Psycholinguistics

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Lecture:Psycholinguistics Author:S.Charanya

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

M.Sc.IT.,final yr.,Adhiparashakthi Arts and Science College,Kalavai.

Intellectual Meaning.

PSYCHOLINGUISTICS - the study of language processing mechanisms. Psycholinguistics like to study how word meaning, sentence meaning, and discourse meaning are computed and represented in the mind.

Mostly an unconscious process. Example: We think when we’re reading words on a page,that it’s a smooth process, but our eyes actually jerk across the page – a process called saccadic motion. (The individual jerks by our eyes are called saccades.)

A Review..!

Relevant IDEAS..

Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a grammatical and meaningful sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well as the processes that make it possible to understand utterances, words, text, etc.

Developmental psycholinguistics studies children's ability to learn language.

Makes us to quest,

How to perceive words and store them in the mind?

How to understand a sentence, how to learn to read?

How language and writing systems influence mental organizations?

Two aspects.

Language Comprehension –how we understand the meaning of words and sentences (receptive process)

Language Production –how we speak and use language (productive process)

Example: Language Production

Idea: cross-cultural communication

• People using the same language (i.e. English) but coming from different cultures.

• Example: Cultural differences in directness – how explicitly and clearly do we say what we mean.

• Case study: letters of recommendation for a bright but immature student, Peter Gore. (By John McCarthy)

History of Psycholinguistics: Early attempts

Language and the vocal apparatus were part of nature but precision control of the vocal apparatus was established through experience.

Modern Psycholinguistics: Early Psycholinguistics

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920) lab work;

language production:the sentence is the primary unit of language.

Modern Psycholinguistics: Early Psycholinguistics

Edmund Huey (1908): eye-voice span, tachistoscope

Behaviorism (1920s—1050s)

The behavior of speaking correctly was the consequence of being raised in an environment in which correct language models were present and in which children’s speech errors were corrected.

Meaningfulness of words: the high-meaningfulness words were more easily learned than low-meaningfulness words.

Later Psycholinguistics

Noam Chomsky A theory that stresses a

simple association between adjacent words is inadequate.

Poverty of stimulus argument: there is not enough information in the language samples given to children to fully account for the richness and complexity of children’s language.

Current Directions

Psycholinguistics is increasingly viewed as a portion of the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science.

Shift of the interest in syntax to other aspects of language: discourse, lexicon.

Example: Word Recognition

An Experiment: Task: Speak out the color name of the stimulus you will view. (red, blue, green)

Requirement: Complete the task as quickly and accurately as possible.Subjects, participants,

(The task was devised by Stroop, 1935 --the “Stroop task”.)

Example: Word Recognition

Possible results:

For color words (red, green, blue), when their ink color is inconsistent with the meaning of the words,

Naming time is longer (i.e.response latency);

Responses are less accurate.

Research Methodology in Psycholinguistics

Left hemisphere

Right hemisphere

cortex

Basic Neuroanatomy:

The outer layer of the brain –cerebral cortex

Hidden underneath the cortex are subcortical parts of the brain

The left and right hemispheres are connected by a band of nerve fibers –corpus callosum

Basic Neuroanatomy:

An important feature of the human nervous system is that each cerebral cortex is connected to the opposite side of the body. This is termed contralateral connections.

(Same-side connections are very weak.)

Split-brain patients –those who have a damaged corpus callosum but an undamaged brain.

Results:

The left hemisphere is a language hemisphere. (dominant).

1. Reaction time (RT) approach:

It measures people’s RT (response latency) to a language stimulus. It includes many on-line methods of studying people’s language behavior continuously in a laboratory setting

Infer the mental activity in terms of RTs.

2. Memory and Classroom Approach :

It investigates language behavior in classroom, a more natural setting.

To study the developmental pattern of children’s reading ability:

cross-sectional (grades 1 to grade 5) longitudinal (a 5-year study)

3. Eye movements Approach:

Use the eyetracker to measure the position and duration of people’s eye fixations upon the text

It is a most reliable psycholinguistic technique.

How the Eyes Work?

When people read, the eyes do NOT move continuously. Instead, the eye will “stop” on some word for a brief period (150 to 500 milliseconds). This is called fixation. Between the fixations are periods where the eye moves rapidly. These rapid eye movements are called saccades.

To understand a sentence, the eyes sometimes move back to some word, re-fixating it. These “backward” saccades are termed regression.

Words that are fixated are in the fovea; words surrounding the fixated words are in the parafovea.

How the Eyes Work?

Fixation Saccades

duration length (characters)

English 231 msec. 7.8

Hebrew 265 msec. 5.5

Chinese 300 msec. 2.0

How the Eyes Work?

Information extracted from the parafovea aids in reading:

Reading rate is about 200 words per minute when only the fixated word is visible on each fixation, but it is 300 words per minute when both the fixated word and the one immediately to the right are visible on each fixation.

4. Neurolinguistic Approach

It studies the brain mechanism for language functioning –where is language functioning localized in the brain?

Lesion study –using brain-damage patients Functional brain imaging study –using the intact human brain

We can conclude… From the above analysis proceeds that

with regard to language acquisition, behavioristic theory can provide much useful information concerning verbal responses and reinforcement.

I believe the attitude, the age, and the aptitude of the learners are three factors that should be considered in second language acquisition.

A combination of innate propensities and objective necessity create the most favorable attitude. All these factors, including the teaching strategies, stand for fundamental variables in learning a foreign language.

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