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Psycholinguistics

I . DefinitionII. Four RulesIII. Growth of Grammar to Meet the Four RulesIV.UOP (Universal Operation

Principles)V. Comprehension// Production

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I . Definition Psycholinguistics: the study of the mental processes of

listening, speaking, and acquisition of language by children (Nash 10)

Purpose: To figure out what people have to know about lang. in order to

use it; how that knowledge is used to process lang. Issues:

How do you form an utterance in your mind and utter it? How do you take in lang. you hear & figure out what it is? How do babies learn lang.? How do you learn a L2?

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II. Four Rules1. Be clear: one form one meaning (one-to-one mapping) e.g., Russian (one formmore than one meaning)

2. Be processible: Grammatical markers (e.g., relative pronouns) help.

e.g., The editor who the authors who the newspaper hired liked laughed.

3. Be quick and easy: time pressure in speaking (the use of

contractions and run-ons, & reduction of grammatical markers). e.g., Contraction (I’d, I’m, can’t, won’t…)

4. Be expressive: Semantic expressiveness & rhetorical expressiveness

* Conclusion: Four rules are competing with each other. (Nash 14)

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Be Clear (1)

Examples (Russian) dom “house”—masculine, inanimate subject ulica “street”—feminine, subject čuvstvo “sensation”—neuter, subject

What’s the ending if the word is used as object?

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Be Clear (2)

Sentence examples: “Tanya killed Marsha.” (Both are feminine nouns). Mašu ubila Tanja. Tanja ubila Mašu. Tanja Mašu ubila. Mašu Tanja ubila. Ubila Mašu Tanja. Ubila Tanja Mašu.

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Be Processible

Which of the following sentences is easier for you to understand? The student whom the teacher hit cried? The student the teacher hit cried?

What makes the difference? grammatical markers memory factor paying attention to the ends of words

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Be Quick and Easy

Time pressure & principle of lease effort (messages must be communicated before other things get in the way) the class ends; other messages boredom; memory factor

Forms: reduction of grammatical markers contractions run-ons

Competing with Be Clear & Be Processible

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Be Expressive (1)

Ways to express the image:

CAT

MAT

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Be Expressive (2)

Semantic expressiveness basic meaning thought language

Rhetorical expressiveness to communicate well and effectively (comm. needs)

for different purposes: emphasis focus point of view

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Conclusion on Four Rules

Language must be able to communicate meaningful things (semantically expressive), must have many ways to present the same info. (rhetorically expressive), must be fast and fairly easily produced and comprehended (quick & easy; processible), and must be clear in meaning and form (clear).

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III. Growth of Grammar to Meet the Four Rules (1)

Pidgin a simplified contact language mix languages, marginal language developed for practical purposes no native speakers limited vocabulary and reduced grammatical structure mostly based on European langs. colonialism

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III. Growth of Grammar to Meet the Four Rules (2)

Creole a pidgin developed into a native lang. has NS and not restricted in its uses more complex sentence structures and

vocabulary. classified according to the lang. from which most

of their vocabulary comes from Eng.-based: Jamaican Creole, Hawaiian Creole French-based: Haitian Creole

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III. Growth of Language to Meet the Four Rules (3)

Pidgin Creole, under the pressure of Be Expressive

Another pressure: Be Processible Tok Pisin (with relative clauses) Hawaiian Creole (with progressive)

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Tok Pisin Examples:

(1) Na pik IA ol ikilim bipo IA bai ikamap olsem draipela ston. “And this (the) pig which they had killed before would turn into a huge store.”

(2) Meri IA em i yangpela meri, draipela meri IA em harim istap. “The girl, who was a young, big girl, was listening.”

(3) Em wanpela American IA iputim naim long en. “It was an American who gave her her name.”

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Hawaiian Creole Standard English

“I am eating”

Hawaiian Pidgin Me kaukau

“Me eat” I kaukau

“I eat”

Hawaiian Creole

(+progressive) I stay kaukau

“I stay eat”

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IV. Universal Operation Principles (UOP) Universal learning strategies children

automatically used by children; based on the way the human mind works and closely related to the four rules.

They’re children’s initial expectations about how language works. The child brings certain operating principles (methods of attack) to bear on the task of learning lang., regardless of the lang. he’s exposed to.

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Universal Operating Principle A UOP A: Pay attention to the ends of words. Suffixes: plural, possessive, present/past tense, participle, comparative, superlative

Postposition: markers of location—concept of relation of location/spatial relations—placed after the noun of location English preposition Hungarian postposition

spoon in the pot hajó “boat” spoon outside the pot hajóban “in the boat” spoon next to the pot hajóbol “moving out from inside the boat” hajótol “moving away from next to the boat”

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UOP A: Pay attention to the ends of words.

Turkish postpositions (faked): pot stove on spoon pot in

Chinese: 球在盒子裡

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Universal Operating Principle B

UOP B: There are elements of language (i.e., grammatical markers) which show the relations between other elements of language (or words).

Grammatical markers: Relative pronouns: The girl who danced with me was

lovely.

The book that is on the table is yours.

Pronouns: Rachel gave me her book.

When the man fell down, he hurt his leg. Be: The man is handsome. S-V agreement: The woman comes here every day.

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Universal Operating Principle C UOP C: Avoid exceptions. Children prefer consistent and regular systems. 5 stages: (Nash 16)

No marking Appropriate marking in limited cases Overgeneralization of marking Redundant marking Full adult marking system

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Universal Operating Principle D UOP D: Underlying semantic relations should be

marked overtly and clearly. (= Be clear.) Turkish:

“object” “of” “plural”

-i -in -er Russian: “masculine” + “animate” + “object” -a

“feminine” + “subject” -a

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Universal Operating Principle E

UOP E: The use of grammatical markers should make semantic sense.

Examples: Process verbs (progressive aspect) vs. state verbs (states/conditions)

Counter examples: Irregular plurals in English:

mice, geese, feet, teeth mouses, gooses, foots/feets, tooths

Irregular past tenses: went, saw, ran goed, seed, runned

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Summary of 4 Rules and UOP Pressures on language:

Psychological pressures—language must conform to the ways in which the MIND works.

Communicative pressures—language must meet all the needs of communication 1. informativeness 2. clarity 3. efficiency 4. effectiveness 5. reasonably quick (on-going time)

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Comprehension (1)

How do you get from the acoustic signal (physical sound) to an interpretation of the message? Filter demonstration Shadowing demonstration Further examples:

Telephone doesn’t transmit all sounds (e.g., f, s, m, n) In class: selective listening

Rough model #1

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Comprehension (2) Constituents: “sentence parts”

e.g.: The old man went to the store.

subject predicate

Meaning units = propositions (basic ideas) Coding units = phonology, morphology, syntax, vocabulary,

intonation

Propositions: refer to states or events; indicate facts or attitudes; say sth. About states or events; qualify parts of other propositions. e.g., Mary was born in 1964. You must never arrive late

again.

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Comprehension (3)

Rough Model #1: 1. Take in sounds, put in short-term memory, organize

according to sound system. 2. Immediate organize into sentence parts (constituent

s) and determine content and function of teach part.

3. Use constituents analysis to construct propositions. 4. Keep propositions in memory, discard sound image. 5. Figure out speaker’s intent.

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Comprehension (4)

Syntactic strategies: used in identifying constituents (i.e., knowledge of syntax)

Semantic strategies: knowledge of the world/situation & reasoning power The policeman held up his hand and stopped the car. Superman held up his hand and stopped the car. Tea example (Nash 20) Dentist (Nash 20) Soup (Nash 21)

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Comprehension (5)

Making us of both syntactic and semantic strategies: 1. We take in raw speech and retain a

phonological representation of it in short-term memory.

2. We immediately attempt to organize the phonological representation into constituents, identifying their content and function.

3. Construct underlying propositions. 4. Retain 3 in long term memory & discard 1 + 2.

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Comprehension (6)Rough Model #2:

Comprehension

phonetic input Identify

phonology situation;

lexicon remember

morphology typical

syntax situation.

semantics

pragmatics

Production

phonetics output

production

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Comprehension (7)

1. Bring in phonetic stream and segment it into phonological representation.

2. Immediate organize into constituents.

3. Use constituent analysis to construct propositions.

4. Figure out speaker’s intent (and respond appropriately).