LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION & PRODUCTION Topic 5: LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION & PRODUCTION

Language Comprehension & Production Psycholinguists (scientists who study language processing) focus on three aspects of language competence: Acquisition - Language acquisition is the language learning, in babyhood or later Comprehension- Language comprehension is the ability to extract intended meanings from language. Production - Language production is the ability to speak or write fluently.

Language Comprehension & Production As a rule, comprehension develops faster than production. A three year old can understand more than the same child can speak. A non-native speaker of English can understand more than he or she can say. A student new to a discipline can understand the professional jargon before being able to produce it.

Language comprehension Sometimes language comprehension becomes difficult and ambiguous  because some combination of words give a different meaning, i.e. the expressions can often be interpreted more than one way. Words that look alike but sound different are called homographs. Cth: the word "affect" which can be pronounced: a-FECT (meaning cause) or AFF-ect (meaning emotion) A psychologist who reads, "The patient had a flat affect" will know to pronounce the word AFF-ect and will interpret this sentence as meaning "The patient showed little emotion."

Language comprehension Usually there is a context that helps us determine the intended meaning of a word. The surrounding words disambiguate (remove ambiguity from) a homonym. A psychologist who reads, "The patient had a flat affect" will know to pronounce the word AFF-ect and will interpret this sentence as meaning "The patient showed little emotion."

Language Production Language production refers to the process involved in creating and expressing meaning through language. According to Levelt (1989), language production contains four successive stages: Conceptualization Formulation Articulation Self-monitoring (Scovel 1998:27 )

Language production Conceptualization First  we must conceptualize what we wish to communicate; Formulation Second, we formulate this thought into a linguistic plan; Articulation Third, we execute the plan through the muscles in the speech system; Self-monitoring Finally, we monitor our speech, assessing whether it is what we intended to say and whether we said it the way we intended to.

First stage: Conceptualization Psycholinguists generally agree that some form of mentalese exists--- a representation system which is different from language. The notion is that thoughts take form in mentalese and are then translated into linguistic form, but there is little agreement as to the properties of this prelinguistic mental representation.

Second Stage: Formulation Formulation is much easier to describe than conceptualization because analysis on eventual output of the process, such as speech errors, and the choice of words or sentence structures can be a great help for understanding speech production.

Third stage: Articulation Articulation of speech sounds A very important stage of production. Once we have organized our thoughts into a linguistic plan, this information must be sent from the brain to the muscles in the speech system so that they can then execute the required movements and produce the desired sounds. We depend on vocal organs to produce speech sounds so as to express ourselves. In the production of speech sounds, the lungs, larynx and lips may work at the same time and thus form co-articulation.

Forth stage: Self-regulation Self-regulation is the last stage o f speech production. To err is human. No matter who he is, he would make mistakes in conversation or in writing. So each person would do some self-correction over and over again while conversing.

The biological foundations of language Evidently, our linguistic ability does not depend primarily on the structure of our vocal cords, for other mammals also have vocal cords. Human linguistic ability largely depends  on the structure and dynamics of the human brain. Human beings are the only organisms in which one particular part of the left half of the brain is larger than the corresponding part of the right half.

The Human Brain The most important part of the brain is the outside surface of the brain, called the cerebral cortex. The brain is divided into two roughly symmetrical halves, called hemispheres. Right hemisphere controls voluntary movements of, and responds to signals from the left side of the body controls visual and spatial skills as well as the perception of nonlinguistic sounds and musical melodies Left hemisphere controls voluntary movements of, and responds to signals from the right side of the body. controls language. The localization of cognitive and perceptual functions in a particular hemisphere of the brain is called lateralization.

What is Linguistic lateralization? Linguistic lateralization is the brain’s neurological specialization for language. Left hemispheric  dominance for language Dichotic listening research The language centers Language perception, comprehension and production The critical period for language acquisition

perception of nonlinguistic sound holistic reasoning Brain lateralization for major mental functions under the control of each hemisphere Right hemisphere Left hemisphere perception of nonlinguistic sound holistic reasoning visual and spatial skills recognition of patterns recognition of musical melodies Language and speech Analytic reasoning Temporal ordering Reading and writing Calculation Associative thought

The language centers Three areas of the left hemisphere are vital to language, namely, Broca’s area, Wernicke’s area and the angular gyrus.

Speech Errors Speech errors are made by speakers unintentionally. They are very common and occur in everyday speaking. In formulation speech, we are often influenced by the sound system of language. For example, big and fat--- pig fat; fill the pool---fool the pill. The scientific study of speech errors, commonly called slips of the tongue or tongue-slips, can provide useful clues to the processes of language production: they can tell us where a speaker stops to think. According to Freud’s  errors occur because we have more than a single plan for production and that one such plan competes with and dominates the other.

Examples of the eight types of errors __________________________________________________________ Type Example Shift That’s so she’ll be ready incase she dicide to hits it. (decides to hit it). (2) Exchange Fancy getting your model resnosed. (getting your nose remodeled). (3) Anticipation Bake my bike. (take my bike). (4) Perseveration He pulled a pantrum. (tantrum). (5) Addition I didn’t explain this clarefully enough.(carefully enough). (6) Deletion I’ll just get up and mutter intelligibly. (unintelligibly). (7) Substitution At low speeds it’s too light. (heavy). (8) Blend That child is looking to be spaddled. (spanked\paddled). ______________________________________________________

Explainations of errors (1) Shifts = one speech segment disappears from its appropriate place and appears somewhere else. (2) Exchanges = are double shifts, in which two linguistic units exchange places. (3) Anticipations =occur when a later segment takes the place of an earlier one. They are different from shifts in that the segment that intrudes on another also remains in its correct place and thus is used twice. (4) Perseverations = appear when a earlier segment replaces a later item. (5) Additions = add linguistic material. (6) Deletions = leave something out. (7) Substitutions = occur when one segment is replaced by an intruder. These are different from the previously described slips in that the source of the intrusion may not be in the sentence. (8) Blends = occur when more than one word is being considered and the two intended items “fuse” or blend into a single item.

Deep understanding of the production process Errors are committed only by non-native speakers, but not by native speakers. Native speakers often make “mistakes” and correct themselves immediately, which gives us deep understanding of the production process. Firstly, the production is not one-way transmission of messages. Speakers or writers self-regulate constantly so as to ensure each previous stage is accurate. Secondly, speakers or writers are sensitive to mistakes they make. So at the sight of mistakes they are capable of readjusting messages at the stages of conceptualization, formulation, or articulation quickly. Lastly, the fact that native speakers can monitor and correct mistakes immediately in production proves Chomsky’s idea that there are some differences between performance and competence. Competence monitors performance to ensure the production is accurate.

Native speakers often use different ways to edit their linguistic peformance Firstly, at the very beginning or the conceptualization stage of the speech, when they find their speech inappropriate  they would start the utterance all over again. Secondly, at the formulation stage or articulation stage, speakers would not like to start afresh  but renew the sentence in part from the point.