Transcript Lecture: Psycholinguistics Professor Dr. Neal R. Norrick
Lecture: Psycholinguistics Professor Dr. Neal R. Norrick _____________________________________
Psycholinguistics
Universität des Saarlandes Dept. 4.3: English Linguistics SS 2009
1. Introduction
Psycholinguistics = the study of language and mind mind versus brain • mind as understanding, senses, spirit, psyche • mind as total of cognitive capacities
Psycholinguistics is: study of language production & comprehension reflecting distinction of
competence
versus
performance
Psycholinguistics versus neighbor disciplines: Sociolinguistics, Neurolinguistics, Cognitive Linguistics
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
central descending, motor
2.2 Nervous system
versus
peripheral
versus
ascending, 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
special areas of brain for language skills organization of perception, language and articulation in the brain:
motor cortex:
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
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
Miller & Johnson-Laird's
concept:
3.2 Sounds and phonemes
phonemes
as psychologically real entities abstract phoneme /p/ versus positionally variant
allophones
: • aspirated [p h ] word-initial, as in
pill
• preglottalized [ p] word-final, as in
lip
• unaspirated [p-] after initial s, as in
spill
these allophones are predictable variants they don't distinguish meanings ability to distinguish meanings defines phonemes hence:
minimal pair
test
pill - bill
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
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
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
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.
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,
Compare:
I like it, mi piace, mich friert, isch hann kalt, mir gefällt es, I'm cold, mir ist 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?
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
4.1 Word Association Tests (WATs)
Experiments show: we recognize concrete words like
table
faster than abstract words like
trouble table
chair trouble
bad
faster, more consistent lower, less consistent
WATs also show
paradigmatic
versus
syntagmatic
relations: • paradigmatic • syntagmatic
apple, pear, banana, plum apple, red, juicy, eat
in WATs: • adults respond paradigmatically:
pillow
bed
• children respond syntagmatically:
pillow
soft
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
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.
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 Corinth
and
Concord
and and then looked up the address and learned that it was
Cornish
.
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
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
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.
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
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
Testing for prototypes A. Ask subjects to identify the most typical bird:
Prototype Effects:
prototype: marginal: non-member:
A trout is a typical fish A tadpole is a kind of a fish Their daughter is a regular fish
Note: real members don't fit here: *
This trout is a regular fish
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
• lateralization of brain functions • dominance of left hemisphere • corresponding development of motor skills • general cognitive stages of development (Piaget)
5.1 Developmental sketch Age (months) Language General
9 10 babbling first words recurrent, maintained crawling standing,
Age (months) Language
11
General
5-10 recurrent words fulfills requests like:
bring me the blue ball show me the big red dog
first steps, recognizes pictures in books 12 5 distinct vowels 5 distinct consonants starts walking
Age (months) Language
13 recognizable words
daddy nein ball allgone General
running, climbing furniture 14 imitations: horse, train simple puzzles, reduplications:
choochoo, byebye, taktak
‘clock’ turns book pages
Age (months) Language
16
General
recognizes own name points to himself: 20+ words
Where's Nicky?
18 vocabulary explosion 2-word units:
ducky allgone Nicky haben
climbs stairs without rail
Age (months) Language
20
General
3-word units:
Nicky cookie haben
also:
haben Nicky cookie
hangs on monkey bars, points to eyes, nose, mouth
Age (months) Language
22
General
verb + particle:
lock up / deck zu
4-word units:
Mami Auto fahren kauft Inni gute Nacht sagen
dramatic play, stuffed animals, dolls
Age (months):
24
Language General
verb endings:
Inni spuckt bisschen
statement:
Nicky auch essen
question:
Nicky auch essen, ja?
command:
Nicky auch essen
word-formation:
cutter
‘knife’
auskleben
’tear apart
’
umwärts
kicks soccer ball, plays hide-n-seek, draws details: ears, tails, wheels
Age (months) Language
32 first real narrative:
It was a wooden lamby and it was on the floor in a barn and they took it home and they washed it and it wasn't ugly General
builds Legos, draws people and house with chimney and windows
Age (months):
36
Phonetics
• voiced
th
: initial okay in
the this
• medial
v
in
other
etc • voiceless
th
: initial
s
• final
f
in
both
in
sing
• vocalizes final
l
and
r
• mispronunciations:
amimals, cimamon, pasketti
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
Mean Length of Utterance (MLU)
as standard measure of first language development as opposed to age
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
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)
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
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
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
Brown's (1973) order of acquisition for syntax: 1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
present progressive prepositions plural irregular past tense possessive articles regular past tense
girl playing ball in water toys, dishes went, told Ann's toys a dog, the dog jumped, hugged, wanted
8.
9.
regular 3rd person irregular 3rd person 10. auxiliary 11. contracted auxiliary
she goes, talks, watches she does, has be: I am, you are, she is I'm, you're, she's
order of acquisition as reflecting general learning strategies and stages of development (Piaget) or as evidence of innate language acquisition device (Chomsky)
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 S 0 [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).
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.
Poverty of Stimulus Argument (POS):
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: 1) the first auxiliary verb in the sentence moves to the front 2) the main auxiliary verb in the sentence moves to the front
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
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!
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
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. 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
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)
Contrastive Analysis
based on
transfer
• from Native Language (NL) to Target Language (TL) or First Language (L 1 ) to Second Language(L 2 ) • shared structures facilitate acquisition • distinct structures cause problems • positive transfer when L 1 and L 2 share structures e.g. Det Adj N structure in NP in English and German
the mean dog der böse Hund
negative transfer
when L 1 different structures and L 2 have 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
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
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 L 1 and L 2 Nemser (1971) recognized an
Approximative System
for the learner with features of both L 1 and L 2
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 L 1 and L 2 they represent transitional stages of development
but L 2 tends to
fossilize
at some stage, due to: 1. Negative transfer from L 1 e.g. putting temporal Adv before locative Adv
*They went last week to Berlin.
2. Overgeneralization of L 2 rules e.g. extending progressive pattern to stative verbs
*I'm knowing him a long time
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
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 L 2 by focusing on errors; • we could instead equate knowledge of L 2 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
6.4 Innateness, Input, Natural Order of Acquisition in L 2
The Innateness Debate from Child Language Research carries over to research in Second Language Acquisition Does the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) work for L 2 as for L 1 ?
If the LAD is at work, there should be a Natural Order of Acquisition in L 2 Could L 2 as in L 1 .
learners simply reset the parameters from L 1 ?
Dulay & Burt (1973) posit
natural order of acquisition
found for L 1 in L 2 parallel to what Brown (1973) at least learners with the same L 1 background go through the same stages in acquiring L 2 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
4. forms of auxiliary
be:
5. articles
a
and
the
: 6. irregular past tenses: 7. 3rd person sing pres
-s
: 8. possessive
-s: she's driving a cat, the dog went, ate, came she waits Sally's truck
6.5 Krashen's Input Hypothesis and the Monitor Model
Language Acquisition
versus
Language Learning
subconscious acquisition like children's L 1 acquisition • not affected by correction • not based on formally learned rules
Input Hypothesis
We acquire
i + 1
, the next rule along the natural order, by understanding messages containing
i + 1
. (a necessary but not sufficient condition for acquisition)
i
= current level in phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis
7. Bilingualism
individual bilingualism
versus
societal bilingualism
Compare:
bilingualism balanced
versus
diglossia
(Ferguson) versus
unbalanced bilingualism
dominant, usually first, native language versus weaker, second or foreign language (second or foreign language for special purpose)
7.4 Two languages in one brain 7.4.1 Types of bilinguals
Weinreich (1953) distinguished three kinds of bilingualism A. Coordinate: L 1 and L 2 acquired in separate contexts – each system is complete in itself – person functions as monolingual in both communities
B. Compound: L 1 and L 2 acquired in same context • the two systems are merged • person doesn't function as monolingual in either community • person may experience
interference
L 1 to L 2 and from L 2 to L 1 from
C. Subordinate: L 2 acquired based on L 1 – only one system – person functions as monolingual only in L 1 – person experiences
interference
only from L 1 to L 2 Notice that Weinreich’s typology works only at the lexical level, but bilinguals may experience interference at all levels from phonetics up to semantics.
As Paradis (1979, 1985) shows, bilinguals come in many types • • • • • • Bilinguals may differ with regard to: manner of acquisition (formal, informal) mode of acquisition (oral, written) method of acquisition (deductive, inductive, analytic, global) age of acquisition (during or after critical period) stage of acquisition degree of proficiency
• frequency and modes of use • language-specific features of L 1 & L 2 • sharing features and rules at various levels on every linguistic level, structures might be shared or separate e.g. if L 1 speaker produces L 2 perfectly, except for phonetics, i.e. has lots of interference from L 1 at the level of phonetics, we could model the to L 2 situation as follows:
8. Language comprehension
means understanding what we hear and read comprehension as active search for coherence and sense based on expectations arising from context, not a passive item-by-item recording and analysis of words in a linear sequence.
meaning and real-world expectations play a more important role than grammar
top-down
versus
bottom-up
processing Until the age of four, kids interpret a-d the same way; even adults require longer to respond to c, d: a.
The cat chased the mouse.
b.
The mouse was chased by the cat.
c.
The mouse chased the cat.
d.
The cat was chased by the mouse.
8.1 Comprehension of words
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP)
: separate, simultaneous and parallel processes work to identify words
by pronunciation: to recognize homophones
lead
N and
led
V pst by spelling: to recognize homographs
wind
N and
wind
V by grammar: to recognize
smell
as noun or verb while
hear
can only function as verb by semantics: synonyms like
little
and
small
antonyms like
little
and
big
hyponyms like
car
versus
vehicle
etc
Bathtub Effect:
recall is best for beginnings and ends of words, like the head and feet of a person which are visible though the middle remains submerged in the tub
8.2 Comprehension of sentences
Chomsky proposed
Generative Transformational Grammar (TG)
as a model of
Competence,
suggesting that psycholinguists should figure out how
Performance
could be related to his model Psycholinguists began to test for transformational complexity
Sentences involving more transformations like
PASSIVE, NEGATION, QUESTION FORMATION
etc should be harder to comprehend than sentences involving fewer transformations processing time should increase for sentences a-e:
a. Judy called the boy.
b. Judy didn't call the boy.
c. The boy was called by Judy.
d. The boy was not called by Judy.
e. Wasn't the boy called by Judy?
They found that negatives were harder to process than either passives or questions, even though negation seemed like a simpler transformation Subjects seemed to have difficulty processing negatives generally. Consider the difficulty of:
It's not true that Wednesday never comes after a day that isn't Tuesday.
Subjects also processed passives more easily than actives, if the passives made more sense, e.g.
The struggling swimmer rescued the lifeguard. The struggling swimmer was rescued by the lifeguard.
Apparently, semantics was more important than derivational complexity as predicted by TG analysis
Garden Pathing
is most obvious when we have to backtrack after an unexpected switch, as in sentence a; the addition of
this
in sentence b, or a comma, as in sentence c, eliminates the problem a.
Since Jay always jogs a mile seems like a short distance to him.
b.
Since Jay always jogs a mile this seems like a short distance to him.
c.
Since Jay always jogs, a mile seems like a short distance to him.
Tests revealed other syntactic processing differences.
Right-branching
constructions are easy to process:
This is the cat that chased the rat that stole the cheese that lay in the cupboard.
Here each construction is closed before the next is added.
But
left-branching
constructions are difficult.
The rat the cat chased stole the cheese.
Left-branching requires that the listener keep the first construction open (in short-term memory) while processing the second. Adding a third makes processing impossible because of the demands it places on short-term memory.
The cheese the rat the cat chased stole lay in the cupboard.
8.3 Comprehension of metaphor
metaphors consist of three parts:
tenor, vehicle, ground
tenor
billboards are
vehicle
warts on the landscape
ground (
tertium comparationis
) = 'ugly protrusions on some surface'
8.4 Comprehending sentences
Given-New Contract
(Clark & Clark 1977): Listeners expect information in a regular pattern. Coherent texts generally exhibit a characteristic information flow: • begin each utterance with given information • then move on to new information
e.g.
The ballerina captivated a musician during her performance. The one who the ballerina captivated was the trombonist.
(with
the ballerina
sentence as new) as given and the rest of the first In the second sentence, all the information is given, except the fact that the musician was a trombonist. Hearing the first sentence reduces processing time for the second.
REMINDER
Klausuranmeldung
Neue Studiengänge: on HIS LSF POS - July 01-10, 2009 Alte Studiengänge / ERASMUS / exchange students: Please write me an email @ [email protected]
(including full name, Matrikelnummer, Studiengang, information on your requirements – if you do need a Schein)
PREPARING FOR THE EXAM
•
review of this semester’s topics in today’s lecture
• additional tutorial session on July 21, 09 during the regular lecture time in the regular Hörsaal (Matthias Heyne) Please prepare questions or topics you’d like to revisit!