Psycholinguistic Approach PDF

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC APPROACHE Presented by Kamila Kozieł and Marta Odias  What is it? Psycholinguistics is the study of how our minds understand and use language. It focuses on how we produce words and sentences when we speak or write and how we understand them wh...

PSYCHOLINGUISTIC APPROACHE Presented by Kamila Kozieł and Marta Odias  What is it? Psycholinguistics is the study of how our minds understand and use language. It focuses on how we produce words and sentences when we speak or write and how we understand them when we listen or read.  Unlike cognitive linguists, psycholinguists focus less on language structure and more on how we produce (speak and write) and understand (listen and read) language in real time. A traditional focus of research in psycholinguistics lies on the study of first language acquisition, which refers to how a child develops its ability to speak and use the language of its environment Psycholinguistics began with a big shift in thinking, led by Chomsky. He introduced bold ideas about how sentences are structured and how language works in the mind. These ideas were debated but also inspired many experiments to test them. NOAM CHOMSKY Noam Chomsky is a famous American expert in language, philosophy, and how the mind works. He is also a historian, social critic, and political activist. People consider him one of the most important thinkers of the 20th and 21st centuries. Chomsky is called the "father of modern linguistics" because he created a theory called transformational-generative grammar. This theory explains how the basic structure of a language works in our minds and how different sentences we hear or speak are formed from that basic structure. HISTORY  While many psycholinguists trace the field's history to the 1950s and 1960s with Chomsky's "cognitive revolution," the study of psycholinguistics actually began in the late 1700s. Psycholinguistics has four historical roots, which, by the end of the nineteenth century, had emerged. By then, the discipline, usually called the psychology of language, was established. 1 Comparative linguistics was the first step, asking where language comes from in the mind. The second area of study was how language works in the brain, 2 starting with Franz Gall and later major discoveries by Broca and Wernicke. Franz Gall Gall observed his classmates' skull sizes and facial features and used these to create the theory of Organology, which later became known as Phrenology. He believed the mind is made up of separate parts, each located in different areas of the brain. 3 The third idea was the diary approach to child development, which came from Rousseau's Émile.  Jacques Rousseau and Childlike Innocence Rousseau believed that humans are born pure, and it's our experiences that negatively affect us. He thought children should be protected from child labor and harmful influences in society..  The fourth root was an 4 experimental method for studying speech and language, based on Franciscus Donders' work on measuring how long mental processes take. MENTAL CHRONOMETRY It is the study of how quickly we process information in our minds to understand how long mental tasks take and in what order they happen.  Franciscus Donders believed that choice reaction time would be slower than simple reaction time because making a decision takes time. The difference in reaction times shows how long the decision-making process takes.  These four views of psycholinguistics carried on into the 1900s, but they developed in very different ways. In psycholinguistics, some common topics are: 1. Language learning – How people learn to speak and understand languages. 2. Language processing – How we understand and produce language when we talk or listen. 3. Language storage – How words and language are stored and organized in our memory. The central fields of psycholinguistic research include: 1.The ways in which the forms and meanings of words are stored and retrieved from the mental lexicon; The mental lexicon is the brain's "dictionary," where we store all the words we know. It helps us quickly connect words to their meanings, whether we hear or see them.  2. The processes taking place during written and spoken language production; Language production is turning your thoughts into speech so others can understand your message. 3. The processes taking place during the comprehension of written and spoken discourse; Comprehension is the ability to understand something  4. The patterns and principles underlying first language acquisition Key debates in psycholinguistics focus on some basic ideas that researchers don’t fully agree on. These disagreements often shape how they understand and study how people use and learn language.  MODULARITY The idea of modularity in language suggests that different parts of the brain handle different tasks involved in language processing.  For example: Some stroke patients can create grammatically correct sentences but struggle to find the right words. This suggests that word selection (lexical processing) and grammar (syntactic processing) are managed by separate brain areas.  This shows that specific language functions are handled by specialized "modules" in the brain.These modules are closely connected, since they work together to produce language, Neurologically, these functions are often linked to different brain regions. For instance: Broca’s area is crucial for grammar and sentence construction. Wernicke’s area helps with understanding and choosing words. Simultaneity vs. Sequentiality. Simultaneous: All the steps happen at the same time, like multitasking. Sequential: One step happens after the other, but in Levelt's model, the steps overlap a little (incremental processing).  Sequential Process: In a sequential model like Levelt’s: 1. Conceptualizer: You first think about what you want to say (the idea). 2. Grammatical Encoding: Next, you build a sentence structure (grammar and word choices). 3. Phonological Encoding: Finally, you figure out how the words will sound and prepare to say them. Each step’s output feeds into the next step, like passing parts down an assembly line. Even though it’s sequential, Levelt’s model is also incremental, meaning: Later steps (like planning the sounds of words) can start before earlier steps (like sentence grammar) are completely done. Example: While you’re still deciding how to finish a sentence, your brain might already be planning how to pronounce the first word. Directionality The concept of directionality in how our brain processes language refers to whether information moves in one direction or flows in multiple directions. 1. One-directional (cascade) models: Think of this like a row of dominoes. Information moves step by step, only forward. For example, when you see a word, your brain might process its sound first, then its meaning, in a strict order. Interactive network models: Here, information flows in all directions, like ripples in a pond. If you think of one word, it activates related words in your brain. For instance, hearing "salt" makes your brain think of "pepper" or "soup" because they are connected. EXAMPLES: DOCTOR TEACHER PEPPER MILK CAT UNIVERSITY This idea explains speech errors too! Words stored close to each other (because they sound or mean something similar) can get mixed up. For example, you might say "passion" when you meant "fashion" because the words are connected in your mental network. Cat vs. Hat Table vs. Cable Bread vs. Thread Light vs. Right Ship vs. Slip  Methods Psycholinguists use various methods to study how we process and understand language.  1.Lexical Decision Tasks What Happens: Participants see a string of letters (like "apple" or "blart") on a screen and must quickly decide if it’s a real word or not by pressing a button. 2.Sentence Verification Tasks What They Are: These tasks test how quickly and accurately people can decide if a sentence is true or false. 3.Sentence Completion Tasks What They Are: These tasks ask participants to complete a sentence that is left unfinished.  4.The Recency Effect Refers to how recently encountered words or concepts are easier to recognize or process.  When you encounter a word (e.g., apple) shortly before a task like recognizing whether something is a word, your brain identifies it much faster. This happens because your mental "network" keeps recently accessed information active for a while, making it quicker to retrieve. Thank You