LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
B. Competence / Performance
various examples of language use
C. Popular notions of language
D. Properties of language
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
B. Competence / Performance
various examples of language use
C. Popular notions of language
D. Properties of language
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
Linguistics = structure of language
phonetics, syntax, semantics, cross-language
comparisons, language universals
Psycholinguistics = processing of language
understanding the mechanisms of language behavior
e.g., normal adult comprehension and production of
language; neurolinguistics; language acquisition;
language in non-humans
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
Socio-linguistics = social aspects of language
Linguistic factors, such as ...
voice pitch, pronunciation (dialect),
word choice, intonation
... influence our judgements about the speaker’s:
age, gender, geographical identity,
socio-economic class, intelligence,
personality, mood
Examples: R’s in New York (Labov, 1966)
Disney
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
B. Competence / Performance
various examples of language use
C. Popular notions of language
D. Properties of language
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
WUG
/wugz/
WUCK
/wuks/
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
Wordness: For each row of 3 possible new words,
which one will probably never make it : (
blick
splunge
rlight
sbarm
wumple
turl
mancer
nserht
crelurious
inther
iwhucr
neen
shace
fring
ngout
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
Tag Question = element attached at end of utterance;
not a true question nor a full declarative statement;
a way of asking for confirmation
That was a horrible movie, wasn’t it?
She’s been swimming,
Jeremy wants to go dancing,
You haven’t had any sleep,
The man who was smoking died,
Those friends of Maria’s that we don’t
particularly like didn’t know,
hasn’t she
______________?
doesn’t he
______________?
have you
______________?
didn’t he
______________?
did they
______________?
Tag Question formation rules...
But first, background information about
the (dreaded) VERB AUXILIARY
Declarative
Jo has eaten well.
Jo was acting bad.
Jo ran yesterday.
Verb Aux.
HAVE
BE
DO
GRAMMATICAL
TRANSFORMATION
Question
Has Jo eaten well?
Was Jo acting bad?
Did Jo run yesterday?
Negation
Verb Aux.
Jo hasn’t eaten well.
HAVE
Jo wasn’t acting bad.
BE
Jo didn’t run yesterday. DO
Tag question formation rules:
1. Copy the auxiliary of the main verb to the
right of the sentence.
2. Make it negative if the original is positive
or positive if the original is negative.
3. Add the pronoun that corresponds to the
subject in person, number, and gender.
weren’t they
Bob and Betty were laughing loudly, _____________?
didn’t she
That famous surgeon quit,
_____________?
is she
She’s not leaving already,
_____________?
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
“Can you pass the salt?”
Conversational inference (cooperation)
there are rules that govern how language
operates in a wider social context
maxim of relevance - fill in the blanks
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
B. Competence / Performance
Competence = what one knows
Implicit knowledge - knowing what’s “right”
Explicit knowledge - explain in terms of formal rules
Performance = what one does; how knowledge is used
-----------------------------------------
Various examples of language use:
(1) pa-ba-sa
(2) wugs
(3) wordness
(4) tag questions
(5) “Can you pass the salt?”
(6) grammaticality judgements
Can you pass the salt? + please
Please can you pass the salt?
Can please you pass the salt?
Can you please pass the salt?
Can you pass please the salt?
Can you pass the please salt?
Can you pass the salt please?
Grammaticality Judgements
John is difficult to love.
It is difficult to love John.
John is anxious to go.
* It is anxious to go John.
What he did was climb a tree.
* What he thought was want a sports car.
* What are you drinking and go home?
* Mary was near the stream, was it?
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
B. Competence / Performance
various examples of language use
C. Popular notions of language
D. Properties of language
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
C. Popular (but incorrect) notions of language
Prescriptive linguistics
Language change is corruption
Some languages are more advanced than others
“Received pronunciation” is better than dialects
“Do’s” and “don’ts” of language use
Language acquisition
Children learn language by imitation
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
A. What does it mean to study language?
B. Competence / Performance
various examples of language use
C. Popular notions of language
D. Properties of language
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
D. Properties of language
Human Language = flexible, symbol-based and
rule-based mode of communication that permits
conveyance of any kind of information. Its
properties include:
Creative – a limitless # of thoughts can be expressed
in a limitless # of ways.
Structured – sounds are combined into words, and words
into sentences according to rules (i.e., grammar).
 hierarchical
I. Introduction to Psycholinguistics
D. Properties of language
Meaningful – ideas are conveyed by individual words
and how they are organised into sentences.
 Ex:
The cat ate the dog.
The dog ate the cat.
Referential – it refers to and describes things and events
in the world.
Interpersonal / Communicative – it has a social function.
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
 bonobo chimps & Kanzi video
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
II. Basic Units of Language
A. ~5,000 languages
phonemes  morphemes  sentences  conversations
(sounds)
& words
B. Phonemes = elementary sounds of speech
• phonemes are NOT letters
to, too, two, through, threw, shoe, clue, view
• vowel & consonant phonemes
• combining phonemes is rule-governed
• 11-144 phonemes in any given language
English has ~ 40; Hawaiian has ~16
II. Basic Units of Language
C. Morphemes = smallest meaningful unit of lang.
• can be a word, word stem, or affix (prefix, suffix)
help, love
“free” { word:
word stem:
spir, ceive, duce
“bound” prefix/suffix: re-, dis-, un- / -less, -ful, -er
• derivational & inflectional morphemes
derivational – change the grammatical class
V + -able = Adj (adorable, believable)
V + -er
= N (singer, runner)
inflectional – grammatical markers
V + -ed = past tense (walked)
N + -s
= plural (cows)
{
II. Basic Units of Language
C. Words
• Content vs. function words
Content words = carry the main meaning
nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
Function words = grammatical words
articles (a, the, this), conjunctions (and,
but), prepositions (in, above)
Psychological reality of the content-function
word distinction in aphasia  selective
impairment of content (Wernicke’s) or
function words (Broca’s aphasia)
• Stroop (1935)
NAME THE COLOUR OF THE INK
GREEN
RED
BLUE
BLACK
BLUE
RED
GREEN
BLACK
RED
BLUE
RED
BLUE
GREEN
BLACK
GREEN
BLUE
BLACK
RED
BLUE
GREEN
Aoccdrnig to rscheearh at an Elingsh uinervtisy,
it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod
are, the olny iprmoetnat tihng is taht the frist and
lsat ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a
toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by it slef
but the wrod as a wlohe.
II. Basic Units of Language
C. Words (con’t)
• Ambiguity
1 word form, but 2 (or more) word meanings
Ex: bank (N-N, “money” vs. “river”)
watch (N-V, “clock” vs. “look”)
bass (N-N, “guitar” vs. “fish”)
2 word forms, but 1 pronunciation
Ex: sail/sale, right/write
Generally unaware of ambiguity...
even though it is quite pervasive
even though it affects behaviour (RT, etc)
II. Basic Units of Language
D. Sentences
• Syntax = the rule-governed system for grouping
words together into phrases and sentences
• Sentences introduce a concept that they are about,
the subject (or noun phrase), and then propose
something about that concept, the predicate
(or verb phrase).
Ex: “The boy hit the ball.”
doer act done-to
subject
predicate
II. Basic Units of Language
D. Sentences (con’t)
• Same deep structure, different surface structure
“The boy hit the ball.”
(active)
“The ball was hit by the boy.”
(passive)
• Same surface structure, different deep structure
[The French bottle]NP [smells.]VP
“The French bottle smells.”
[The French]NP [bottle smells.]VP
THEY are boring.
“Visiting relatives can be boring.”
VISITING THEM is boring.
Cf. ambig. figures in perception: 1 form, 2 interpretations
Necker cube
Headlines
New obesity study looks for larger test group
Reagan wins on budget, but more lies ahead
Man struck by lightening faces battery charge
Enraged Cow Injures Farmer with Axe
Milk Drinkers Are Turning to Powder
Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half
British Left Waffles on Falklands
Dealers Will Hear Car Talk at Noon
Miners Refuse to Work after Death
Beating Witness Provides Names
Squad Helps Dog Bite Victim
Kids Make Nutritious Snacks
Headlines
Stolen Painting Found by Tree
Prostitutes Appeal to Pope
Red Tape Holds up Bridge
Deer Kill 17,000
Teenage Prostitution Problem is Mounting
Child Stool Great for Use in Garden
Shouting Match Ends Teacher’s Hearing
Man Robs then Kills Himself
Lung Cancer in Women Mushrooms
Mondale’s Offensive Looks Hard to Beat
Tuna Biting off Washington Coast
Chinese Apeman Dated
Q: What’s the difference between a Scotsman and
a rolling stone?
A: A Rolling Stone says “Hey you get off of my cloud!”
and a Scotsman says “Hey McLeod get off of my ewe!”
II. Basic Units of Language
D. Sentences (con’t)
• Syntactic ambiguities
“She hit the boy with the big stick.”
“She hit the boy with the runny nose.”
Interpretation depends on structural preferences
(certain constructions used more often, favoured),
as well as the prior discourse context.
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
 Broca’s aphasia video
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
III. Neuropsychology of Language
• Language localised to the left hemisphere of brain
• Aphasia = disorder of language from injury to
language areas
Broca’s aphasia
problems in production (“telegraphic” speech)
difficulty w/ function words  syntactic deficit
Wernicke’s aphasia
fluent but meaningless speech (“empty” words)
difficulty w/ content words  semantic deficit
 neologisms & logorrhea
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
IV. Language Development / Acquisition
A. Theoretical points of view
“Nature” - language is innate; biological predisposition
“Nurture” - lang. learned via environmental stimulation
Points of debate:
• imitation & correction?
• whole-object constraint
• over-regularisation (‘goed’, ‘tooths’)
• motherese  “child-directed speech”
• pidgin  creole
Conclusion: infants are immediately sensitive to
language, but need to interact to learn
IV. Language Development / Acquisition
B. Stages of language PRODUCTION: 0-12 months
Age (mo) Stage
Behaviour
0-3
vegetative sounds
3-5
cooing & laughing
burp, cough, suck
swallow, cry
sounds with intonation
5-12
6-9
9-12
babbling
reduplicated
variegated
consonant-vowel sounds
‘ba-ba-ba-ba’
‘bi-du-ba’
IV. Language Development / Acquisition
C. Stages of language PERCEPTION: 0-12 months
Age
Discrimination
45 min
round lips vs. tongue protrusion imitation
1 week
mother’s voice vs. other’s voices
own language vs. foreign language
2-4 mo
all possible phoneme distinctions [video]
6-8 mo
categorise phonemes across diff. voices [video]
lose non-native distinctions
IV. Language Development / Acquisition
C. Stages of language PERCEPTION: 0-12 months
Age
Discrimination
45 min
round lips vs. tongue protrusion imitation
1 week
mother’s voice vs. other’s voices
own language vs. foreign language
 habituation paradigm
2-4 mo
all possible phoneme distinctions [video]
6-8 mo
categorise phonemes across diff. voices [video]
lose non-native distinctions
IV. Language Development / Acquisition
D. Stages of language PRODUCTION: 1-5 years
Age (yr)
1
Stage
holophrase
(1-word stage)
telegraphic
(2-word stage)
Behaviour
‘More’ ‘Dada’ ‘Gone’
‘Bye-bye’
1.5
‘Allgone milk’ ‘She cold’
‘Shut door’
2-4 No/Not Dada play Dada play?
short sentences
negation & question
Dada no/not play
Play Dada?
formation
Dada don’t play
Can Dada play?
4-5
more complex forms
went  goed  went
over-regularisation
LANGUAGE (Chpt 9)
Dr. Sara Sereno
I. Introduction to psycholinguistics
II. Basic units of language
III. Neuropsychology of language
IV. Language development / acquisition
V. Non-human language
V. Non-human Language
• Teaching language to chimpanzees:
Hayes (1950s)
raise chimp as if human
Gardner (1960s)
sign language with Washoe
Terrace (1970s)
more systematic approach
more recently
work with bonobo chimps
• Characteristics of human language lacking in animals:
syntax, creativity, displacement, prevarication
• Conclusion:
Some animals learn words, but little evidence they
can create or understand syntactic structures.
V. Non-human Language
• Teaching language to chimpanzees:
Hayes (1950s)
raise chimp as if human
Gardner (1960s)
sign language with Washoe
Terrace (1970s)
more systematic approach
more recently
work with bonobo chimps
• Characteristics of human language lacking in animals:
syntax, creativity, displacement, prevarication
• Conclusion:
Some animals learn words, but little evidence they
can create or understand syntactic structures.
Language Acts
Hierarchy of language units
Production
(speaking, writing,
signing)
Comprehension
(listening, “reading”)
Acquisition
1st or 2nd language
----------------Dysfunction (deficits)
aphasia, dyslexia, Az
phonemes / graphemes
morphemes
words
phrase, clause, sentence
syntax (grammar)
semantics (meaning)
discourse (interpretation)
communication (social)
]
learning not to respond
] gradual
] learning not to respond
Emotion words
Arousal
Valence
+ ve
Lo
peace
Hi
love
– ve
bored
fire
Neutral controls: hotel, farm