LING212- SLA
L2 processing and the brain
Florencia Franceschina
Psycholinguistics = “a branch of linguistics which
studies the correlation between linguistic behaviour
and the psychological processes thought to underlie
that behaviour”
Crystal (2003: 380)
Neurolinguistics = ‘a branch of linguistics … which
studies the neurological basis of language
development and use’
Crystal (2003: 312)
How is language processed?
Language comprehension
Exercise: Ambiguity resolution problems
How is language processed?
Language production
A blueprint for the speaker (Levelt, 1989, 1999)
CONCEP TUALIZ
ER
message
generati
on
monitorin
g
discourse model,
situat ion
knowledge ,
encyclopedia,
etc.
parsed
speech
preverbal
message
FORMULAT
OR
grammat ica
l encoding
surface
st ruct u
re
phonologic
al encoding
LEXICON
lemmas
SPEECHCOMPREHENSI
ON
SYSTEM
forms
phonet ic plan (internal
speech)
ART ICULAT
OR
phonet ic
st ring
AUDITIO
N
overt
speech
Levelt's (1989) levels of p rocessing in the generation of the phonetic plan for crampons
MORP HOLOGICAL/METRICAL SPELLOUT LEVEL
lemma
crampon
address:
spellout:
number
plural
stem
af
crampon
V' V
s
SEGMENTAL SPELLOUT LEVEL
stem
crampon
V' V
address:
aff ix
s

syllable spellout:
onset

rime
nucl
cr
C1
V
/¾/
C2
/k/
/r/
cluster spellout:
onset
coda
C
/m/
rime
nucl
C
/p/
V
/¶/
coda
ns
C1
C2
/n/
/s/
PHONETIC SPELLOUT LEVEL
cluster comp osition:
syllable address:
spellout:
onset cluster
C1
C2
/k/
/r/
onset cluster
C1
C2
/n/
/s/
/kr/
/ns/
onset
nucl
coda
onset
nucl
coda
/kr/
/¾/
/m/
/p/
/¶/
/ns/
[kr¾m]
[p¶ns]
Lexical decision task
Stimulus
Example
Mean decision time
Word
DESK
708 msec.
Non-word (fully unpronounceable)
SJMF
607 msec.
Non-word (onset unpronounceable)
SJIF
644 msec.
Non-word (coda unpronounceable)
SAJF
680 msec.
Non-word (pronounceable)
SARF
746 msec.
Source: Gough and Cosky (1977: 278), cited in Radford et al. (1999: 235)
Exercise: Speech errors
How is language represented in the
brain?
Left hemisphere
Right hemisphere
Corpus callosum
Early days
Early days
Paul Broca
(1824-1880)
Cinderella… poor… um ‘dopted
her… scrubbed floor, um, tidy…
poor, um… ‘dopted… si-sisters and
mother … ball.
Frontal lobe
Broca’s
Area
Wernicke’s
Area
Early days
Paul Broca
Carl Wernicke
(1824-1880)
(1848-1904)
You know that smoodle pinkered and
that I want to get him round and take
care of him like you want before.
Broca’s
Area
Wernicke’s
Area
Temporal lobe
Broca’s
Area
Wernicke’s
Area
Modern techniques




Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
Positron emission tomography (PET)
Event-related potentials (ERP)
Magnetoencelography (MEG)
MRI of a Broca’s aphasic
MRI of a Wernicke’s aphasic
References
Crystal, David. 2003. A dictionary of linguistics and
phonetics. Oxford: Blackwell.
Levelt, Willem J M. 1989. Speaking: from intention to
articulation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Levelt, Willem J M. 1999. Producing spoken language: a
blueprint for the speaker. In The neurocognition of
language, eds. Colin M Brown and Peter Hagoort.
Oxford: Oxford University Press. Pp. 83-122.
Reading
Obler, Loraine K and Hannigan, Sharon. 1996.
Neurolinguistics of second language
acquisition and use. In The handbook of
second language acquisition, eds. William C
Ritchie and Tej K Bhatia. San Diego: Academic
Press. Pp. 509-523.
Further reading
Accessible introductions to psycho- and
neurolinguistics:
Caplan, David. 2000. Neurolinguistics. In The handbook of linguistics, eds.
Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller. Oxford: Blackwell. Pp. 295-318.
Fabbro, F. 1999. The neurolinguistics of bilingualism: an introduction. Hove:
Psychology Press.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. and Hyams, N. 2003. An introduction to language.
Boston: Heinle. (Chapters 2 and 9)
Li Wei ed. 2000. The bilingualism reader. London: Routledge. (Part III)
What have we covered so far?
Factors that influence SLA:
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Next term


Project based
You will be trained in the use of
–
–

CHILDES http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/
ICLE (International Corpus of Learner English)
You may decide to collect your own data
(please come to see me if you are thinking of
doing this, as there are a number of practical
issues that you will need to sort out)