Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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CHAPTER 10
Language II: Language Production and
Bilingualism
CHAPTER INTRODUCTION
There are many forms of language production
Language production is social.
More research has been conducted on comprehension than production.
SPEAKING
Producing a Word
 three words a second
 speaking vocabulary of 75,000 words
 word selection
 grammatical, semantic, and phonological accuracy
Are all three kinds of information retrieved simultaneously or
independently?
van Turennout and colleagues (1998)
 Dutch speakers
 pictures of objects and animals
 ERP technique
 grammatical gender accessed about 40 milliseconds before phonological
properties
 not all information accessed at once; split-second timing
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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Speech Errors
Speech is generally accurate and well-formed.
slips-of-the-tongue—errors in which sounds or entire words are
rearranged between two or more different words
Types of Slip-of-the-Tongue Errors
1. Sound errors
2. Morpheme errors
3. Word errors
Characteristics
 Errors create a word, rather than a non-word.
 Errors reveal our extensive language knowledge.
 Errors tend to occur across items from the same category.
 Words we are currently pronouncing are influenced by both the words we
have already spoken and the words we are planning to speak.
Explanations for Speech Errors
Dell and colleagues
 comprehensive theory for speech errors
 similar to connectionist approach
 spreading activation
 Planning activates sound elements.
 Each sound can be activated by several different words.
 High activation can cause the incorrect sound to be produced.
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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Using Gestures: Embodied Cognition
gestures
cultural differences
Gestures can influence how you think.
Frick-Horbury & Guttentag (1998)
 identifying target word from definition
 hand movements restricted or unrestricted
 Participants with unrestricted hand movements identified more words than
those with restricted hand movements.
 When our verbal system cannot retrieve a word, a gesture can sometimes
activate the relevant information.
Demonstration 10.2: Using Gestures to Communicate Information
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Some concepts are easier to describe with body movements than with words.
People are more likely to produce a gesture when they have had previous
experience with the relevant physical activity.
Embodied cognition
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People use their bodies to express their knowledge.
ongoing connection between motor system and processing spoken language
importance of concrete physical actions, rather than abstract meaning
Hostetter (2011)—meta-analysis
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Do gestures actually help us in communicating a message?
Gestures actually do increase the listener’s understanding, especially when the
speaker is describing concrete actions.
Producing a Sentence
Limits of attention and memory
1. Plan the gist
2. Devise general structure of sentence
3. Choose specific words and grammatical form
4. Convert these intentions into speech
Stages of sentence production overlap in time.
linearization problem—transforming general thought or mental image
into an ordered, linear sequence of words
prosody—"melody," intonation, rhythm, emphasis
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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Producing Discourse
discourse—language units larger than a sentence
narrative—type of discourse in which someone describes a series of
actual or fictional events
Characteristics of narrative
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time-related sequence
emotionally involving
goal to convey
words chosen carefully
entertaining
Narrative structure
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Brief overview
Summary of characters and setting
Complicating action
Point
Resolution
Final signal that the narrative is complete
In Depth: The Social Context of Language Production
Language as a social instrument
Speakers must
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consider their conversation partners
coordinating turn-taking
agreed meanings
intentions
pragmatics—social rules and world knowledge that allow speakers
successfully communicate messages to other people
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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In Depth: The Social Context of Language Production
(continued)
Common Ground
common ground—occurs when conversationalists share similar background
knowledge, schemas, and perspectives necessary for mutual understanding
 collaborate
 pay attention
 assess background knowledge
 clarify misunderstandings
Clark and Wilkes-Gibbs (1986)—Demonstration 10.4
 pairs of participants arranging figures in order
 mutual shorthand and shared vocabulary developed
 number of required turns decreased rapidly over trials
 conversational partners become more skilled in communicating efficiently
physicians and patients
Speakers often overestimate their listeners' ability to understand a message.
Directives
directive—a sentence that requests someone to do something
direct request
indirect request
Framing
George Lakoff
 Language can structure thinking.
 frame—mental structures that simplify reality
 example: individual vs. social responsibility
 When people have different frames, it may be difficult to talk with others
about many important contemporary issues.
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
WRITING
Writing requires virtually every cognitive process.
One of the least-researched linguistic tasks
Frequency of writing activities
Similarities and differences between writing and speaking
Writing:
 is done in isolation
 takes more time
 uses more complex syntax
 is revised more
Social factors are more central in speaking than in writing.
Three phases
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planning
sentence generation
revising
Strains on attention
Role of practice
Importance of drafts
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Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
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The Cognitive Components of Writing
Working Memory
Kellogg and colleagues (2007)
Students wrote definitions for words while working on a secondary task at the
same time.
Researchers examined possible interference from phonological, visual, and
spatial tasks.
phonological loop task (remember a spoken syllable)
 When the students were writing, they required significantly longer to
remember the syllables.
 The phonological loop seems to be an important factor when we write.
visuospatial sketchpad tasks
 visual information (remember the visual shape of an item): When
students were writing about concrete nouns, they required significantly
longer to remember the item's visual shape. When writing about
abstract nouns, no delay in remembering the item's visual shape.
 spatial information (remember a particular location): Students' reaction
times not affected by the writing task. Writing does not require us to
emphasize locations (spatial information).
central executive
 active in virtually every phase of the writing process
 coordinates planning
 involved in sentence generation
 oversees revision
 limited capacity can make writing a stressful task
Long-Term Memory
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semantic memory
expertise
schemas
knowledge about writing style required
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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Planning a Formal Writing Assignment
prewriting
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generating a list of ideas
difficult and strategic
large individual differences
Good writers are more likely than poor writers to spend high-quality time
planning.
outlining
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avoids overloaded attention
resolving linearization problem
Sentence Generation During Writing
 translate the general ideas (developed during planning) into actual
sentences of the text
 hesitant phases and fluent phases
 longer vs. shorter words
 Writing errors are most likely to be spelling errors within a single
word rather than between-word errors.
The Revision Phase of Writing
 Emphasize the importance of organization and coherence.
 Reconsider whether the writing accomplishes the goals of the
assignment.
 Revision should be time consuming.
 Effective writers use flexible revision strategies, and they make
substantial changes.
 College students typically devote little time to revising.
 Metacognitions about the writing process seem to be inaccurate.
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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The Revision Phase of Writing (continued)
Hayes and colleagues (1987)—experts vs. novices
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first-year college students vs. expert writers
revise a poorly written two-page letter
Novices revise sentence-by-sentence; focus on spelling and grammar.
Experts work more on organization, focus, and transition between ideas.
Novices judge defective sentences as appropriate.
Experts are better able to diagnose the source of a problem in a sentence.
Daneman & Stainton (1993)—proofreading
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difficult to proofread your own writing
proofread for spelling separately from content
wait at least one day, after revising content, to proofread for spelling
BILINGUALISM AND SECOND-LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
Many people throughout the world have mastered two or more
languages.
bilingual speaker—a person who is fluent in two different languages
multilingual speaker
simultaneous bilingualism
sequential bilingualism, first language, second language
Background on Bilingualism
More than half of the people in the world are at least somewhat bilingual.
People become bilingual for many reasons.
Tables 10.1 & 10.2: Languages Most Frequently Spoken at Home in the
United States and Canada
For many people in North America, English is not the language most
frequently spoken at home.
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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The Social Context of Bilingualism
Even though many children in the United States and Canada speak a
language other than English in their homes, the educational system
frequently does not value this other language.
If a school values a child's first language, he or she may actually become
more fluent in English.
Success in acquiring a second language is related to
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individual motivation
attitude toward people who speak that language
Language proficiency can also influence attitudes.
Danziger and Ward (2010)
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Arab Israeli students fluent in both Arabic and Hebrew
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
The Arab students were more positive about Jewish individuals when the
fluently bilingual researcher was speaking Hebrew, than when she was
speaking Arabic.
Advantages (and Minor Disadvantages) of Bilingualism
Advantages
1. Bilinguals actually acquire more expertise in their native (first) language than
do monolinguals.
2. Bilinguals are more aware that the names assigned to concepts are arbitrary.
Also outperform monolinguals on many other measures of metalinguistics.
3. Bilinguals excel at paying selective attention to relatively subtle aspects of a
language task, ignoring more obvious linguistic characteristics.
4. Bilingual children are better at following complicated instructions and
performing tasks where the instructions change from one trial to the next.
5. Bilinguals perform better on concept-formation tasks and on tests of
nonverbal intelligence that require reorganization of visual patterns.
Bilinguals also score higher on problem-solving tasks that require them to
ignore irrelevant information.
6. Bilingual children are more sensitive to some pragmatic aspects of language.
7. Bilingual adults who have dementia typically develop signs of dementia later
than monolingual adults with dementia.
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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Advantages (and Minor Disadvantages) of Bilingualism
(continued)
Disadvantages
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People who use two languages extensively may subtly alter how they
pronounce some speech sounds in both languages.
Bilingual individuals may also process language slightly more slowly, in
comparison to monolinguals.
Bilingual children may have somewhat smaller vocabularies for words that are
used in a home setting.
Disadvantages far outweighed by advantages of begin able to
communicate effectively in two languages.
Second-Language Proficiency as a Function of Age of
Acquisition
age of acquisition
critical period hypothesis
Vocabulary
When the measure of language proficiency is vocabulary, age of acquisition is not
related to language skills.
Phonology
Age of acquisition does influence mastery of phonology (sounds of speech).
Flege and coauthors (1999)
 Korean-Americans
 Degree of accent related to age of arrival: Immigrants arriving as children
had minimal accents; those who arrived as adolescents or adults had
stronger accents.
 fairly smooth change over age rather than abrupt drop
Grammar
Flege and coauthors (1999)
 judging English sentences as grammatical
 After controlling for years of education in the United States, age of
acquisition was not related to an individual's mastery of English grammar.
Studies with other languages—no consistent relationship between age of arrival
and mastery of English grammar
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Margaret W. Matlin, Cognition, 8e
Outline Chapter 10
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Individual Differences: Simultaneous Interpreters and
Working Memory
translation—converting a text written in one language into a second
written language
interpreting—converting a spoken message in one language into a
second spoken language
Simultaneous interpretation involves three working-memory tasks at the
same time (comprehension, transformation, speak out loud).
Christoffels, De Groot, and Kroll (2006)

Dutch/English speakers—students, teachers of English, simultaneous
interpreters
 reading-span test and speaking-span test
 All groups recalled more words in their native language (Dutch) than in their
second language (English).
 Simultaneous interpreters remembered significantly more Dutch and English
words than the other two groups, both in reading span and in speaking span.
Possible Explanations
 The experience of managing simultaneous tasks actually increased the
working-memory skills for the simultaneous interpreters.
 Only people with superb working-memory skills can manage to survive in a
profession that requires an extremely high level of proficiency in working
memory.
 Both of these explanations may be correct.
©2013 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.