Unit 2: Language Processing

Things to read:
◼ Scovel, T. 1998. “Comprehension:
understanding what we hear and read”, in
Scovel, T. 1998. Psycholinguistics. Oxford:
Oxford University Press. 50-69.
◼ Kormos, J. 2006. Chapters 4 and 9
1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics
◼ Psycholinguistics is the study of
language and the mind.

the study of the cognitive processes that

support the acquisition and use of
language.
1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics
◼ Evidence from four types of sources:
◼ animal communication

◼ child language

◼ the language of normal adults

◼ the speech of dysphasics

1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics
◼ Issues:
a) Questions related with the acquisition problem:

◼ Do humans acquire language because they are born

with specific innate linguistic knowledge?
…or…
◼ Are humans able to acquire language because they
are highly intelligent animals who are skilled at
solving problems of various types?
1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics
b) Questions related to language knowledge
and language usage:

◼ Competence vs. performance.

◼ How does language use link up with language

knowledge?
1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics
c) Questions related to producing and
comprehending speech:

◼ Assuming that language usage does

differ from language knowledge, what
happens when a person encodes or
decodes?
1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics

Can you think of examples of issues that

psycholinguists would deal with?
1. Introduction to
Psycholinguistics
◼ The linguistic genius of babies
(Patricia Kuhl)

The Linguistic Genius of Babies

2. Speech errors
◼ Speech production can be analysed by studying:

Natural speech:
- pauses in spontaneous speech (to test whether
they give any indication regarding speech planning).
- speech errors or performance errors both in
normal people as well as aphasics.

Psycholinguistic experiments.
2.1. Competence and
Performance errors
◼ Competence vs. Performance
◼ Competence errors ◼ Performance errors

◼ Due to incomplete L1 ◼ Due to processing

system problems
◼ Systematic errors ◼ Incidental errors
2.1. Competence and
Performance errors
◼ Performance errors:
◼ minor difficulties
◼ occasionally experienced by all language-users.
◼ incidental errors.
◼ self-repair possibilities.
2.2. Types of performance errors
◼ Three types of performance errors:

1. Tip of the tongue phenomenon (TOT):

2. Slips of the tongue
3. Slips of the ear
 2.2. Types of performance errors
Tip of the tongue phenomenon
(Bathtub Effect):

◼ We know a particular word but cannot recall it

from our memory at a specific point in time.
◼ It is “on the tip of our tongue” and we could
easily recognize the word if it was presented to
us.
◼ It is momentarily lost but not completely
forgotten.
2.2. Types of performance errors
2.2 Types of performance errors
Slips of the tongue:
◼ Involuntary departures from the

speaker’s intended production of a

sequence of language units.
◼ They may affect sounds, syllables, or
whole words.
2.2. Types of performance errors
Slips of the ear:
◼ You mishear something and you do not
immediately realize this is so.

◼ Example:
“Great ape” for “grey tape”.
“The ants are my friends” for “the answer my
friends” (from Bob Dylan’s Blowing in the
Wind)
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
◼ Two main types:
a) Selection errors: choosing the wrong
word because of something going
wrong in the selection process.
b) Assemblage errors: right word
choice but the utterance has been
faultily assembled.
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
a) Selection errors:

◼ 3 subtypes:
1. Semantic errors
2. Malapropisms
3. Blends
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
1. Semantic errors (similar word errors):
◼ The speaker gets the semantic field right but
uses the wrong word:

Do you have any artichokes? I’m sorry, I mean

aubergines.

◼ Examples often affect pairs of words

(right/left, up/down, early/late, push/pull,
etc.).
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
2. Malapropisms (similar sound errors):
◼ A person confuses one word for another

which sounds similarly.

◼ Examples:

- Go into perpendiculars (particulars)

- Carretera de circuncisión (circunvalación)
- Nadar en la ambulancia (abundancia)
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
◼ Often malapropisms and semantic
errors overlap, so that speech errors
have both some type of semantic as
well as phonetic link.

◼ Example: “incubator/incinerator”
(both connected to the idea of heat).
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
3. Blends:

◼ Two words are blended together to form a

new one.

◼ Examples:
‘not in the sleast’ (slightest / least)
‘please expland that’ (explain / expand)
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
b) Assemblage errors:
◼ These type of errors may affect words,

syllables and sounds.

◼ 3 subtypes:

1. Transpositions
2. Anticipations
3. Repetitions
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
1. Transpositions:
◼ Transpositions consist of whole words switching
places in utterances or sounds switching places
within words.

◼ Examples:
“Don’t buy a car with its tail in the engine”
(Don’t buy a car with its engine in the tail)
“a cop of cuffee”
(a cup of coffee)
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
2. Anticipations:

◼ A speaker anticipates what he is going to say

by bringing in a word or a sound of a word
too early.

◼ Examples:
“an impoitant point” (important)
“decència senil" (demència senil)
2.3. Classification of Slips of the
Tongue
3. Repetitions:
◼ A sound being carried over from one word to the
next or an unintended word being repeated.

◼ Examples:
“black bloxes” (boxes)
“gave the goy” (boy)

Speaker A: Isn’t it as cold as a Sunday in February?

Speaker B: It’s not too bad. It’s more like a February in
March, I’d say. (Sunday in March).
3. Psycholinguistic insights
from speech errors
◼ Main findings:
◼ errors like slips of the tongue are not random.
◼ they never produce a phonologically unacceptable
sequence.
◼ they seem to be explicable by reference to certain
basic constraints.
◼ they indicate the existence of different stages in
the articulation of linguistic expression.
3.1. Insights about units of
planning
The two words in slips
involving sound errors are So, the unit of
found within the same phonological
intonation unit or phonemic encoding seems
clause (i.e. stretch of speech to be the
spoken with a single phonemic
clause.
intonation contour).

Each phonemic
clause is
planned and
executed as a
whole.
3.1. Insights about units of
planning
Whole word slips occur between clauses

words can cross boundaries, whereas sounds

generally cannot.

◼ Example:
“Extinguish your seatbelt”
(Extinguish your cigarettes and fasten your
seatbelts).
3.1. Insights about units of
planning
◼ So...
◼ key words are thought out while the
preceding clause is being uttered
◼ But...
◼ the detailed organizations of an intonation
unit are left till later.
3.2. Evidence of a monitoring
device
◼ Most slips involve the symmetrical
substitution within a syllable of one sound by
another.
◼ For example:
◼ the initial segment in the influencing word
replaces the initial segment in the slipped word.
◼ a final segment in the influencing word will replace
the final segment in the slipped word.
◼ vowels affect vowels.
3.2. Evidence of a monitoring
device
◼ This sound misplacements seem to
occur because the monitoring device
has gone wrong.
◼ This monitoring device would double-
check if the utterance that is about to
be produced is plausible.
3.2. Evidence of a monitoring
device
◼ If a word is ‘superficially plausible’ the
speech error is likely to pass the
monitoring device and be uttered.
◼ Speaking in a hurry would be a reason
for the monitoring device to fail.
3.3. Insights about the
process of selection
◼ Evidence for study: semantic errors,
malapropisms and blends
◼ Also evidence from tip of the tongue
states:
◼ people tend to come up with words that
are related in meaning or that have
strong phonological similarities.
3.3. Insights about the
process of selection
◼ Similar meaning words are linked
together in the mind.
◼ Similarly, our ‘word storage’ may be
partially organized on the basis of some
phonological information.
3.3. Insights about the
process of selection
◼ The ‘spreading activation model/theory’ or
‘interactive activation’ model
◼ activation of similar words spreads out and
diffuses in a chain reaction.

◼ Activation vs. Selection.

◼ Inhibition
4. Models of Speech
Production
4.2. Levelt’s Model of Speech
Production
◼ Model that accounts for the entire
speech production process
(conceptualization → articulation).
◼ Speech production is divided into three
components.
◼ Each of the components is assumed to
be autonomous.
4.2. Levelt’s Model of Speech
Production
First component: Conceptualizer
(=Message generation)
◼ Level of our thinking.

◼ Output of the conceptualizer:

◼ a preverbal message (conceptual

information) which is in turn the input of
the second component.
4.2. Levelt’s Model of Speech
Production
Second component: Formulator
◼ Words and meanings are turned into

sentences.

Third component: Articulator

◼ Sentences are translated into sounds.
4.2.1. The Conceptualizer
◼ At the level of the conceptualizer, we
plan meanings (i.e the communicative
intentions that will be expressed).

◼ Controlled process.
4.2.2. The Formulator
◼ The formulator covers two steps of the
speech production model:
- grammatical encoding
- phonological encoding

◼ Access to the mental lexicon.

4.2.2. The Formulator
The mental lexicon:
◼ Lexical items: lemmas, lexemes and

forms.
◼ Lemma: the semantic and syntactic
information of a lexical item.
◼ Lexeme: morpho-phonological information
◼ Word forms: fully inflected forms.
4.2.2. The Formulator
Grammatical encoding:
◼ The conceptual information that reaches the

formulator triggers the appropriate lexical

items (lemmas).
Phonological encoding:
◼ The phonological encoder makes use of

morphological and phonological information

of lexical items.
◼ Result = phonetic plan.
4.2.3. The Articulator
◼ The phonetic plan is transformed into
overt speech.

◼ Formulation and articulation: automatic

processes.
4.2.3. The Articulator
◼ Controlled vs automatic processes
◼ Controlled processes are assumed to be
voluntary, to require attention, and to be
relatively slow.
◼ Automatic processes are assumed to be
involuntary, to not require attention, and
to be relatively fast.
5. The Mental Lexicon
◼ “For a first approximation, the lexicon is
the store of words in long-term memory
from which the grammar constructs
phrases and sentences”.
Ray Jackendoff
5. The Mental Lexicon
5.1. Its Complexity
◼ An entry in the mental lexicon must contain
similar information to that found in a
dictionary:

a) phonological structure of words

b) lexical category words belong to
c) the kinds of syntactic relationships a word
can enter into
5.1. Its Complexity
d) derivational morphemes that words
can take
e) inflectional morphemes that words
can take
f) information about grammatical
gender in nouns
g) meanings of words
h) collocations
5.2. Its Size
◼ Chaser the dog
◼ Kanzi’s lexical aptitude and sentence comprehension.
◼ But only human babies show understanding of joint
attention and others’ intentions.

◼ What about humans’ mental lexicon size?

5.3. Its Speed
◼ Lexical access is quick:

- How long do you think it takes to

recognize a word in your language?

- How long do you think it takes to

reject a nonword?
5.4. Its Organization
◼ Spelling/Pronunciation

◼ Meaning

◼ Frequency
6. Effect of frequency on the mental lexicon:
evidence from experimental tasks.
◼ Frequent words are accessed more
rapidly in the mental lexicon.
◼ Evidence: On-line sentence processing
studies:

This group of travelling actors encountered numerous

problems when crossing the border.

This group of itinerant actors encountered numerous

problems when crossing the border.
7. Other findings
◼ Morphologically related words are
stored together in the mental lexicon.
◼ Evidence: Repetition priming studies.
◼ Assumption: if a word is presented
twice, the second lexical decision will be
shorter than the first one.
7. Other findings
◼ This priming effect occurs when:

a) same word is repeated twice (e.g. candle

candle)
b) uninflected word followed by inflected
one and the other way around (e.g.
candle…candles)
c) same as b for derivative forms (e.g.
boy….boyhood)
7. Other findings
◼ But priming effect does not occur:

a) for words whose initial letters

coincide but are not morphologically
related (e.g. candle…can).