Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects.
The field is concerned with psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms in which languages are processed and represented in the mind and brain.
Modern research makes use of biology, neuroscience, cognitive science, linguistics, and information science to study how the mind-brain processes language, and less so the known processes of social sciences, human development, communication theories and infant development, among others. There are a number of sub-disciplines with non-invasive techniques for studying the neurological workings of the brain; for example, neurolinguistics has become a field in its own right. Initial forays into psycholinguistics were found in philosophical and educational fields, due mainly to their location in departments other than applied sciences (e.g., cohesive data on how the human brain functioned).
Psycholinguistics is concerned with the cognitive faculties and processes that are necessary in order for grammatical forms of language to be produced from a mental grammar and the lexicon. It is also concerned with the perception of these constructions by a listener. Developmental psycholinguistics, as a branch of psycholinguistics, concerns itself with the child's ability to learn language.
Areas of study
Psycholinguistics
is an interdisciplinary field. Hence, it is studied by researchers from
a variety of different backgrounds, such as psychology, cognitive science, linguistics, speech and language pathology, and discourse analysis.
Psycholinguists study many different topics, but these topics can
generally be divided into answering the following questions: (1) how do
children acquire language (language acquisition)?;
(2) how do people comprehend language (language comprehension)?; (3)
how do people produce language (language production)?; and (4) how do
people who already know one language acquire another one(second language acquisition)?
Subdivisions in psycholinguistics are also made based on the different components that make up human language.
Linguistics-related areas:
- Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the study of speech sounds. Within psycholinguistics, research focuses on how the brain processes and understands these sounds.
- Morphology is the study of word structures, especially the relationships between related words (such as dog and dogs) and the formation of words based on rules (such as plural formation).
- Syntax is the study of the patterns which dictate how words are combined to form sentences.
- Semantics deals with the meaning of words and sentences. Where syntax is concerned with the formal structure of sentences, semantics deals with the actual meaning of sentences.
- Pragmatics is concerned with the role of context in the interpretation of meaning.
A researcher interested in language comprehension may study word recognition during reading to examine the processes involved in the extraction of orthographic, morphological, phonological, and semantic
information from patterns in printed text. A researcher interested in
language production might study how words are prepared to be spoken
starting from the conceptual or semantic level (this concerns
connotation, and possibly can be examined through the conceptual
framework concerned with the semantic differential). Developmental psycholinguists study infants' and children's ability to learn and process language.
History of psycholinguistics
Language acquisition and innateness
Psycholinguistics,
in seeking to understand the properties of language acquisition has
roots in debates regarding innate vs acquired behaviors (both in biology
and psychology). For some time the concept of an innate trait, was
something that was not present in the psychology of the individual[4]
. However, with the redefining of innateness as time progressed,
behaviors considered innate could once again be analyzed as behaviors
that interacted with the psychological aspect of an individual. After
the diminished popularity of the behaviorist model, ethology became once again a leading train of thought within psychology, and by these means language, as an innate behavior within humans, could be examined once more in the scope of psychology.
Origin of designation
Even
though psycholinguistics originated in terms of methodology, and in
theoretical framework from a time before the end of the nineteenth
century it was called only "Psychology of Language". The nomenclature
for the science as Psycholinguistics did not begin to come about until
1936 when Jacob Kantor, a prominent Psychologist of the time, used the term ‘Psycholinguistic’ as a description within the book An Objective Psychology of Grammar.
The term only came to relevant usage, however in 1946 when the student
of Kantor, Nicholas Pronko published an article by the title Psycholinguistics: A Review. Pronko's desire was to unify the myriad of theoretical approaches within the realm of Psycholinguistics under a single name. It was used for the first time to talk about an interdisciplinary science "that could be coherent" as well as in the title of Psycholinguistics: A Survey of Theory and Research Problems, a 1954 book by Charles E. Osgood and Thomas A. Sebeok.
Theories
In this section, some influential theories are discussed for each of the fundamental questions listed in the section above.
Language acquisition
There are essentially two schools of thought as to how children
acquire or learn language, and there is still much debate as to which
theory is the correct one. The first theory states that all language
must be learned by the child. The second view states that the abstract
system of language cannot be learned, but that humans possess an innate
language faculty, or an access to what has been called universal grammar. The view that language must be learned was especially popular before 1960 and is well represented by the mentalistic theories of Jean Piaget and the empiricist Rudolf Carnap. Likewise, the school of psychology known as behaviorism (see Verbal Behavior (1957) by B.F. Skinner) puts forth the point of view that language is a behavior shaped by conditioned response, hence it is learned.
The innatist perspective began with Noam Chomsky's highly critical review of Skinner's book in 1959.[9] This review helped to start what has been termed "the cognitive revolution"
in psychology. Chomsky posited humans possess a special, innate
ability for language and that complex syntactic features, such as recursion,
are "hard-wired" in the brain. These abilities are thought to be beyond
the grasp of the most intelligent and social non-humans. According to
Chomsky, children acquiring a language have a vast search space to
explore among all possible human grammars, yet at the time there was no
evidence that children receive sufficient input to learn all the rules
of their language (see poverty of the stimulus).
Hence, there must be some other innate mechanism that endows a language
ability to humans. Such a language faculty is, according to the innateness hypothesis, what defines human language and makes it different from even the most sophisticated forms of animal communication.
The field of linguistics and psycholinguistics since then has
been defined by reactions to Chomsky, pro and con. The pro view still
holds that the human ability to use language (specifically the ability
to use recursion) is qualitatively different from any sort of animal
ability. This ability may
have resulted from a favorable mutation or from an adaptation of skills
evolved for other purposes. The view that language can be learned has
had a recent resurgence inspired by emergentism.
This view challenges the "innate" view as scientifically unfalsifiable;
that is to say, it can't be tested. With the amount of computer power
increasing since the 1980s, researchers have been able to simulate
language acquisition using neural network models.
These models provide evidence that there may, in fact, be sufficient
information contained in the input to learn language, even syntax. If
this is true, then an innate mechanism is no longer necessary to explain
language acquisition.
Language comprehension
The structures and uses of language are related to the formation of ontological insights. Some see this system as "structured cooperation between language-users" using "conceptual difference""semantic deference"
in order to exchange meaning and knowledge and give meaning to
language, examining and describing "semantic processes bound by a
‘stopping’ constraint which are not cases of ordinary deferring.
Deferring is normally done for a reason, and a rational person is always
disposed to defer if there is good reason.
The theory of the Semantic differential
supposes universal distinctions such as factors of "Typicality" (that
included scales such as "regular-rare", "typical-exclusive"), "Reality"
("imaginary-real", "evident-fantastic", "abstract-concrete"), as well as
factors of "Complexity" ("complex-simple", "unlimited-limited",
"mysterious-usual"), "Improvement" or "Organization"
("regular-spasmodic", "constant-changeable", "organized-disorganized",
"precise-indefinite"), Stimulation ("interesting-boring",
"trivial-new"), calling it " in the measurement of attitudes."
Reading
One question in the realm of language comprehension is how people understand sentences as they read (also known as sentence processing).
Experimental research has spawned a number of theories about the
architecture and mechanisms of sentence comprehension. Typically these
theories are concerned with what types of information contained in the
sentence the reader can use to build meaning, and at what point in
reading does that information become available to the reader. Issues
such as "modular" versus "interactive" processing have been theoretical divides in the field.
A modular view of sentence processing assumes that the stages
involved in reading a sentence function independently in separate
modules. These modules have limited interaction with one another. For
example, one influential theory of sentence processing, the garden-path
theory,
states that syntactic analysis takes place first. Under this theory as
the reader is reading a sentence, he or she creates the simplest
structure possible in order to minimize effort and cognitive load. This
is done without any input from semantic analysis or context-dependent
information. Hence, in the sentence "The evidence examined by the lawyer
turned out to be unreliable," by the time the reader gets to the word
"examined" he or she has committed to a reading of the sentence in which
the evidence is examining something because it is the simplest parse.
This commitment is made despite the fact that it results in an
implausible situation; we know from experience that evidence can rarely
if ever examine something. Under this "syntax first" theory, semantic
information is processed at a later stage. It is only later that the
reader will recognize that he or she needs to revise the initial parse
into one in which "the evidence" is being examined. In this example,
readers typically recognize their misparse by the time they reach "by
the lawyer" and must go back and re-parse the sentence. This reanalysis is costly and contributes to slower reading times.
In contrast to a modular account, an interactive theory of sentence processing, such as a constraint-based lexical approach
assumes that all available information contained within a sentence can
be processed at any time. Under an interactive account, for example, the
semantics of a sentence (such as plausibility) can come into play early
on in order to help determine the structure of a sentence. Hence, in
the sentence above, the reader would be able to make use of plausibility
information in order to assume that "the evidence" is being examined
instead of doing the examining. There are data to support both modular
and interactive accounts; which account is the correct one is still up
for debate.
When reading, saccades can cause the mind to skip over words
because it doesn’t see them as important to the sentence, and the mind
completely leaves it from the sentence or it replaces it with the wrong
word. This can be seen in ‘Paris in the the
Spring’. This is a common psychological test, where the mind will often
skip the second ‘the’, especially when there is a line break in between
the two.
Language production
Language production concerns how people produce language, either in
written or spoken form, in a way that conveys meanings comprehensible to
others. One of the most effective ways to explain the way people
represent meanings using rule-governed languages is by observing and
analyzing instances of speech errors.
They include speech dysfluencies like false starts, repetition,
reformulation and constant pauses in between words or sentences; also,
slips of tongue, like blendings, substitutions, exchanges (e.g. Spoonerism),
and various pronunciation errors. These speech errors yield significant
implication on language production, in that they reflect that:
- Speech is planned in advance: speech errors like substitution and exchanges show that one does not plan their entire sentence before they speak. Rather, their language faculty is constantly tapped during the speech production process. This is accounted for by the limitation of the working memory. In particular, errors involving exchanges imply that one plans ahead in their sentence but only about significant ideas (e.g. the words that constitute the core meaning) and only to a certain extent of the sentence.
- Lexicon is organized semantically and phonologically: substitution and pronunciation errors show that lexicon is organized not only by its meaning, but also its form.
- Morphologically complex words are assembled: errors involving blending within a word reflect that there seems to be a rule governing the construction of words in production (and also likely in mental lexicon). In other words, speakers generate the morphologically complex words by merging morphemes rather than retrieving them as chunks.
It is useful to differentiate between three separate phases of
production: conceptualization "(determining what to say), formulation
(translating the intention to say something into linguistic form), and
execution (the detailed articulatory planning and articulation itself)."
Most psycholinguistic research has largely concerned itself with the
study for formulation because the phase of conceptualization largely
remains an elusive and mysterious period of development.
For models of speech production, see Psycholinguistics/Models of Speech Production.
Methodologies
Behavioral tasks
Many
of the experiments conducted in psycholinguistics, especially earlier
on, are behavioral in nature. In these types of studies, subjects are
presented with linguistic stimuli and asked to perform an action. For
example, they may be asked to make a judgment about a word (lexical decision),
reproduce the stimulus, or name a visually presented word aloud.
Reaction times to respond to the stimuli (usually on the order of
milliseconds) and proportion of correct responses are the most often
employed measures of performance in behavioral tasks. Such experiments
often take advantage of priming effects,
whereby a "priming" word or phrase appearing in the experiment can
speed up the lexical decision for a related "target" word later.
As an example of how behavioral methods can be used in
psycholinguistics research, Fischler (1977) investigated word encoding
using the lexical decision task. He asked participants to make decisions
about whether two strings of letters were English words. Sometimes the
strings would be actual English words requiring a "yes" response, and
other times they would be nonwords requiring a "no" response. A subset
of the licit words were related semantically (e.g., cat-dog) while
others were unrelated (e.g., bread-stem). Fischler found that related
word pairs were responded to faster when compared to unrelated word
pairs. This facilitation suggests that semantic relatedness can
facilitate word encoding.
Eye-movements
Recently, eye tracking has been used to study online language processing. Beginning with Rayner (1978) the importance and informativity of eye-movements during reading was established. Later, Tanenhaus et al. (1995)
used the visual-world paradigm to study the cognitive processes related
to spoken language. Assuming that eye movements are closely linked to
the current focus of attention, language processing can be studied by
monitoring eye movements while a subject is presented auditorily with
linguistic input.
Language production errors
The analysis of systematic errors in speech, writing and typing
of language as it is produced can provide evidence of the process which
has generated it. Errors of speech, in particular, grant insight into
how the mind processes language production while a speaker is in the
midst of an utterance. Speech errors tend to occur in the lexical, morpheme, and phoneme encoding steps of language production, as seen by the ways errors can manifest. The types of speech errors, and some examples, are:
- Substitutions (phoneme and lexical) – replacing a sound with an unrelated sound, or a word with an antonym, and saying "verbal outfit" instead of "verbal output", or "He rode his bike tomorrow" instead of "...yesterday", respectively,
- Blends – mixing two synonyms together and saying "my stummy hurts" in place of either "stomach" or "tummy",
- Exchanges (phoneme [a.k.a. Spoonerisms] and morpheme) – swapping two onset sounds or two root words, and saying "You hissed my mystery lectures" instead of "You missed my history lectures", or "They're Turking talkish" instead of "They're talking Turkish", respectively,
- Morpheme shifts – moving a function morpheme such as "-ly" or "-ed" to a different word and saying "easy enoughly" instead of "easily enough",
- Perseveration – continuing to start a word with a sound that was in the utterance previously and saying "John gave the goy a ball" instead of "John gave the boy a ball", and
- Anticipation – replacing a sound with one that is coming up later in the utterance and saying "She drank a cot cup of tea" instead of "She drank a hot cup of tea."
Speech errors will usually occur in the stages that involve lexical,
morpheme, or phoneme encoding, and usually not the first step of semantic encoding. This
can be credited to how a speaker is still conjuring the idea of what to
say, and unless he changes his mind, can not be mistaken in what he
wanted to say.
Neuroimaging
Until the recent advent of non-invasive
medical techniques, brain surgery was the preferred way for language
researchers to discover how language works in the brain. For example,
severing the corpus callosum (the bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres of the brain) was at one time a treatment for some forms of epilepsy.
Researchers could then study the ways in which the comprehension and
production of language were affected by such drastic surgery. Where an
illness made brain surgery necessary, language researchers had an
opportunity to pursue their research.
Newer, non-invasive techniques now include brain imaging by positron emission tomography (PET); functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI); event-related potentials (ERPs) in electroencephalography (EEG) and magnetoencephalography (MEG); and transcranial magnetic stimulation
(TMS). Brain imaging techniques vary in their spatial and temporal
resolutions (fMRI has a resolution of a few thousand neurons per pixel,
and ERP has millisecond accuracy). Each type of methodology presents a
set of advantages and disadvantages for studying a particular problem in
psycholinguistics.
Computational modeling
Computational modelling, such as the DRC model of reading and word recognition proposed by Max Coltheart and colleagues,
is another methodology and refers to the practice of setting up
cognitive models in the form of executable computer programs. Such
programs are useful because they require theorists to be explicit in
their hypotheses and because they can be used to generate accurate
predictions for theoretical models that are so complex that they render discursive analysis unreliable. Other examples of computational modelling is McClelland and Elman's TRACE model of speech perception and Franklin Chang's Dual-Path model of sentence production.
Issues and areas of research
Psycholinguistics
is concerned with the nature of the computations and processes that the
brain undergoes to comprehend and produce language. For example, the cohort model seeks to describe how words are retrieved from the mental lexicon when an individual hears or sees linguistic input.
Recent research using new non-invasive imaging techniques seeks to shed light on just where certain language processes occur in the brain.
There are a number of unanswered questions in psycholinguistics,
such as whether the human ability to use syntax is based on innate
mental structures or emerges from interaction with other humans, and
whether some animals can be taught the syntax of human language.
Two other major subfields of psycholinguistics investigate first language acquisition, the process by which infants acquire language, and second language acquisition. In addition, it is much more difficult for adults to acquire second languages
than it is for infants to learn their first language (bilingual infants
are able to learn both of their native languages easily). Thus, sensitive periods may exist during which language can be learned readily.
A great deal of research in psycholinguistics focuses on how this
ability develops and diminishes over time. It also seems to be the case
that the more languages one knows, the easier it is to learn more.
The field of aphasiology
deals with language deficits that arise because of brain damage.
Studies in aphasiology can both offer advances in therapy for
individuals suffering from aphasia, and further insight into how the
brain processes language.
A 2016 empirical study showed that personal associations are
mutually inter-related and that the concepts of self and world are
internally connected via direct and mediated dependences, which reflects
the structuring of perception and understanding of self and world in
people's minds and discusses its implications for psycholinguistics.
