Lecture 5 Applied Linguistics PDF

**Lecture 5** **Psycholinguistics an application to linguistics** Psycholinguistics as a scientific discipline has acquired a respectable institutional status relatively recently. Officially new discipline was introduced in 1954 with the act of publishing a collection of scientific studies under t...

**Lecture 5** **Psycholinguistics an application to linguistics** Psycholinguistics as a scientific discipline has acquired a respectable institutional status relatively recently. Officially new discipline was introduced in 1954 with the act of publishing a collection of scientific studies under the general title \"Psycholinguistics. A survey of theory and research problems\", edited by Charles Osgood and Thomas Sebeok, who later became the fathers of psycholinguistics. The focus of psycholinguistic research is on the processes of speech production and perception, as well as the acquisition of language by a child. In other words, if linguists in the pair \"person-language\" are more interested in \"human language\", then psycholinguists are interested in \"a person speaking a natural language\". The main methods of psycholinguistic research - the associative experiment, the method of semantic differential of C. Osgood - are borrowed from psychology or are based on purely psychological categories. Some psycholinguistic experiments are widely used in linguistics. Thus, without a free associative experiment, it is impossible to compile associative dictionaries. The methodology for conducting an associative experiment boils down to the fact that the subject is presented with a list of stimulus words, for each of which he must, without thinking, write or express any word-reaction that comes to mind. The generalized results of such an experiment can be used as the basis for an associative dictionary. Psycholinguistics is essentially an application of psychology to linguistics, not an application of linguistics to psychology. It is therefore not part of applied linguistics, but rather part of \"applied psychology.\" As in quantitative linguistics, only small parts of the problematic area of ​​psycholinguistics can be classified as applications of linguistics proper. In one of these areas --- the study of aphasia --- data on the features of the structure of the language system is used in the most direct way. Aphasia is a disease that manifests itself in speech disorders that arise due to damage to the cerebral cortex (primarily the cortex of the left hemisphere --- for right-handers). The lesions are organic in nature, arising as a result of trauma, wounds, vascular diseases, brain tumors. A.R. Luria studied the types of aphasia, who compiled one of the classifications of aphasia types, which considered the features of speech pathology. The results of studies in which data from linguistic theory were widely used show that the cerebral cortex is divided into different areas that form two interconnected systems. The first system is formed by the posterior (parietal-occipital-temporal (теменно-затылочно-височная) sections; it is responsible for reception, processing and storage of information. The second system is associated with the work of the anterior sections of the cerebral cortex, responsible for the formation of intentions, plans and programs of human behavior. The structure of paradigmatic relations (paradigmatic relations are concerned with the way words are grouped together into categories, like nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.) is encoded by the posterior sections of the left hemisphere. When these areas of the brain are damaged. R. Jacobson described the differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic (syntagmatic relation defines the relationship between words that co-occur in the same sentence) differences in aphasia in terms of the opposition of \"selection\", reflecting the paradigmatic aspect of the language system, and \"combination\", representing syntagmatic relations \[Jacobson 1985 b, p. 289; R. Jakobson discusses an interesting example from a linguistic point of view of the mental illness of the Russian writer Gleb Ivanovich Uspensky. His name and patronymic were divided in his mind into two completely different entities: Gleb was endowed in Uspensky\'s mind with all his positive qualities, and Ivanovich embodied all his vices \[Jakobson 1996, p. 50 and further\]. Obviously, in this case, the violations relate to the sphere of syntagmatics. This essentially linguistic basis for classification is used to distinguish different types of aphasia. When the posterior sections are damaged, temporal (височная) (sensory) and occipito-parietal (затылочно-теменная) (semantic) aphasia may occur. Damage to the anterior sections often leads to frontal (motor and dynamic) aphasia. Sensory aphasia leads to the patient\'s impaired ability to distinguish the sound composition of words - to single out backgrounds and correlate them with the corresponding phonemes. Symptoms of sensory aphasia manifest themselves primarily in the fact that the patient has difficulty understanding oral speech, it is difficult to take dictation; the ability to nominate and name objects is impaired. Sensory aphasia is multifaceted. In acoustic-gnostic aphasia, the patient, due to the inability to distinguish backgrounds and correlate them with phonemes, hears the same word each time differently. When pronouncing a word, he replaces sounds with others from the same paradigmatic class, sometimes replacing the entire word with a similar sound. The patient reads and writes with difficulty, although he is talkative. Oral speech contains many words with auxiliary grammatical functions, and actants replacing obligatory valences of predicates are often absent. Another form of sensory aphasia - acoustic-amnestic - understands speech against the background of acoustic interference. In semantic aphasia, first identified as a special type by H. Head, the patient has impaired spatial thinking (пространственное мышление). It is a big problem for him to understand components with spatial prepositions, constructions with passive voice. Motor aphasia, described in 1861 by P. Broca, like sensory aphasia, has several forms. Afferent motor aphasia is characterized by impaired articulatory movements. Symptoms manifest themselves in incorrect pronunciation of words, replacement of some sounds with others that are close in articulation. Efferent motor aphasia is accompanied by inertia of speech stereotypes: it is difficult for the patient to move from one syllable to another, from one word to another. The melody of speech is impaired. Dynamic aphasia leads to defects in speech planning, which manifests itself in disturbances in the coherence of speech: the patient is unable to construct a detailed statement. R. Jacobson formulated a hypothesis according to which the process of speech disintegration in aphasia repeats in reverse the process of speech formation in and the restoration of the speech ability of aphasics in the process of treatment repeats the process of language acquisition by a child. It follows that the most complex aspects of language competence and speech behavior are lost first, and are restored last. R. Jacobson\'s hypothesis has been mainly confirmed experimentally. Linguistic data allow us to draw conclusions about other mental disorders. For example, the speech of schizophrenics in the early stages is characterized by slurring, incoherence, articulation disorders, unmotivated variation in the volume of pronunciation. Written text, stable phrases lose integrity, statements are poorly motivated and do not thematically relate to each other. Destruction of the ability to plan leads to an erroneous choice of a lexeme from a synonymous series. A linguistic experiment turns out to be an important factor in diagnosing mental illnesses. The possibilities of applying linguistic knowledge in this area are by no means limited to diagnostics. The rehabilitation course for patients with speech disorders includes a series of special linguistic exercises that differ for patients with different mental disorders. This area is still being researched by linguists.