subserved by different areas of the brain. For
example, Posner and his colleagues (e.g., Posner & Petersen, 1990) and others
have identified anatomically distinct subsystems that carry out different functions of
attention such as orienting to sensory events, detecting signals for conscious
processing, maintaining a vigilant or alert state, exerting top-down executive
control, and disengaging focus of attention. It is now clear that while regions of
the brain carry out highly specialized activities, there is at the same time no single
“module” for attention or consciousness; what we call attention is a complex
activity of the whole brain carried out by a highly integrated (in a healthy brain)
network of subsystems. The same is true for language. Language functions are not
subserved by just one or two regions in the left hemisphere, as may once have been
thought, but by a highly integrated network of subsystems widely distributed across
the brain (Brown & Hagoort, 1999a). This has obvious implications for the idea of
a language “module” or unitary language faculty subserving language acquisition.

The second point deserving mention is the finding that while, in most
people, analogous regions of the brain tend to serve the same language functions
(for example, grammatical functions tend to be carried out in frontal regions and
anterior temporal regions of the left hemisphere, while semantic functions involving
content or “open class” words tend to be carried out in the posterior cortex), the
exact anatomical location of the functions can vary considerably from individual to
individual. Moreover, these two subsystems have different sensitive periods for
development; if normal development is altered, say by the early onset of deafness,
then different brain regions may become responsible for some functions (Neville,
Mills, & Lawson, 1992). Such findings point to the considerable plasticity of the
brain, a fact which again requires re-evaluation of earlier ideas originating in both
psychology and linguistics about how the brain may be specialized for language.

New Developments in Linguistics

Within linguistics itself, there have emerged new approaches challenging

the central tenets of UG, approaches known variously as cognitive grammar,
functional linguistics, and cognitive linguistics (e.g., Fauconnier, 1994; Givón
1995; Goldberg, 1995; Lakoff, 1987; Langacker 1987, 1991). These approaches
challenge the need for many aspects of the formalist UG paradigm, in particular the
constructs “autonomous syntax,” “language faculty,” and “organ of mind.” At the
moment, there seems to be relatively little dialog between UG linguists and
cognitive linguists, but a welcome and important exception is Newmeyer (1998).
These new approaches, which I will refer to collectively as “cognitive linguistics,”
are beginning to have a special appeal to psychologists (Ellis, 1999; Tomasello,
1998; Ungerer & Schmid, 1996).

This development within linguistics has the potential for rebuilding a close
partnership with psychology for the following main reason: proponents of cognitive
linguistics have declared as their chief goal providing a psychologically plausible
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 11

account of language. For example, Langacker (1998) writes that the movement
called cognitive linguistics

contrasts with formalist approaches by viewing language as an integral

facet of cognition (not a separate “module” or “mental faculty”). Insofar
as is possible, linguistic structure is analyzed in terms of more basic
systems and abilities (e.g., perception, attention, categorization) from
which it cannot be dissociated. (1998, p. 1).

Tomasello (1998) refers to these developments in linguistics as a “New Psychology

of Language.” Of course, a simple declaration of intent does not guarantee
success. In fact, I will argue below that more steps must be taken if the
psychological content of cognitive linguistics is to be satisfactorily linked to
psychology. Nevertheless, the “cognitive” in the new cognitive linguistics has the
potential of providing a basis for collaboration.

Speculations on a Future Psychology-Linguistics Partnership

How might a bridge be built between psychology and this “New

Psychology of Language”? By way of illustration, two examples intended to serve
as starting points for thinking about new ways of developing a partnership are
considered here. The first comes from a recent study on second language (L2)
fluency and attention in our laboratory (Segalowitz & Frenkiel, in preparation) and
provides an illustration of how research addressing linguistic constructions as
cognitive schemata might converge with the broader psychological study of
cognitive schemata. The second example builds on the psychological concept of
affordances and the “perspective taking” approach described by MacWhinney
(1999).

Attention Focusing and Linguistic Constructions

Language fluency can refer to many different things, including the extent
of one’s vocabulary, control over grammar, eloquence in the language, ability to
write, speed of comprehension, ability to speak without hesitation, accuracy of
understanding, skill in public speaking, ease of using the language in various
situations, ability to translate, among others (Riggenbach, 2000; Schmidt, 1992). If
we focus just on those aspects of fluency that reflect speed and ease of language
processing, then fluency is not a topic one normally thinks about in terms of
linguistic theory. In the way we have been accustomed to dividing up chores
between psychology and linguistics, research on fluency (here, speed and ease of
processing) should be about the operation of performance constraints and individual
differences, and not about the underlying, fundamental nature of language itself. In
this section, however, we will consider how studying such aspects of fluency might
provide a way to address some questions about the basic nature of language.
12 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

Now, one of the tenets of cognitive linguistics is that linguistic

constructions are cognitive schemata or, as Fauconnier (1994) puts it, devices that
prompt the construction of schemata. A schema is the brain’s representation of the
understanding of an event a person thinks about or hears described in language; we
might think of it, metaphorically, as a kind of map or diagram in the mind.
Cognitive linguists work from the premise that linguistically prompted schemata are
no different from the kind used in nonlinguistic behaviors (e.g., Langacker, 1987).
Linguistic constructions reflect the way component elements are related to each
other in a speaker’s schema or mental representation of the thought being
expressed. These constructions can be used to direct another person’s attention
while his or her own schema is progressively elaborated in the course of
communication. For example, a speaker may use adverbial constructions to signal
when something occurred (“before”), or use conjunctions to signal the logical
connection between two events (“because”). Linguistic constructions are used to
foreground and background certain elements within a schema (Langacker, 1987,
1991) and to place elements in proper relation to one another. In other words, the
speaker or writer elicits a mental representation in the brain of the listener or reader
by using available language packaging devices to affect schema building processes.
In this view, a fluent L2 user will be one who can rapidly shift focus of attention
from one dimension of schema building to another as a function of the linguistic
constructions encountered during communication.

The ability to shift attention rapidly and flexibly is an important aspect of

cognitive control. In our research, we have been interested in measuring individual
differences in cognitive control as it relates to L2 skill development (Segalowitz,
2000). In the study to be summarized here, we asked whether a person’s L2
fluency level, defined in our work as efficient language processing, is related to the
ability to shift focus of attention in response to commonly used time words and
logical connectives. We used time words which place events represented in a
mental model of the world either closer to or further away from the present
moment (now, next, promptly, shortly; or afterward, later, tomorrow, never). We
also used causal connection words that link ideas in a mental model by indicating
the presence or absence of a causal connection (because, consequently, due to,
therefore; although, but, despite, however). Thus, for example, if someone says
“I’ll do it now” versus “I’ll do it later,” a fluent listener will construct a mental
model or schema of what the speaker intends, and locate the part of that schema
corresponding to the action somewhere on a time line. The word now places the
action very close to the present moment on this time line, and later places it further
away. Similarly, if someone says “John did well in his exams because he studied
all night” versus “John did well in his exams despite partying all night,” the
listener will construct schemata that foreground the elements differently. Because
indicates that the second idea (that he studied all night) is to be foregrounded as the
cause of John doing well, whereas despite signals that the second idea (that he
partied all night) is not the cause of John doing well.
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 13

We investigated the relationship between L2 fluency (speed of single word

reading) and the linguistic control of attention focusing in English speaking
university students with varying levels of ability in French. In the main part of the
experiment, they had to perform an attention switching task based on a procedure
developed by Rogers and Monsell (1995). In this task, they had to judge words
presented one at a time. When a time word was shown, they pressed the left or
right button to indicate if the word referred to a time near or far from the present
moment. When a causal connection word was shown, they pressed to indicate
whether the word referred to a cause being present or absent. The design of the
study was such that every alternate trial required a switch from a time judgement to
a causal connection judgement, and trials in between required a repeat (i.e., the
sequence was ... time time cause cause time time ...). As others have found using
this switching paradigm in a variety of situations, the reaction time (RT) on switch
trials was systematically slower than RT on repeat trials. The difference in these
RTs provided an index of the cost of switching, namely of how much more difficult
it was to respond when one had to change the focus of attention from one
dimension to the other. This task was conducted in both French and English, in
separate blocks. We also calculated an index of English and French reading
fluency based on RTs in a task in which participants judged whether words referred
to living or nonliving objects using variability of word recognition RT as described
in Segalowitz and Segalowitz (1993).

The two most important results are these: First, the French (L2) switch
cost was found to correlate quite highly with the measure of French fluency (r =
.652, p = .006). This suggested that, as hypothesized, the ability to switch
attention focus in L2 is related to fluency. It is important to note that this measure
of French switch cost involved a difference score between RT on repeat and switch
trials and so was not confounded with individual differences in single word reading
fluency (or even the speed of button pressing), as was the fluency measure. The
second result was that French switch cost was still significantly related to French
L2 fluency even after English reading fluency was statistically partialled out (r =
.648, p = .007). This is especially interesting because it indicates that the
relationship between attention focusing ability and L2 fluency in French was not
due solely to a general cognitive ability to focus attention that would be operating
in both language situations. Rather, the results indicated that L2 fluency was
significantly related to a measure of cognitive control specific to reading in the L2,
the kind of control that may be involved when updating a schema as a function of
linguistic input.

This technique provides a way of assessing how easily a person can switch
from one dimension of linguistically signaled attention to another. We are
currently experimenting with this and related paradigms to assess linguistically
controlled attention in a longitudinal study of adult second language learners.
Research of this type has interesting potential for building new bridges between
psychology and linguistics (of the cognitive linguistics variety). One can ask, for
example, whether some modes of linguistically directed attention are acquired
14 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

earlier than others. If so, is this a function of the linguistic construction itself (e.g.,
how complex the construction is) or of the type of attention control involved (e.g.,
control in a time dimension versus a spatial or some other dimension)? How do
these attention directing skills unfold and what role do they play in L1 and L2
development? What kinds of language and non-linguistic experience are required to
achieve a given level of ability in linguistically directed attention? The program of
research implied by these questions will involve language analyses of the type done
by cognitive linguists, combined with field observation of people using and
acquiring language in real situations, plus laboratory investigation of the behavioral
and the brain correlates that underlie skilled use of cognitive schemata under the
control of linguistic constructions.

On the psychological side, the techniques for such research now exist. On
the linguistic side, too, a great deal of knowledge has already been accumulated
about the acquisition of different linguistic constructions, especially in cross-
linguistic language acquisition research (Slobin, 1985–1997, 1997). In this respect,
Slobin (1996) has put forward an interesting hypothesis that could be explored
through the kind of psychology/linguistics partnership envisaged above. Slobin
hypothesized that the most challenging aspects of a second language are those
elements that refer to categories of meaning that “cannot be experienced directly in
our perceptual, sensorimotor, and practical dealings with the world.” Examples
include the aspectual difference in meaning between “She went to work” versus
“She has gone to work,” or the definiteness difference between “a car” and “the
car,” distinctions not all languages signal explicitly (Slobin, 1996, p. 91). These
constructions serve to place certain elements or aspects of a situation into the
foreground of attention, while placing others into the background. In a much fuller
treatment of this topic, Talmy (1996) discusses what he calls the “windowing of
attention” by language, also from a cognitive linguistic perspective (see also
Tomlin, 1997). The volume Language and Space (Bloom, Peterson, Nadel &
Garrett 1996) contains a number of papers that also address the way language
constructions map onto cognitive (spatial) schemata.

Affordances

The dominant view in much of psychology is that linguistic communication is about

the packaging of propositions in a way that allows the receiver to unpack the
information as intended by the sender. MacWhinney (1999) discusses an interesting
alternative to this view by arguing instead that language is used to communicate
perspectives, rather than propositions. He identifies four levels of perspective
taking, one of which is especially germane to the present discussion—affordances.

The concept of affordances was introduced into the psychology of

perception by Gibson (1977). He proposed that what an organism perceives is the
set of possibilities the environment provides—or affords—for fulfilling its goals.
Gibson defined affordances as follows: The affordance of an object to an animal or
an individual is “a specific combination of the properties of its substance and its
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 15

surfaces taken with reference to the animal” (1977, p. 67, emphasis added). That
is, information about these affordances is encoded in terms that refer to the self,
rather than in the neutral terms of primary sensations (color, form, texture, etc.)
describable without reference to the organism or its place in the environment.
Support for this approach to perception has been accumulating in recent years from
investigations demonstrating that people’s perceptions of the physical environment
(doorways, stairs, catchable objects) are encoded in terms that relate to their own
body measurements and capacities (Lee, 1993; Mark, 1987; Van den Bergh, Vrana
& Eelen, 1990; Warren, 1984; Warren & Whang, 1987). (For fuller discussions,
including some of the more controversial issues involved, see Carlson, 1997;
Greeno, 1994; Kelso, 1995; Marr, 1982). Affordances, in this view, are important
for learning, because it is only by being able to perceive affordances that an
organism is able to navigate its way around the environment successfully.
Learning, according to Gibson (1966), involves not remembering past events, but
becoming attuned to—that is, able to attend to—invariant information provided by
the environment (e.g., perceiving that a given object affords support even though
its color, shape, and other characteristics may vary as lighting conditions change,
etc.; see also Bransford, McCarrell, Franks & Nitsch 1977).

Now, MacWhinney (1999) draws attention to the important role language

plays in communicating information about situational affordances, and how this fact
about language fits in well with some current research trends in psychology
concerning the role of action and embodiment in learning and memory (e.g.,
Glenberg, 1997). He suggests that this approach to the relationship between
language and memory may provide new insights into the process of language
acquisition and will help us understand how language emerges from experience.
While this idea is very promising, and should be pursued, I think there is another,
unexpected yet potentially fruitful, avenue to explore if we take MacWhinney’s
point about affordances and language just one step further. This avenue may even
lead to an unanticipated opportunity for collaboration between psychologists and
linguists.

It is this: We can consider a language itself, like any physical environment,

as possessing affordances. A given language supports a particular set of
constructions, as described by cognitive linguists (e.g., Goldberg, 1995;
Langacker, 1987, 1991), which are available for packaging a message if the
speaker knows how to use them. These constructions afford the possibility of
making certain messages but not others, and make some messages easier to
communicate than others. There is also, of course, variation across languages in
the availability and nature of many of these linguistic affordances. Following upon
Gibson, we can hypothesize that language acquisition involves attuning one’s
attention system to perceive the communicative affordances provided by the
linguistic environment. Now, a psychologist might ask: Is the perception of
affordances really a critical element in learning in general? Important contributions
to the answer may possibly come from future collaborative research involving
psychologists and linguists. This work will require the study of language use and
16 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

acquisition in a variety of settings in order to observe the distribution of linguistic

affordances and determine whether and how learners make use of them in the
acquisition process. Linguists are uniquely equipped to inform psychologists about
the affordances in such environments. Finally, it is probable that applied linguists,
because of their involvement in observing language acquisition and language use in
a wide variety of contexts, will have an especially important contribution to make
here.

Summary and Conclusion

We have seen that, despite initial efforts more than four decades ago,
theoretical linguists and cognitive psychologists have not succeeded in developing a
unified view of language that is broadly accepted by researchers in the two
disciplines. The reasons discussed here include divergent approaches regarding
how a theory about language should develop, what kind of explanation is
appropriate, and how to address basic questions about biology and environment.
There are signs, however, that future prospects for collaboration are brighter.
Specifically, new advances in the brain sciences and in modeling associative
learning systems have refocused many older questions and put debate on a firmer
empirical basis. At the very least, there now appears to be emerging a consensus
on what kinds of evidence will decide issues regarding the poverty of the stimulus,
the rule-governed nature of language, the modularity of language systems in the
brain, etc., even if there is not yet broad agreement about the actual substance of
the issues themselves. This emerging consensus about what counts as evidence is
probably the most important change that has occurred. It is what makes possible a
new bridge to be built between the disciplines. An especially exciting development
is the emergence of new approaches from within linguistics that explicitly try to
link models of language to cognitive psychological processes. This chapter has
presented two examples of how such approaches might develop into collaborative
research programs. Applied linguists, in particular, might have a special
contribution to make in this new collaboration.

Notes

* This paper is based on a plenary talk entitled “On the Bridge between Psychology
and Applied Linguistics” presented at the American Association for Applied
Linguistics Conference in Vancouver, B.C., on March 13, 2000. The author
gratefully acknowledges the helpful comments of Elizabeth Gatbonton, Cathy
Poulsen, and Leila Ranta on earlier drafts of this paper. Grant support for this work
came from a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada award
and from a Quebec Ministry of Education grant (Fonds FCAR).
 ON THE EVOLVING CONNECTIONS BETWEEN PSYCHOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS 17

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barlow, M., & Kemmer, S. (Eds.) (2000). Usage based models of language.
Stanford, CA: Center for the Study of Language and Information.

This volume contains a collection of papers exploring various questions

about language, all from the vantage point of usage-based models of
language, where theory about a person’s linguistic system is grounded in
instances of producing and understanding language. Ronald Langacker,
who coined the term “usage based model,” provides a very useful chapter
outlining the cognitive psychological and the linguistic assumptions
underlying this idea. The volume contains chapters on phonology, on
some of the premises of neurolinguistic approaches to language, and on
connectionist models of usage based models of language. The chapters
point to areas where collaboration between psychologists and linguists may
be fruitful.

Savage-Rumbaugh, S., Shanker, S., & Taylor, T. (1998). Apes, language and the
human mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

This volume reports some impressive language-like performance by

nonhuman primates and discusses these achievements in terms of what it
teaches us about human capacity for language. These authors challenge
both Tomasello’s view that humans have a unique ability to regard others
as intentional beings and that this accounts for the emergence of language,
and Chomsky’s view that, at bottom, language acquisition involves a
species specific innate module for language development. The volume will
be stimulating for both linguists and psychologists.

Talmy, L. (2000). Toward a cognitive semantics. Volumes I & II. Cambridge,

MA: MIT Press.

These two volumes represent an updated collection of Talmy’s most

important contributions to the development of cognitive linguistics. Of
special interest to psychologists are his ideas about how language structure
shapes attention. These volumes provide an excellent and detailed example
of the “new psychology of language” referred to by Tomasello (1998),
discussed earlier.

Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press.

Tomasello, following Langacker (1987), approaches language development

from the premise that “language is…cognition packaged for purposes of
interpersonal communication” (p. 150). In his view, what makes humans
special is their ability to perceive others as intentional agents, which makes
18 NORMAN SEGALOWITZ

possible participation in joint attentional scenes, interactions where child

and adult jointly attend to some event or object, and to each other’s
communicative intentions. Language is the means by which people direct
the attention of other persons in such interactions, in order to make them
adopt a certain perspective on some event or object. Drawing upon
insights from cognitive linguistics, Tomasello develops this hypothesis,
arguing that interesting structural properties of language flow from the
existence of joint attention scenes in development, rather than from innate,
language specific mechanisms.

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