Psycholinguistics

1. Psycholinguistics Prof.R.R.Borse, Eng.Dept., B.P.Arts,S.M.A.Sci.,K.K.C.Comm.College, Chalisgaon

3. The field is concerned with psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms in which languages are processed and represented in the brain

4. Language •It’s an integral part of our waking lives. So….. –Can you imagine your life without language? •Most of us take language (and its use) for grantedas… –effortless, automatic, yet so accurate (most of the time) –unconscious(you’re seldom aware of your language use) •Think for a moment:- –how you listen to and make sense of my speech, –how you create meaning to ask questions, –how you decipher printed words on these slides, –how you manage to write down notes (using language)

5. What is psycholinguistics? “Psycholinguistics [or the psychology of language] explores the relationship between the human mind and language” (Field, 2003: 2)

6. * Psycholinguistics is an interdisciplinary field. • It is studied by researchers from a variety of different backgrounds, such as psychology, cognitive science, • linguistics, • speech and • language pathology, and • discourse analysis.

7. Psycholinguistics Studies… how do children acquire language (language acquisition)?; (2) how do people process and comprehend language (language comprehension)?; (3) how do people produce language (language production)?; and (4) how do people acquire a new language (second language acquisition)?

8. This scientific discipline focuses on–the individual language user,–patterns of linguistic behaviors across language users,–the psychological processes underlying language,–language as a window into the human mind.

34. "Psycholinguists study how word meaning, sentence meaning, and discourse meaning are computed and represented in the mind. They study how complex words and sentences are composed in speech and how they are broken down into their constituents in the acts of listening and reading. In short, psycholinguists seek to understand how language is done...

35. “An account of language processing also requires that we understand how these linguistic concepts interact with other aspects of human processing to enable language production and comprehension."

36. An Interdisciplinary Field "Psycholinguistics... draws on ideas and knowledge from a number of associated areas, such as … phonetics, semantics, and pure linguistics.

37. There is a constant exchange of information between psycholinguists and those working in neurolinguistics, who study how language is represented in the brain.

38. Psycholinguistics has a close links with studies in artificial intelligence. AI goals of designing computer programs that can turn speech into writing and programs that can recognize the human voice

39. It Studies of brain as it correlates of psycholinguistic processes can complement behavioral results, and in some cases...can lead to direct information about the basis of psycholinguistic processes

40. Psycholinguistics involves: 1) language processing – reading, writing, speaking, listening and memory . For instance, how words on paper are turned into meaning in the mind. 2) lexical storage and retrieval – the way words are stored in our minds and used. How we are able to map words onto objects such as ‘ball’ and actions such as ‘kick’ and ‘love’ and access these when needed. 3)language acquisition – how language is first learnt and used by children. For example, learning the rules of grammar and how to communicate with other people.

41. 4) special circumstances – how internal and external factors can impact language development, such as twins and their use of ‘twin language’, the influence of hearing and vision impairments on acquisition, and how damage to the brain can affect certain aspects of language. 5)the brain and language – evolutionary explanations of why humans have the capacity to use language, and the parts of the brain concerned with different areas of language, also considering whether or not non-human animals have the ability to use language too. 6) second language acquisition and use – looking at bilingualism and how individuals can learn a second language and are able to differentiate between them. The common aim of psycholinguistics is … “to find out about the structures and processes which underlie a human’s ability to speak and understand language”

42. The research within the psycholinguistics field can be broken down into specific topics:- 1) Phonetics or Phonology:- study of speech sounds. 2) Morphology, the study of word structure and relationships between words. 3)Syntax:-study of word patterns and how they build sentences. 4)Semantics:-the study of the actual meanings of words and sentences 5)Pragmatics:- the study of the context or interpretation of meaning.

44. Language learning stages for Kids…. cooing- 6 months- use phonemes from every language babbling- 9 months- selectively use phonemes from their native language one word utterances- 12 months- start using single words telegraphic speech- 2 years- multi-word utterances that lack in function normal speech- 5 years- almost normal developed speech

45. But… Language acquisition is a complex and unique human quality for which there is still no theory that is able to completely explain how language is attained.