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. 1. Introduction Psycholinguistics = the study of language and mind mind versus brain • mind as understanding, senses, spirit, psyche • mind as total of cognitive capacities

3. Psycholinguistics is: study of language production & comprehension reflecting distinction of competence versus performance Psycholinguistics versus neighbor disciplines: Sociolinguistics, Neurolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics

4. 2. Biological foundations of speech 2.1 Organs of speech humans have no specific organs of speech, but we find specialization for speech in many parts of system

6. 2.2 Nervous system central versus peripheral descending, versus ascending, motor sensory but both systems function together in complex activity, so that brain gets feedback on effects nerve development from birth to two years reflects growth in motor and language skills

7. special areas of brain for language skills organization of perception, language and articulation in the brain:

8. motor cortex:

9. 2.3 Brain Lateralization specialization of function in left and right hemispheres as part of evolutionary development in brain still, corpus callosum connects the two hemispheres

10. 3. Linguistics and mental entities 3.1 Words and concepts • word meaning as mental image • words as signs of concepts, labels for concepts • concepts might be figures, images, models etc • concepts include perceptual and functional information

11. Miller & Johnson-Laird's concept:

12. 3.2 Sounds and phonemes phonemes as psychologically real entities abstract phoneme /p/ versus positionally variant allophones: • aspirated [ph] word-initial, as in pill • preglottalized [p] word-final, as in lip • unaspirated [p-]after initial s, as in spill

13. these allophones are predictable variants they don't distinguish meanings ability to distinguish meanings defines phonemes hence: minimal pair test pill - bill

14. but experiments show: words are recognized faster than phonemes we recognize the letter b and the sound /b/ faster in the word bat than in isolation words are more salient than phonemes suprasegmental features are also psychologically salient

15. intonation distinguishes statements and questions Sally's here. versus Sally's here? stress focuses on any constituent in questions Sally gave the new car to Judy today? • can question whether it was Sally (not Suzy), • whether she gave (not loaned) the car, • whether it was the new (not the old) car etc

16. 3.4 Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis sees language and human cognition as related in non-arbitrary ways Sapir 1921, 1929, 1949, Whorf 1950, 1956 proposed a relationship between language, meaning, culture, and personality, generally called the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

17. The strong version of the hypothesis says our language determines our perception. We see the things and processes our language has names for and ignore or cannot see what our language doesn't name. The weak version of the hypothesis says our language influences our perception. We attend to the things and processes our language has names for and tend to ignore or find it difficult to attend to what our language doesn't name.

18. Slobin's ‘thinking for speaking’ notes that any language system enforces certain choices in grammar and lexis, no matter how our underlying thought patterns work,

19. Compare: I like it, mir gefällt es, mi piace, I'm cold, mich friert, mir ist kalt, isch hann kalt, j'ai froid If we must always attend to certain distinctions and ignore others, in speaking and thinking, shouldn't that influence the way we think?

20. 4. Words in the Mental Lexicon Mental Lexicon versus dictionary • words accessible via sound, meaning, related words Mental Lexicon versus encyclopedia • Encyclopedia contains all kinds of knowledge, usually unnecessary for normal word use, e.g. for dog

21. 4.1 Word Association Tests (WATs) Experiments show: we recognize concrete words like table faster than abstract words like trouble table  chair faster, more consistent trouble  bad lower, less consistent

22. WATs also show paradigmatic versus syntagmatic relations: • paradigmatic apple, pear, banana, plum • syntagmatic apple, red, juicy, eat in WATs: • adults respond paradigmatically: pillow  bed • children respond syntagmatically: pillow  soft

23. WATs show faster recognition after associated words: we recognize roof faster after house than after some unrelated word like apple so Lindsay & Norman (1972) postulate lexical networks

24. 4.2 Tip-of-the-Tongue Phenomena Thinking on Tip-of-the-Tongue (TOT) phenomena begins with James (1890) James speaks of “a gap that is intensively active” in consciousness when we try to recall a forgotten name. Meringer and Mayer (1895), Fromkin (1973) kept personal catalogues of error types to gather natural data.

25. Brown and McNeill (1966) collected intuitions on remembering in diary studies, e.g. unable to recall the name of the street on which a relative lives, one of us thought of Congress and Corinth and Concord and then looked up the address and learned that it was Cornish.

26. Burke et al. (1991) write, “When a TOT occurs, a lexical node in a semantic system becomes activated, giving access to semantic information about the target word, but at least some phonological information remains inaccessible.” Subjects in the TOT state often report that a word related to the target comes repeatedly and involuntarily to mind, yielding ‘blockers’,‘interlopers’ or ‘persistent alternates’, e.g. sexton or sextet for sextant

27. Burke et al. (1991) identify a semantic system or network of nodes connecting concepts • the concept chastity is connected with “is a virtue,” “take a vow of” etc • the concept baker with “bake bread” “get up early” “sell cakes” “knead dough” etc

28. 4.3 Discourse, frames, prototypes Cognitive linguists look at discourse contexts where words occur, e.g. if, for an item like roof, The house needs a new roof Then "house has a roof" is part of discourse frame Consider also frame effects: We saw an old house. The roof was in need of repair.

29. Consider typical collocations and metaphors: she has no roof over her head - for 'no house' we're finally under one roof - for 'in the same house‘ Moreover, Rosch and her co-workers have shown: • some properties are more salient than others • some members of a category are more typical

30. it may be impossible to define certain words without exemplification, e.g. colors, fruits, games etc instead of: "a fruit is the edible part of a plant etc" we find: "a fruit is like an apple, a peach or a banana" • word meanings and categories are generally not defined by features or propositions, but by prototypes

31. Testing for prototypes A. Ask subjects to identify the most typical bird:

32. Prototype Effects: prototype: A trout is a typical fish marginal: A tadpole is a kind of a fish non-member: Their daughter is a regular fish Note: real members don't fit here: *This trout is a regular fish

33. 5. First Language Acquisition Natural acquisition with no special learning necessary critical period resulting from a combination of factors: • development of connections between nerve cells • myelination of nerve cells

34. lateralization of brain functions • dominance of left hemisphere • corresponding development of motor skills • general cognitive stages of development (Piaget)

35. 5.1 Developmental sketch Age Language General (months) 9 babbling crawling 10 first words standing, recurrent, maintained

36. Age Language General (months) 11 5-10 recurrent words first steps, fulfills requests like: recognizes bring me the blue ball pictures in show me the big red dog books 12 5 distinct vowels starts walking 5 distinct consonants

37. Age Language General (months) 13 recognizable words running, daddy nein ball climbing furniture allgone 14 imitations: horse, train simple puzzles, reduplications: turns book pages choochoo, byebye, taktak ‘clock’

38. Age Language General (months) 16 recognizes own name points to himself: 20+ words Where's Nicky? 18 vocabulary explosion climbs stairs 2-word units: without rail ducky allgone Nicky haben

39. Age Language General (months) 20 3-word units: hangs on monkey Nicky cookie haben bars, points to also: eyes, nose, mouth haben Nicky cookie

40. Age Language General (months) 22 verb + particle: dramatic lock up /deck zu play, 4-word units: stuffed Mami Auto fahren kauft animals, Inni gute Nacht sagendolls

41. Age (months): 24 Language General verb endings: Inni spuckt bisschen kicks soccer ball, statement: Nicky auch essen plays hide-n-seek, question: Nicky auch essen, ja? draws details: command: Nicky auch essen ears, tails, wheels word-formation: cutter ‘knife’ auskleben ’tear apart’ umwärts

42. Age Language General (months) 32 first real narrative: builds Legos, It was a wooden lamby draws people and it was on the floor and house in a barn with chimney and they took it home and windows and they washed it and it wasn't ugly

43. Age (months): 36 Phonetics • voiced th: initial okay in the this etc • medial v in other • voiceless th: initial s in sing • final f in both • vocalizes final l and r • mispronunciations: amimals, cimamon, pasketti

44. Morphology • double plurals: mens, feets, mices • double preterites: sawed, stooded • regularized preterites: goed, sitted • reverse word-formations: popcorner, mowgrasser Syntax • negation: I see it not, That doll sits not right • questions: What it did? What the lady said? • counting: 1 2 3 4 5 6 20 14 fiveteen 16

45. Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) as standard measure of first language development as opposed to age

46. 5.2 Natural order of acquisition: 5.2.1 "Why mama and papa?“ Jakobson's order for phoneme acquisition • in babbling, children produce all kinds of sounds and sound combinations; many children produce imitations after babbling • but around age 2, children narrow their sound repertory and begin to produce sounds of their language in fixed order

47. order reflects an attempt to create the clearest possible set of distinctions at any given point, within the given physiological limits • this order of acquisition also reveals parallel • between different languages • most salient distinction is between Vowels (V) and • Consonants (C)

48. Vowels are characteristically open and resonant: • the prototypical V is a • Consonants are characteristically closed and obstruent: • stops are prototypical Cs • the prototypical stop is p • the prototypical syllable is CV: maximizing the C-V distinction, a child's first syllable should be pa •  given children's tendency to reduplication, • a child's first real word should be papa

49. after the Cs p and m , the child usually acquires t , then the third voiceless stop k and so on: • p m t k • child moves on to ever larger patterns with increasing numbers of distinctive features

50. 5.2.2 Order of acquisition for syntax at first, kids produce: • one-word utterances with holistic meaning • two-word utterances with no fixed word order • three-word utterances without inflections • prepositions or other markers then they begin to acquire syntax