Psycholinguistics Branches of Linguistics PDF

University of Algiers II Linguistics and Phonetics Faculty of Foreign Languages First Year LMD Department of English **Branches of Linguistics: Psycholinguistics** **1. Definition of Psycholinguistics** Psycholinguistics is derived from two different scientific studies: psychology and linguisti...

University of Algiers II Linguistics and Phonetics Faculty of Foreign Languages First Year LMD Department of English **Branches of Linguistics: Psycholinguistics** **1. Definition of Psycholinguistics** Psycholinguistics is derived from two different scientific studies: psychology and linguistics. Psychology deals with human minds and linguistics deals with the study of language. Psycholinguistics is a branch of linguistics that deals with the cognitive process of human language comprehension, production, acquisition and learning. The relationship between language and mind has two aspects, acquisition and performance which are intimately connected i.e. effective acquisition is essential to successful performance. Psycholinguistics is mainly concerned with the processes that occur in brain while producing and perceiving both written and spoken discourse in first language acquisition and second language learning. One specialized area within psycholinguistics is Neurolinguistics that studies the physiological basis of language and language disorders. **2. Psycholinguistics and Linguistics** Psycholinguistics borrows many of its theoretical constructs from linguistics. Levels of processing, distinguished in theories of language comprehension or language production, correspond to linguistic levels, such as phonetics and phonology, lexicon (vocabulary), semantics (meaning), syntax (sentence structure) and morphology (units that make up words). Furthermore, the processing units that these theories assume correspond to linguistic units, such as the phoneme, the syllable, the morpheme, and the clause. Psycholinguistic experiments provide information about the psychological reality of linguistic units and the way linguistic information is represented and processed in the mind of the language user. A crucial difference between linguistics and psycholinguistics is the latter's focus on the mental process*.* For instance, in natural speech we can easily produce two words per second. How do speakers find these words so quickly in their (vast) mental lexicon, which contains at least 10,000 words? What happens to these processes when we are unable to say a word, but it is on the tip of our tongue? Another example, is when listening to sentences that are grammatically correct but due to the way they are divided and structured, may seem ungrammatical or nonsensical. Those sentences are called « garden-path », a good example used in psycholinguistics is the following sentence « the old man the boat ». This sentence is indeed grammatically correct thanks to some well-placed homonyms---multiple words that share the same spellings but have different meanings. The first homonym is "old," in this case being used as a noun meaning "old people", not as an adjective modifying "man". The second homonym is "man," used here as a verb, meaning "to serve in the force of." Therefore, the actual meaning of the sentence is: "The old people serve on the boat." **Major Topics in Psycholinguistics** **a) Language Acquisition** It is the study of how children can acquire an extensive knowledge and a high degree of control over the language of their natural environment through a subconscious process during which they are unaware of grammatical rules. A child of five can understand utterances that he has never heard before; produce sentences that are completely new for him and to his listener; and can use his know1edge of speech to learn the new skills of writing and reading. **b) Language Learning** It is the result of direct instruction of language rules. Language learning presupposes that learners have a conscious knowledge of the new language. They usually have a basic knowledge of the grammar. When they learn a language they have a deductive approach to the intonations, phonology, morphology, syntax of the target language. This happens when they start learning a language in formal setting, when they learn how to read and write it. Reading and writing are *not* intuitive. Language learning happens when they learn that there are rules for each language, concerning the position of the words in a sentence, that intonation can vary and change the meaning of a word and a sentence, that one word can have many different meanings, depending on the context. From a neurolinguistic point of view, language acquisition and language learning are processed in two different ways in the brain. The Broca's area is the one actively involved in language acquisition processes, whereas the Wernicke's area is active in the language learning process. **c) Theories of Language Acquisition** There are four theories that explain most of speech and language development: *behaviourism, mentalism, interactionism* and *cognitivism.* **i. Behaviourism** B.F. Skinner is considered as the father of the behavioural theory. In his book *Verbal Behaviour* 1957, he argues that language behaviours are acquired by imitation, reinforcement, and copying adult language behaviors. Children speak by copying the utterances heard around them and by having their responses strengthened by the repetitions, corrections and other reactions that adults provide. **ii. Mentalism/ Innatism** Noam Chomsky\'s innateness theory (or nativist theory) proposes that children have an inborn or innate faculty for language acquisition that is biologically determined. For him, being biologically prepared to acquire language regardless of setting is due to the child\'s *language acquisition device* (LAD), which is used as a mechanism for working out the rules of language. Infants acquire grammar because it is a universal property of language and an inborn development that all humans have this is what he called 'universal grammar'. **iii. Interactionism** The interaction theory proposes that language exists for the purpose of communication and can only be learned in the context of interaction with adults and older children. It stresses the importance of the environment and culture in which the language is being acquired during early childhood development because this social interaction is what first provides the child with the means of making sense of their own behaviour and how they think about the surrounding world. **iv. Cognitivism** Jean Piaget is a Swiss psychologist who is famous for his stages of cognitive development for children, which included the development of language. Cognitivists believe that language emerges within the context of other general cognitive abilities like memory, attention and problem solving because it is a part of their broader intellectual development. **d) Language Disorders** Language disorders are a type of communication disorder, they impact how people use and process language.  **Dyslexia** (word blindness) Dyslexia is a a kind of disturbances in the process of reading. People with dyslexia have trouble reading at a good pace and without mistakes, confuse the order of letters in words, understand information when told verbally, but have difficulty with information when is written down. They have hard time with reading comprehension, spelling, and writing. But these difficulties have no connection to their overall intelligence. In fact, dyslexia is an *unexpected* difficulty in reading in an individual who has the intelligence to be a much better reader. While people with dyslexia are slow readers, they often, paradoxically, are very fast and creative thinkers with strong reasoning abilities.  **Aphasia** (dysphasia) Loss of the ability to use and understand language, usually caused by damage to the brain. The loss may be total or partial, and may affect spoken and/or written language ability. There are different types of aphasia: agraphia is difficulty in writing; alexia is a loss of ability to understand written or printed language; anomia is difficulty in using proper nouns and finding words; and agrammatism is difficulty in using grammatical words like prepositions, articles, etc. Aphasia can be studied in order to discover how the brain processes language. **Conclusion**: Psycholinguistics is a reflection of the strong relationship that exists between language and mind. This relationship is so complex that psycholinguists are still trying to understand its unknown aspects.