Psycholinguistics is study of language in connection to the mind. It comes from the words ‘linguistics’ and ‘psyche’. Linguistics is the scientific study of the language while psyche deals with the mind. According to Field (2003:2) psycholinguistics explores the relationship between human mind and language. It‘s supported by Taylor (1990:3) that psycholinguistics is the study of language behavior and language use to communicate ideas.
In the nineteenth century the influence of psychology on linguistics was started by the time American linguist Leonard Bloomfield's first book appeared early in the twentieth, he could confidently declare that "linguistics” is, of all the mental sciences, most in need of guidance at every step by the best psychologic
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The Summer Seminar in Psychology and Linguistics was held at Cornell University not long afterwards, in 1951, conventionally taken as the birthdate of modern psycholinguistics (Levelt, 2013).
According to Steinberg (1993: xi), there are three major parts of studying in psycholinguistics; first language acquisition, language and mind, and second language learning. First language acquisition concerns the acquisition process of children in the first language. Language and mind, concern everything which is connected to the relation of language and mind, how language is used, language structures and human brain. Meanwhile, second language learning concerns people in inquiring the second
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Developmental language disorders
This kind of language disorders occur in children who do not develop functional language skills. Clinically they are diagnosed as language-delayed or language disordered. Tatman (2005: 7) says that developmental language disorders have been associated with a wide variety of causes, such as hearing impairment, cognitive impairment, autism, or a physical handicap that prevents the child from interacting normally with his environment, such as mental retardation. Emotional or psychological problems may also be causes, and lack of intellectual simulation as
Hill, Jane H., P. J. Mistry, and Lyle Campbell. The Life of Language: Papers in Linguistics in Honor of William Bright. Berlin [etc.: Mouton De Gruyter, 1998. Print.
Throughout history the way we live, the way we interact with other people and the way and reason we create art has been carefully structured by countless factors that we encounter every day of our lives. Many of these factors can be grouped together and categorised as 'Psychogeography', the term coined by French theorist Guy Debord in 1955. Debord's definition described the term as 'the study of specific effects of the geographical environment, consciously organised or not, on the emotions & behaviour of individuals’(1), in his work he deeply considered the effects that physical structure in the environment has on the way humans interact with each other and the space they inhabit. Guy Debord was a part of an organization that encouraged and supported the ideas of like minded artists, theorists and intellectuals called the 'Situationist International' (SI), whose ideologies were of prioritising the study and discussion of real life; temporal subjects that concerned modern society. A principle cultivated by the SI that closely relates to psychogeography is the idea of dérive ("drift"). Debord illustrates the theory of dérive as an environmental distraction, 'In a dérive one or more persons during a certain period drop their usual motives for movement and action, their relations, their work and leisure activities, and let themselves be drawn by the attractions of the terrain and the encounters they find there'(2). Dérive alludes that when humans detect changes in elements of our geographical surroundings natural instinct causes us to change our paths. Debord also describes the act of dérive in a way that connotes the idea of invisible auras that surround individual locations, "The sudden change of ambiance in a street within the spa...
Language is integral to learning as it is linked to our thoughts. It helps us to organise our thoughts in an organised way. If a child has difficulties in communicating with others due to a speech and language delay or disorder, they will not be working to their full potential, as they will be less able to organise their thought processes and express themselves. This becomes even more of a problem as children become older and the curriculum becomes more demanding, the use of rational and abstract thinking will become more important, hence the importance of early detection and intervention. The early years are a time of rapid learning and development, therefore the earlier the diagnosis of delayed language acquisition, the easier it will be for professionals and others to target the childâ€TMs needs so that they are able to give appropriate support, thus benefiting the
Stuttering is a disorder of oral communication and it is characterized by disruptions in the production of speech sounds, also called "disfluencies" (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, 2014). It usually emerges in childhood and affects around 5% of the population (Guitar, 2006), even though there is some variation in the incidence of stuttering in different studies. During infancy, it is common for children to present dysfluency because of the complex process of language acquisition and development. These disfluencies are normal and tend to disappear in 80% of the children, however for some it may evolve into a chronic state that is called developmental stuttering. Stuttering can also occur in two other circumstances, from injuries, which is called acquired or neurogenic stuttering and another one, involving psychological aspects (Oliveira et. al., 2012). Perkins, Kent and Curlee (1991) focused on the theories to explain the possible causes of disfluency and theorized that speech disruption and time pressure are the two important variables that may account for the stuttered dysfluency.
Glasgow: Fontana/Collins & Co. Christiansen, M. H., & Chater, N. (2008). Language as shaped by the brain. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 489-558. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X08004998. Gregory, R. L. & Co.
Singleton, D. (1999). Exploring the Second Language Mental Lexicon (p. 178, 236). London: Cambridge University Press.
To begin, we shall define language. The way to define language can be quite intricate but is important to understand for the sake of human communication. Language possesses many different elements that are needed for one to understand it. Understanding how the language processing in cognitive psychology works, one should examine it and have a clear view on cognitive psychology (Boroditsky 2001). Basically, language is an intricate process of communication that flows with ones’ thoughts. Lexicon can be defined as somewhat of a mental dictionary. It can hold many depictions of known words which are spelling, part of speech for each word, and the way a word is pronounced (Boroditsky 2001). Lexicons help in matching the spoken word with that of the meaning of the word. Therefore, people will start to see words through this way of doing things because spoken words are similar with a lexicon (Boroditsky 2001).
Schnitzer, Marc L. Toward a neurolinguistic theory of language. Brain & Language. Vol 6(3) 342-361, Nov 1978.
How do children acquire language? What are the processes of language acquisition? How do infants respond to speech? Language acquisition is the process of learning a native or a second language. Although how children learn to speak is not perfectly understood, most explanations involve both the observations that children copy what they hear and the inference that human beings have a natural aptitude for understanding grammar. Children usually learn the sounds and vocabulary of their native language through imitation, (which helps them learn to pronounce words correctly), and grammar is seldom taught to them, but instead that they rapidly acquire the ability to speak grammatically. Though, not all children learn by imitation alone. Children will produce forms of language that adults never say. For example, “I spilled milk on hisself” or “Debbie wants a cookie”. This demonstrates that children have the desire to speak correctly and have self-motivating traits to communicate. This supports the theory of Noam Chomsky (1972)-that children are able to learn grammar of a particular language because all intelligible languages are founded on a deep structure of universal grammatical rules that corresponds to an innate capacity of the human brain. Adults learning a second language pass through some of the same stages, as do children learning their native language. In the first part of this paper I will describe the process of language acquisition. The second part will review how infants respond to speech.
Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams. An Introduction to Language. 8th ed. Boston: Thomson, 2007.
Psychology is the scientific study of the mind and behavior. Psychology includes many sub-fields of study such areas as human development, sports, health, clinical, social behavior and cognitive processes. Many people go through troubles every day, some more than others; this might be related to a mental disorder or condition affecting the mind. This is why psychologist are important in society today. They are always working hard to find new medicines and therapy techniques to help make life a lot easier.
In this paper the writer is going to present an overview of the field of neurolinguistics which is the study of the mental faculties involved in the perception, production, and acquisition of language. In other words, the neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend and produce language.
O’Connell, D. C., & Kowal, S. (2009). The evolution of modern psychology: A critical, forward-looking perspective on some pioneers. Journal of Psychology, 217, 73-78. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com
Still today, it is the commonly held belief that children acquire their mother tongue through imitation of the parents, caregivers or the people in their environment. Linguists too had the same conviction until 1957, when a then relatively unknown man, A. Noam Chomsky, propounded his theory that the capacity to acquire language is in fact innate. This revolutionized the study of language acquisition, and after a brief period of controversy upon the publication of his book, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax, in 1964, his theories are now generally accepted as largely true. As a consequence, he was responsible for the emergence of a new field during the 1960s, Developmental Psycholinguistics, which deals with children’s first language acquisition. He was not the first to question our hitherto mute acceptance of a debatable concept – long before, Plato wondered how children could possibly acquire so complex a skill as language with so little experience of life. Experiments have clearly identified an ability to discern syntactical nuances in very young infants, although they are still at the pre-linguistic stage. Children of three, however, are able to manipulate very complicated syntactical sentences, although they are unable to tie their own shoelaces, for example. Indeed, language is not a skill such as many others, like learning to drive or perform mathematical operations – it cannot be taught as such in these early stages. Rather, it is the acquisition of language which fascinates linguists today, and how it is possible. Noam Chomsky turned the world’s eyes to this enigmatic question at a time when it was assumed to have a deceptively simple explanation.
Hergenhahn, B. R., & Henley, T. B. (2014). An introduction to the history of psychology. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.