Chapter 4- Psycholinguistics

7/25/2019 Chapter 4- Psycholinguistics

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Psycholinguistics

Abeer Alharbi


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What do these activities have in common?

What kind of process is involved in producing andunderstanding language?


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In this lecture will we answer

the following questions

What is psycholinguistics?

What is the aim of psycholinguistics?

What are the main topics ofpsycholinguistics?


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Question 1:



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It is the study of the cognitiveprocesses that support the

acquisition and the use oflanguage.


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As the name suggests, it is a subject whichlinks psychology and linguistics.

Psycholinguistics is interdisciplinary innature and is studied by people in avariety of fields, such aspsychology,cognitivescience, and linguistics. It is anarea of study which draws insights fromlinguistics and psychology and focusesupon the comprehension and productionof language.


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Psycholinguistics answers the

following questions?

Please see p. 124


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Question 2:



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The common aim of psycholinguistsis to find out the knowledge and

processeswhich underline a

humans ability to speak andunderstand language.


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- What knowledgeof language is

needed for us to use language?

- Whatprocessesare involved in

the use of language?


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The knowledge question Four broad areas of language knowledge:

Semantics deals with the meanings of sentences andwords.

Syntax involves the grammatical arrangement of wordswithin the sentence.

Phonology concerns the system of sounds in a language.

Pragmatics entails the social rules involved in languageuse.

It is not ordinarily productive to ask people explicitly whatthey know about these aspects of language. We inferlinguistic knowledge from observable behavior.


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The process question

-ordinary use of language: e.g. understanding a lecture,

reading a book, writing a letter, and holding a conversation,

etc.

cognitive processes:processes like perception, memory

and thinking.

Although we do few things as often or as easily as speaking

and listening, we will find that considerable cognitive

processing is going on during those activities.

What cognitive processes are involved inthe ordinary use of language?


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Question 3:

What are the main topics of

psycholinguistics?


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General topics of psycholinguistics:

1- language acquisition (how human beings learnlanguage)

-L1 Acquisition

-L2 Acquisition (bilingual).

2- language production (how we create andexpress meaning through language)

3- language comprehension (how we perceiveand understand speech and written language)

4- The relationship between language and thought


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1- Language Acquisition

It refers to;

A- First Language Acquisition: Psycholinguistics isinterested in the acquisition of language: how

children acquire their mother tongue. It is often called developmental psycholinguistics.

B- Second Language Acquisition: They areinterested in the acquisition of a second language:

how children acquire their second / third language. It is often called Bilingualism.


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Stages in language acquisition

The prelinguistic stage

The one-word stage

The two-word stage

The multiword stage


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2. Language production

Language production refers to the cognitive processes that

convert nonverbal communication intentions into verbal

action.

According to Levelt (1989), language production contains

four stages:

1)conceptualizing

2)formulating

3)articulating

4)self-monitoring


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Language production refers to the cognitive processes that

convert nonverbal communication intentions into verbal

action.

According to Levelt (1989), language production contains

four stages:

1)conceptualizing

2)formulating

3)articulating

4)self-monitoring


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First, we must conceptualizewhat we wish tocommunicate;

Second, we formulatethis thought into a

linguistic plan; Third, we executethe plan through the muscles in

the speech system;

Finally, we monitor our speech, accessing

whether it is what we intended to say andwhether we said it the way we intended to.


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3. Language Comprehension

Understanding language, like producing it, is suchan automatic task that it seems to be a relativelystraightforward process.

The research shows that in most situations, listenersand readers use a great deal of informationotherthan the actual language being produced to

help them find the meaning of the linguisticsymbols they hear or see.


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4. Language & Thought The relationship between language and thoughthas

long been a subject of discussion. There are a widerange of opinions about the general nature of therelationship.

At the risk of oversimplification, we can still say thatthere are mainly two groups: those who believe thatlanguage determines thoughtand those who thinkthat thought determines language.

So the whole questionwe are concerned with here iswhether our thoughts are formed in advance of thewords that we utter or whether our ideas are formed interms of the words themselves.


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Thank you!!!

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Chapter 4- Psycholinguistics