Lecture: Psycholinguistics
Professor Dr. Neal R. Norrick
_____________________________________
Psycholinguistics
Universität des Saarlandes
Dept. 4.3: English Linguistics
SS 2009
7.4.4 Language processing in the bilingual brain
Depending how they're acquired, L1 & L2 may even
be lateralized differently in brain:
• L2 lateralized in right hemisphere
• L2 less lateralized than L1
• L1 & L2 both less lateralized than in monolinguals
evidence from aphasia indicates that languages are
separately organized in brain, but not necessarily
lateralized separately
As Paradis (1979, 1985) shows, bilinguals comes 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 L1 & L2
• sharing features and rules at various levels
on every linguistic level, structures might be
shared or separate
e.g. if L1 speaker produces L2 perfectly, except for
phonetics, i.e. has lots of interference from L1 to L2
at the level of phonetics, we could model the
situation as follows:
L1
conceptual level
semantics
syntax
morphology
lexis
phonology
L2
single system
x
-y
x
-y
x
-y
x
-y
x -- y
and if L1 speaker produces phonetically correct L2,
but makes lots of interference errors in grammar
and word choice, we could model the situation as
follows:
L1
conceptual level
semantics
syntax
morphology
lexis
phonology
L2
single system
x
-y
x -- y
x
-y
x -- y
x
-y
Of course, some languages may naturally share
structures at certain levels:
English-German bilinguals probably have a single
set of stop consonants for both languages,
but German speakers need to add the fricatives in
then and thin, and English speakers need to add
the fricatives in ich and ach and so on
In the simplest model,
the concepts of
experience run
through a set of pipes
and come out as
either L1 or L2
(in the model Spanish
and English)
The next model
ignores the concepts
and begins with
separate tanks for the
words of L1 & L2;
again pipes run down,
and one language
spills out.
(This second model
corresponds to Weinreich’s
“coordinate bilingual”)
In third model, the concepts
of experience run through
pipes representing L1 & L2,
they are assigned
appropriate words from
either L1 or L2, and they flow
into another set of pipes,
representing the grammar
and phonology, and finally
flow out as either L1 or L2.
But, as in Weinreich, there’s no way in these models
to account for interference
Since there's interference between the systems,
some pipes may be playing a role in both L1 & L2
systems, and the pipes must be leaky; since we can
code-switch and translate, there must be leakage in
both directions
 It’s probably necessary to complicate the third
model
The tanks of words from L1 or L2, need valves to turn
them on or shut them off, representing the decision to
speak either L1 or L2 and block out the other
As we saw above, the words must flow into separate
sets of pipes, representing the grammar, morphology
and phonology of either L1 or L2 as well; but some
pipes serve both L1 & L2 systems to some extent,
to account for interference
At all levels, we must allow leakage to explain how
we can code-switch from L1 to L2
also possible:
comprehension is a single system for L1 & L2,
while production of L1 & L2 remains separate, because:
• comprehension precedes production in acquisition
• comprehension more advanced than production at
all stages
• though we can choose not to speak L1 or L2,
we can't choose not to comprehend
• production is lost before comprehension in aphasia
• comprehension returns before production in aphasia
again according to Paradis, we can envision:
• single coherent underlying conceptual system
• two cognitively separate systems - with some
shared areas in semantics, syntax, phonology
one system is suppressed due to context, frequency
of contact etc
but word/phrase from suppressed system may intrude,
especially during word search
there may be differences in processing due to
acquisition history, strategies etc
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.
Asked to paraphrase e-g in their own words, subjects
‘normalized’ the sentences 60% of the time:
e. John dressed and had a bath.
f. John finished and wrote the article on the
weekend.
g. Don't print that or I won't sue you.
Asked if they saw any difference between g and their
‘incorrect’ paraphrase h, 53% still said no
h. If you print that, I'll sue you.
 clearly, the ‘Reality Principle’ guides our
comprehension of linguistic structures
8.1 Comprehension of words
Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP):
separate, simultaneous and parallel processes work
to identify words
by pronunciation: to recognize homophones
leadN and ledV pst
by spelling:
to recognize homographs
windN and windV
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
PDP can link word meanings to perceptual and
functional paradigms
(how a thing looks, sounds etc, what it's used for)
consider Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomena
you're trying to recall the word for the belief that life's
events are preordained by a deity
you remember that the word begins with p, then that
word begins with pre-, and that it ends with -tion
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
you recall associated words like:
predilection
pretension
Presbyterian
preordained
you finally come up with: predestination
Spreading activation networks:
as the search progresses, more words and concepts
are accessed related in various ways,
including schematic knowledge
e.g. the association of Presbyterian
and predestination via 'religion‘
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
Garden pathing works both syntactically and
semantically.
We follow expectations about constructions and
meaning.
Garden pathing makes it so difficult to understand
sentences which seem complete and semantically
simple, e.g.
The horse raced past the barn fell.
Compare: The horse that was raced past
the barn fell.
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'
Ortony (1975) argues that we comprehend metaphors
in the same way we comprehend explicit comparisons
or similes like:
billboards are like warts on the landscape
in both cases, we must find the appropriate ground
even in literal comparisons such as:
dogs are like cats
we must discover a common semantic property like
'pet' as the ground of the comparison
we need only certain aspects of the word meanings
In the metaphors below, different semantic aspects
of butcher are dominant:
the pianist is a butcher
the surgeon is a butcher
This suggests that we always access just as much
semantic content from the mental lexicon as we
need to comprehend the sentence at hand, not
complete encyclopedic information
Given a metaphoric statement like:
skyscrapers are the giraffes of a city
we identify a ground like 'tall compared to
surroundings' as part of comprehension process.
And though the ground is unstated, tests show that it
provides as good a cue for recall as the tenor or
vehicle.
Metaphors organize our understanding of the tenor;
reversing tenor and vehicle usually confuses the
relation, as in:
warts are billboards on the body
tests show that metaphors require longer to
comprehend only in isolation
in appropriate contexts, metaphors require no longer
than literal statements, as in:
Billboards are really offensive to look at.
They mess up the surrounding area.
Billboards are like warts on the landscape
Within a single sentence, prior context (as in A below)
is more effective than subsequent context (as in B) in
triggering metaphoric interpretation:
A. The night was filled with drops of molten silver
B. Drops of molten silver filled the night.
Apparently, understanding metaphors in context is no
different from regular comprehension processes
Familiarity is also a factor in metaphor comprehension
Test subjects respond fastest to familiar metaphors,
e.g. Joe's the top cat around here
Telecommunications are further
shrinking the globe
If the vehicle of the metaphor is unfamiliar or has no
single salient property, comparison is difficult and
comprehension will be slow,
e.g. Judy's a real platypus at work
Bob's a regular isotope for politics
Metaphor may even be necessary and go unnoticed
when language lacks any other word, e.g.
dead metaphor:
face of a clock
moribund metaphor: cut into line
cf. knife through the line
Poetic metaphor involves anomaly, and requires
extra processing time
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons
but many metaphors aren't anomalous, e.g. metaphoric
proverbs may be both literally true and consistent:
The early bird catches the worm
Like other metaphors, metaphorical proverbs seem to
require no special processing in appropriate discourse
contexts
8.5 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 as given and the rest of the first
sentence as new)
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.
If the second sentence is altered as below, listeners
are confused and processing times increase.
The ballerina captivated a musician during her
performance.
The one who captivated the trombonist was
the ballerina.