Lecture: Psycholinguistics Professor Dr. Neal R. Norrick _____________________________________

1. Psycholinguistics Universität des Saarlandes Dept. 4.3: English Linguistics SS 2009 Lecture: Psycholinguistics Professor Dr. Neal R. Norrick_____________________________________

2. Organizational matters Klausuranmeldung:  on HIS LSF POS July 01-10, 2009 (https://www.lsf.uni-saarland.de/qisserver/rds?state=user&type=0) According to the Studiensekretariat, sign-ups will take place for all courses during that time!!!

3. 5.3 Piaget

4. 5.4 Innateness Debate Chomsky (1986: 150) writes: What we "know innately" are the principles of the various subsystems [phonology, syntax, thematic structure etc.] of So [the initial state of the child's mind] and the manner of their interaction, and the parameters associated with these principles. What we learn are the values of the parameters and the elements of the periphery (along with the lexicon to which similar considerations apply).

5. That is: We "know innately" as part of Universal Grammar (UG) that sentences will have noun phrases and verb phrases in some order, but we have to learn the order.  Chomsky argues children must know innately what they can not learn by observation.

6. Poverty of Stimulus Argument: Some patterns in language are unlearnable from positive evidence alone (due to the hierarchical nature of languages) You are happy. / Are you happy? possible rules: • the first auxiliary verb in the sentence moves to the front • the main auxiliary verb in the sentence moves to the front

7. but compare: The girl who is on the bus is happy. *Is the girl who __ on the bus is happy? Is the girl who is on the bus __ happy? • Children don't see sentences like this enough to decide which rule works but nobody ever chooses the wrong rule

8. Grammaticality judgments: Who do you think Mary knows? Who do you think that Mary knows? Who do you think knows Mary? *Who do you think that knows Mary?  Note translations!

9. We need input to learn the whole vocabulary of our language, including the special syntactic properties of the vocabulary we learn. We need input to set parameters like word order, use of cases versus prepositions etc. and we need input for the periphery, i.e. all the structures and rules characteristic for the particular language we hear. But if input supplies all this information, shouldn't it supply enough information to learn the basic principles?

10. Consider the acquisition of vocabulary: Webster’s dictionary: 500,000 words Average educated person’s vocabulary: 40,000 words (+ another 40,000 proper names, idioms, sayings) thus: monolingual speakers acquire about 4,000 words per year or about 10 words every day to age 20

11. Even within the Chomskyan scheme, there's debate on whether the principles and parameters are complete in the newborn child (like the heart) or whether they develop over time (like the teeth, which slowly grow and appear, then are replaced by an adult system). And even if we "know innately" the principles of language, are they separate from or integrated with other abilities?

12. How the debate developed: Chomsky develops Poverty of Stimulus Argument • posits Language Acquisition Device (LAD) and Universal Grammar (UG) • claims input is flawed and insufficient for acquisition input too complicated, contains ungrammatical structures  Child Language researchers counter by showing caregivers using simple, grammatical sentences as well as repetitions & expansions

13. Kevin (20 months, 21 days) takes puppet: Kevin: Dougall. Dougall, Dougall. Mother: He's a lovely Dougall, isn't he? Eileen (24 months, 8 days) points puppet toward television: Eileen: Skippy a telly. Mother: That's Skippy on the telly.

14. Chomsky argues competence would require "negative evidence“ as basis for grammaticality judgments--without LAD and UG innate Al is easy to please - It is easy to please Al Sue is eager to please – *It is eager to please Sue

15. Child Language researchers claim kids learn to make grammaticality judgments only later (in school) & argue that judgments are based on semantic factors It is eager – unacceptable for nongrammatical reasons

16. Gold proves mathematically that natural languages are unlearnable in principle without negative evidence (unless LAD and UG are innate) Child Language researchers show caregivers making corrections, especially in expansions (as above) and responses

17. Billy: Daddy fixit? Father: Yeah. Daddy'll fix it for you. Janik (4,8): Mami, ich will mit dich. Mother: Mit? Janik: Dir.

18. Chomsky-ites argue that caregivers are more concerned with truth and appropriateness of kids' talk than grammaticality They find language communities where kids receive little if any controlled input or feedback from caregivers, and they learn language anyway

19. Child Language researchers went back to study input, e.g. as a register like foreigner talk • this led to study of interaction and hence to kids developing pragmatic competence, including interaction between kids

20. We find kids correct each other from ca. 4 ½ years on: Nick (4;3): I'm his- I'm a Santa. Who are you? Coco (2;7): Santa Mrs. Nick: No, Mrs. Santa. Come on, let's break the other people's house down. Coco (3;2): Und sie waren in dem Wald in die Nacht. Nick (4;10): In der Nacht.

21. Due to influence of linguistic pragmatics (from philosophy of language: Austin, Searle, Grice), frame theory and richer theories of learning, Child Language researchers re-emphasized input, feedback and strategies of learning, especially negative evidence we find kids not only provide negative evidence, but even engage in metalinguistic talk:

22. Nick: Daddy, Coco hat gesagt güter. Das kann man nicht sagen, oder? Me: Nee, was muss man sagen. Nick: Coco meint besser. Coco: Nein, güter. Nick: Nein, Coco, besser. Du musst besser sagen. Coco: Lass mich, das ich sage. Nick: ((lacht)) Jetzt hat Coco wieder Unsinn gesagt. Nick (5;9): Coco, look at these mouses. Coco (4;1): Mice. Nick: Same thing.

23. 5.5 Slobin's Operating Principles & Universals of acquisition Whether parts of language acquisition are innate or not, developing kids seem to follow specific strategies and their acquisition processes reveal universals Operating Principles A. Identify word units. B. Forms of words may be systematically modified. C. Pay attention to the ends of words.

24. D. There are elements which encode relations • between words. • Universal 1: • postposed forms learned before preposed • forms • articles before nouns less salient than noun suffixes

25. E. Avoid exceptions Universal 2:Stages of linguistic marking 1. no marking: bird, birdy - singular & plural 2. appropriate marking in limited cases: bird, birdies – plural 3. overgeneralization of marking: mens, sheeps 4. appropriate marking everywhere

26. F. Semantic relations should be marked clearly. • Universal 3: • one-to-one marking is acquired earlier than • compound markings. • unchanging singular articles like French le are • acquired faster than der/den/dem in German

27. G. Grammatical markers should make semantic sense. • Universal 4: • if a group of inflections all mark the same relation, • the child will tend to use the single commonest • form for all cases • irregular past tenses reduce to dental suffix -ed

28. Universal 5: • semantically consistent grammatical rules are acquired early and without significant error • kids don't overextend the progressive to stative verbs, as in *She's knowing the answer or *I'm liking cookies

29. 6. Second Language Acquisition 6.1 Contrastive Analysis  growing out of work by Fries (1945) and Weinreich (1953) most work on Second Language Acquisition in the 40's and 50's shared the assumptions of Contrastive Analysis (Lado 1957)

30. Contrastive Analysis based on transfer • from Native Language (NL) to Target Language (TL) • or First Language (L1) to Second Language(L2) • shared structures facilitate acquisition • distinct structures cause problems • positive transfer when L1 and L2 share structures • e.g. Det Adj N structure in NP in English • and German • the mean dog - der böse Hund

31. negative transferwhen L1 and L2 have different structures e.g. Adv V NP in German versus Adv NP V in English Morgen fahren wir nach hause Tomorrow we go home • so research in Second Language Acquisition tended to revolve around comparison of language pairs

32. Language Acquisition was seen as developing a set of habits to be practiced in accordance with Behaviorist Theory but researchers found errors not predictable by language differences, and the psycholinguistic process of language acquisition can't be described solely in terms of linguistic products

33. 6.2 Approximative Systems and Interlanguage In the 1960's, linguists rejected Behaviorism and became interested in mentalistic theories evidence was mounting for a third system between L1 and L2 Nemser (1971) recognized an approximative system for the learner with features of both L1 and L2

34. Selinker (1972) introduced the term Interlanguage for this individual language system Interlanguages are highly variable, due to: • limited cognitive attention, given so much to learn and remember simultaneously • learners lack of knowledge of rules • simultaneous pull from L1 and L2 • they represent transitional stages of development

35. but L2 tends to fossilize at some stage, due to: 1. Negative transfer from L1 e.g. putting temporal Adv before locative Adv They went last week to Berlin. 2. Overgeneralization of L2 rules e.g. extending progressive pattern to stative verbs I'm knowing him a long time

36. 3. Simplification of L2 rules e.g. failure to apply sequence of tenses (or back shift) I thought it is a joke • it's often difficult to tell what causes an error, since these three factors interact • the concern with rules and errors makes interlanguages spill over into error analysis research

37. 6.3 Error Analysis concern with interlanguage and errors it contains and their relation gave rise to research in Error Analysis 1. Researchers first look for idiosyncrasies in learner's production when a learner says: I want to know the English we must first determine the intention behind it: either correct expression of desire involving knowledge of English people or incorrect expression of desire involving the English Language

38. 2. Then they try to describe the structure in terms of the grammars of both L1 and L2 I want to know the English involves an overuse of the definite article from the point of view of English grammar; does it reflect the grammar of the learner's L1, where abstract nouns take definite articles?

39. 3. Finally, they seek to explain the structure as interference or the learner's hypothesis-testing if the learner uses this sort of construction systematically, it's part of an interlanguage; but it may be a single careless mistake or an attempt to test this particular structure as well this attempt at explanation can get muddled, due to the unclear distinction between competence and performance

40. Error Analysis ends up as a method of describing data, but not a psycholinguistic theory of language acquisition Error Analysis loses sight of the whole picture of developing competence in L2 by focusing on errors; • we could instead equate knowledge of L2 with fluency and understandability rather than lack of errors; • or we could instead focus on what learners do right and test to see if they do it right intuitively

41. 6.4 Innateness, Input, Natural Order of Acquisition in L2 The Innateness Debate from child language research carries over to research in second language acquisition Does the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) work for L2 as for L1 ? If the LAD is at work, there should be a Natural Order of Acquisition in L2 as in L1. Could L2 learners simply reset the parameters from L1 ?

42. Dulay & Burt (1973) posit natural order of acquisition in L2 parallel to what Brown (1973) found for L1 at least learners with the same L1 background go through the same stages in acquiring L2 1. plural -s on nouns: the books 2. progressive -ing on verbs: they driving 3. forms of main verb be: this is London, she was there

43. 4. forms of auxiliary be: she's driving 5. articles a and the: a cat, the dog 6. irregular past tenses: went, ate, came 7. 3rd person sing pres -s: she waits 8. possessive -s: Sally's truck

44. Dulay & Burt (1974) found even greater regularity of order if features were ordered into groups Group 1: progressive -ing, plural -s, copula be Group 2: auxiliary be, articles Group 3: irregular past Group 4: regular past, 3rd pers -s, possessive -s Dulay & Burt use cross-sectional testing, i.e. what percentage of which forms show up for a group of learners, while Brown used longitudinaltesting, i.e. at what stage do kids control (90% correct) certain forms

45. other problems with tests for order of acquisition in L2 • tests based purely on English: what about other languages with lots more inflection or no inflection? • tests failed to distinguish variants like a versus an, and degrees of irregularity e.g. in past tense told, bought, went • if no firm order of acquisition can be shown, then there's no reason to assume that acquisition of L2 and L1 are alike.

46. Even if LAD makes input unimportant in L1 acquisition, the status of input in L2 a remains a problem: • What kind of input should learners receive? • Does correcting errors help?