Production

Language and Psychology

Levelt’s Model (1989)

• Conceptualize what we wish to communicate Conceptualization Formulation • Formulate the thought into a linguistic plan • Execute the plan through the biological speech system Articulation Self monitoring • Monitor the speech to check whether it is what we intend to say and how we intend to say it

How is speech initially conceptualized?

CONCEPTUALIZATION

SPEECH CONCEPTUALIZATION David McNeill’s Model: Conceptualization SYNTACTIC THINKING SEGMENTED AND LINEAR TO PRODUCE THE STRINGS OF WORDS THAT MAKE UP SPEECH IMAGISTIC THINKING GLOBAL AND SYNTHETIC TO DEVELOP THE GESTURES TO ILLUSTRATE CONVERSATIONS

Test of the model  Synchronization test of image and speech  Where’s my

briefcase

?



There’s

your briefcase.

Problems

 The process of how imagistic and syntactic thoughts are initially conventionalized are unclear.

FORMULATION:

THE EVENTUAL OUTPUT OF SPEECH CONCEPTUALIZATION

How to observe the formulation process  Speech errors

What do speech errors tell us?

  Speech errors reveal possible processes of speech formulation from thoughts to language.

 “Speech errors allow us to peek in on the production process because we know what the speaker intended to say, but the unintentional mistake freezes the production process momentarily and catches the linguistic mechanism in one instance of production” (Scovel, 2009, p. 32). Speech is psychologically real .  We make errors within the framework of language structure.

Slips of the tongue/spoonerism

 A type of speech errors which shows how speech is intended to be formulated.  You have h issed all my my stery lectures.

 You have mi ssed all my h istory lectures.

Types of speech errors

Type

Shift Exchange Anticipation Preservation Addition Deletion

Example

She decide_ to hits it/decides to hit it. John got your model renosed/nose remodeled.

Bake my bike/take my bike. He pulled a pantrum/tantrum. Explain this clarefully enough/carefully enough. I got up and talk intelligibly/unintelligibly.

The Freudian explanation

 The emergence of suppressed ideas from sub consciousness to consciousness.  The br east in bed/the best in br ead

The psycholinguistic explanation 1

 Mostly from the similar linguistic environments  The little b ur st of b ea den (beast of burden)  You enjoyed your ni fe li te (night life)

The psycholinguistic explanation 2

 Generally accord with linguistic rules of the language  Phonological rules  Slickery (slick + slippery)  Morphological rules   Rules of word formation ( word Sesame seed crackers (sesame of rules street formation) crackers)

Printing out human voices

ARTICULATION

 Are the chest, the throat, and the mouth simply designed for biological functions?

   To eat food To breathe the air To articulate speech?

Evolutionary modification: Larynx

 the position of larynx  Low in human beings – high in other animals

Why lower larynx?

  To create a new source of sound  Pharyngeal sound To create more sounds

How do sounds pop out of the mouth after conceptualization and formulation?

  Motor control of speech  When an idea is conceptualized and linguistically formulated, the brain commands the systems responsible for speech production.

Speech system  The respiratory system   Laryngeal system Vocal tract

Coarticulation  Different speech organs work together to produce sounds.  Anticipatory coarticulation  Boo [bu], bark [ba-]  Perseveratory coarticulation  Its [its]  Dogs [z], cats [s]

SELF-MONITORING

How do we know we self-monitor?

  We correct our speech errors/mistakes immediately.

Hesitation

What do we monitor?

Mistakes Errors

Fact:

  Native speakers do not make ‘errors’. They make ‘mistakes’.

Non-native speakers make ‘errors’.

Insights

   Speakers are intuitively aware of the production process.

Speakers often self-edit or self-repair the output during the process of production Competence vs. performance

Self-repairs

(Levelt, 1989)    Instant repairs  Replace with the correct word  Again left to the same blank crossing point-white crossing point. Anticipatory retracings  The speaker retraces back to some point prior to the error.

 And left to the purple crossing point-the the red crossing point. Fresh starts  Just start over  From yellow down to brown-no-that’s red.

Hesitations

 Uh, um, let me see, you know, well.  I think it costs about…uh….20 dollars.

 They must…uh…meet in the library.

Do we stop at any point of the sentence?

 Hesitations are rule-governed.

 I think Mary is….you know…a pretty girl.

 They must…uh…meet in the library.

feedback loop

production Self monitoring