Basic steps in sentence production Start with an idea (meaning) Pick syntax (sentence structure) Pick words Produce a speech utterance (lip movements and sounds) LINEAR MODEL (Fromkin, 1971)

Sample speech utterance “As far as I know, no one yet has done the in a way obvious now and interesting problem of…doing a in a sense a structural frequency study of the alternative…syntactical…in a given language, say, like English, the alternative…possible structures, and how what their hierarchical…probablity of occurrence structure is.”

Real speech Real speech has pauses Real speech has corrections and backtracking Real speech has stuttering or stammering Implication: real speech is not fully planned out before we speak; we plan as we go;  linear model is wrong

“Spooner”-isms You have hissed all my mystery lectures. Intent: You have missed all my history lectures I assure you the insanitary spectre has seen all the bathrooms. Easier for a camel to go through knee of an idol. Named after Rev. Spooner

More spoonerisms The Lord is a shoving leopard to his flock. Take the flea of my cat and heave it at the louse of my mother-in-law. Speech errors –Exchanges of sounds between words

Actual speech production Based on phrases –We plan and produce one phrase at a time— not whole sentences Analysis of pauses in speech –Pauses more likely to occur between phrases than within phrases (Boomer, 1965) –Planning of phrases occurs between uttering phrases Planning includes picking idea, syntax, the specific words

Speech errors Speech errors (exchanges of sounds between words) –Sound exchanges tend to occur within phrases, rather than between phrases –Suggests that any mistakes are localized to one phrase If we planned whole sentences, mistakes could span the whole sentence, but they don’t

More on speech errors Take my bike  bake my bike (an anticipation error) Night life  nife lite (a sound exchange) Beast of burden  burst of beaden (sound exchange) The dancer took my bike  The bancer took my bike (very very unlikely) –Sound exchange would have to occur across phrases (phrase boundaries)

writing Planning, sentence generation, revision

planning Goals of writing –Express knowledge about the topic –Decide on the format of the text –Decide on the technique of writing –To use certain words or phrases that sound appropriate Hayes (1989): amount of planning and quality of planning are correlated with final quality of text

More on planning Outlines are important –People who make outlines first produce better papers (Kellogg, 1988, 1990) How does computer influence the planning process? –People using computers to write less likely to plan (Haas, 1989)

Sentence generation Actual writing –Start with the ideas that were generating during the planning process How much “work” is done to go from the planned ideas (outline) to final text? –Typical final text is 8 times longer than the most elaborate outline

revision Required elements of revision: –Reconsider the goals of the text –Assess how well the text accomplishes your goals –Propose ways to alter text to achieve goals

More on revision Compare writing professionals to first-year college students (Hayes et al., 1987) –All Ss given a poorly written letter to revise and improve –Results: Experts focus on whole text when revising; students focus on 1 sentence at a time Experts focused on organization, transitions; students don’t

More on revision Experts more likely to specifically diagnose a problem with a sentence –College student: “this sentence doesn’t sound right” –Expert: “subject and verb don’t agree in this sentence”