1
Psychology of language
Lecture 1 - introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Why look at language?................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Defining language ....................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Psychology of language ............................................................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1 – Science, Language, and the Science of Language (extra information) ................................................................... 4
Lecture 2 – language and the brain....................................................................................................................... 5
Brain anatomy ............................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Aphasia ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 6
What can communication scientists do? .................................................................................................................................... 7
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) ........................................................................................................................ 8
Electro-encephalography (EEG) .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Lateralization of language function ............................................................................................................................................ 9
Chapter 3 – language and the brain (extra information).......................................................................................................... 10
Lecture 3 – origins of human language ............................................................................................................... 11
Is language uniquely human? ................................................................................................................................................... 11
Are humans hardwired for language? ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Nativism: An influential theoretical position ............................................................................................................................ 12
Hockett’s (1960) design features of language .......................................................................................................................... 12
Origins of human language ....................................................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter 2: Origins of Human Language (extra information) .................................................................................................... 14
Lecture 4 – learning sound pattern ..................................................................................................................... 16
The speech stream .................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Sounds: what are the smallest basic building blocks of language? .......................................................................................... 16
What about phonemes in sign language? ................................................................................................................................ 18
How can we study babies’ language acquisition? .................................................................................................................... 18
Chapter 4 Learning Sound Patterns (extra information) .......................................................................................................... 20
Lecture 5 – learning words ................................................................................................................................. 21
What is a word? ........................................................................................................................................................................ 21
Bonus: bilingual children learning language ............................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 5 – Science, language, and the Science of Language (extra information) .................................................................. 23
Lecture 6 – learning the structure of sentences ................................................................................................... 24
Building blocks: sentence constituents..................................................................................................................................... 24
Generating sentences: .............................................................................................................................................................. 25
Rules vs contructions ................................................................................................................................................................ 26
Chapter 6 – Learning the Structure of Sentences (extra information) ..................................................................................... 27
Lecture 7 – speech perception............................................................................................................................. 28
Co-articulation .......................................................................................................................................................................... 28
Categorical perception .............................................................................................................................................................. 28
Variability across speakers ........................................................................................................................................................ 29
Motor theory of speech perception ......................................................................................................................................... 29
Two applications: lip reading and Ventriloquism (buikspreken) .............................................................................................. 30
Chapter 7 – Speech perception (extra information)................................................................................................................. 31
Lecture 8 – word recognition .............................................................................................................................. 32
COHORT and TRACE .................................................................................................................................................................. 34
Chapter 8 – word recognition (extra information) ................................................................................................................... 37
Lecture 9 – understanding sentence structure and meaning ................................................................................ 38
Self-paced reading .................................................................................................................................................................... 38
Chapter 9 – Understanding Sentence Structure and Meaning (extra information)................................................................. 42
Lecture 10 – speaking: from planning to articulating ........................................................................................... 43
Basic processes in speech production ...................................................................................................................................... 43
Evidence for stages in production ............................................................................................................................................ 44
Self-monitoring and self-repair ................................................................................................................................................. 46
Chapter 10 – Speaking: From Planning to Articulation (extra information)............................................................................. 48
, 2
Lecture 11 – discourse and inference................................................................................................................... 50
Mental models .......................................................................................................................................................................... 50
Anaphor resolution ................................................................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter 11 – Discourse and Inference (extra information) ...................................................................................................... 55
Lecture 12 – the social side of language .............................................................................................................. 57
Semantics versus pragmatics .................................................................................................................................................... 57
Theory of Mind.......................................................................................................................................................................... 57
Consequences for experiments ................................................................................................................................................ 59
Chapter 12 – The social side of language (extra information) ................................................................................................. 60
Lecture 13 – Q&A ............................................................................................................................................... 61
, 3
Lecture 1 - introduction
Why look at language?
- Everyone uses language
- Language is pretty complex
- Language use happens quickly, without too much effort or errors
- Often, we don’t realize what we do when we use language
- Language is interesting, funny, beautiful, evocative....
Defining language
A system of form-meaning pairings that can be used to intentionally communicate meaning
- System: there is structure to the madness
- Form-meaning pairings: of different sizes, at various levels of specificity
- Use: different modalities, production and perception
- Intentionally: producer wants to achieve something
- Communicate meaning: almost anything can be expressed
Language as a system
- Usually thought of as ‘rules’, but (psycho)linguists are generally not prescriptivists. Meaning that most
researchers do not consider it their job to establish or guard the rules of preferred language use (such as the
use of ‘proper’ grammar, style, spelling, etc.)
- As teachers, however, we must sometimes make an exception.
- Rather, we describe and try to understand and perhaps predict systematicities at different levels: sounds,
words, phrases, clauses, sentences, discourse
Form-meaning pairing
The most intuitive form-meaning unit is a word, but we will see that there are units of different sizes:
- Un- in unpleasant
- Work hard, strong coffee (and not work strong, hard coffee)
- The X-er the Y-er (the sooner the better; the more you pay attention, the more you’ll remember)
Language use
- Language is spoken and heard, signed and seen, and written and read.
- Language is acquired, learned, and sometimes forgotten or lost.
- We know that we can use language
- We don’t necessarily know how we do it: there is much about which we are unaware (how do you move your
tongue when you speak?)
Intentional communication
- We use language to exchange information, to express emotions, to get others to do something, etc.
- This makes language very relevant for students of communication sciences
Communication meaning
We can communicate almost anything, including
- deceiving and saying things that are not true (prevarication)
- talking about things that are not physically present or do not exist (displacement)
(These are two of Hockett’s ‘design features’; more about these in week 3)
Linguistics – the study of language
Language can be studied in a number of different ways, at different levels and with different foci:
- Phonetics = the study of raw sounds
- Phonology = the study of how sounds are used within a language
- Morphology = the study of words and word formation
- Semantics = the study of meaning
- Syntax = the study of word order
, 4
- Pragmatics = the study of language use
- Discourse studies = the study of language in interaction
Psychology of language
The study of language in mind and brain
- Focus on acquiring and processing language
- Often from a cognitive point of view (memory, attention, etc.)
- Approaching language from a functional perspective
Evidence
If this is the field of study, what types of evidence would we need and value when we research it?
- Actual language use (production and perception)
- Language processing data: eye tracking, brain activity
- Behavior as influenced by language
- Attitudinal measures
- Errors, problems in language use
Lots of experimental data (e.g., reaction times in lexical decision tasks)
- Tightly controlled for many factors, but...
- Not very realistic / close to what people do in real life
So be critical! Keep asking yourself (and us): what does this experimental result imply for how we store and use
language?
Chapter 1 – Science, Language, and the Science of Language (extra information)
Psycholinguistics: a field that uses experimental methods to study the psychological machinery that drives language
learning, language comprehension and language production. The study of the psychological factors involved in the
perception, production and acquisition of language
- Theoretical linguistics: provide detailed descriptions and analyses of the structure of language
o Patterns found in languages
o Examining intricate constraints
o Come up with generalizations
- Computational linguistics: write and implement computer programs to explore the data structure of human
language
o Useful for uncovering patterns in enormous amounts of data
- Neurolinguists and cognitive neuroscientists: study the brain
- Biolinguists: look into the biological makeup
o Why are we the only species that uses language to communicate?
o Geneticvariation
- Language typologists: collecting data samples from many different languages
o Discover deep similarities among many languages
- Historical linguists: reconstructing extinct ancestors and establishing the connections and relationships
among existing languages
o Predict trends / directions in which languages are most likely going to change
Psychology of language
Lecture 1 - introduction ....................................................................................................................................... 3
Why look at language?................................................................................................................................................................ 3
Defining language ....................................................................................................................................................................... 3
Psychology of language ............................................................................................................................................................... 4
Chapter 1 – Science, Language, and the Science of Language (extra information) ................................................................... 4
Lecture 2 – language and the brain....................................................................................................................... 5
Brain anatomy ............................................................................................................................................................................. 5
Aphasia ........................................................................................................................................................................................ 6
What can communication scientists do? .................................................................................................................................... 7
Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) ........................................................................................................................ 8
Electro-encephalography (EEG) .................................................................................................................................................. 8
Lateralization of language function ............................................................................................................................................ 9
Chapter 3 – language and the brain (extra information).......................................................................................................... 10
Lecture 3 – origins of human language ............................................................................................................... 11
Is language uniquely human? ................................................................................................................................................... 11
Are humans hardwired for language? ...................................................................................................................................... 11
Nativism: An influential theoretical position ............................................................................................................................ 12
Hockett’s (1960) design features of language .......................................................................................................................... 12
Origins of human language ....................................................................................................................................................... 13
Chapter 2: Origins of Human Language (extra information) .................................................................................................... 14
Lecture 4 – learning sound pattern ..................................................................................................................... 16
The speech stream .................................................................................................................................................................... 16
Sounds: what are the smallest basic building blocks of language? .......................................................................................... 16
What about phonemes in sign language? ................................................................................................................................ 18
How can we study babies’ language acquisition? .................................................................................................................... 18
Chapter 4 Learning Sound Patterns (extra information) .......................................................................................................... 20
Lecture 5 – learning words ................................................................................................................................. 21
What is a word? ........................................................................................................................................................................ 21
Bonus: bilingual children learning language ............................................................................................................................. 23
Chapter 5 – Science, language, and the Science of Language (extra information) .................................................................. 23
Lecture 6 – learning the structure of sentences ................................................................................................... 24
Building blocks: sentence constituents..................................................................................................................................... 24
Generating sentences: .............................................................................................................................................................. 25
Rules vs contructions ................................................................................................................................................................ 26
Chapter 6 – Learning the Structure of Sentences (extra information) ..................................................................................... 27
Lecture 7 – speech perception............................................................................................................................. 28
Co-articulation .......................................................................................................................................................................... 28
Categorical perception .............................................................................................................................................................. 28
Variability across speakers ........................................................................................................................................................ 29
Motor theory of speech perception ......................................................................................................................................... 29
Two applications: lip reading and Ventriloquism (buikspreken) .............................................................................................. 30
Chapter 7 – Speech perception (extra information)................................................................................................................. 31
Lecture 8 – word recognition .............................................................................................................................. 32
COHORT and TRACE .................................................................................................................................................................. 34
Chapter 8 – word recognition (extra information) ................................................................................................................... 37
Lecture 9 – understanding sentence structure and meaning ................................................................................ 38
Self-paced reading .................................................................................................................................................................... 38
Chapter 9 – Understanding Sentence Structure and Meaning (extra information)................................................................. 42
Lecture 10 – speaking: from planning to articulating ........................................................................................... 43
Basic processes in speech production ...................................................................................................................................... 43
Evidence for stages in production ............................................................................................................................................ 44
Self-monitoring and self-repair ................................................................................................................................................. 46
Chapter 10 – Speaking: From Planning to Articulation (extra information)............................................................................. 48
, 2
Lecture 11 – discourse and inference................................................................................................................... 50
Mental models .......................................................................................................................................................................... 50
Anaphor resolution ................................................................................................................................................................... 51
Chapter 11 – Discourse and Inference (extra information) ...................................................................................................... 55
Lecture 12 – the social side of language .............................................................................................................. 57
Semantics versus pragmatics .................................................................................................................................................... 57
Theory of Mind.......................................................................................................................................................................... 57
Consequences for experiments ................................................................................................................................................ 59
Chapter 12 – The social side of language (extra information) ................................................................................................. 60
Lecture 13 – Q&A ............................................................................................................................................... 61
, 3
Lecture 1 - introduction
Why look at language?
- Everyone uses language
- Language is pretty complex
- Language use happens quickly, without too much effort or errors
- Often, we don’t realize what we do when we use language
- Language is interesting, funny, beautiful, evocative....
Defining language
A system of form-meaning pairings that can be used to intentionally communicate meaning
- System: there is structure to the madness
- Form-meaning pairings: of different sizes, at various levels of specificity
- Use: different modalities, production and perception
- Intentionally: producer wants to achieve something
- Communicate meaning: almost anything can be expressed
Language as a system
- Usually thought of as ‘rules’, but (psycho)linguists are generally not prescriptivists. Meaning that most
researchers do not consider it their job to establish or guard the rules of preferred language use (such as the
use of ‘proper’ grammar, style, spelling, etc.)
- As teachers, however, we must sometimes make an exception.
- Rather, we describe and try to understand and perhaps predict systematicities at different levels: sounds,
words, phrases, clauses, sentences, discourse
Form-meaning pairing
The most intuitive form-meaning unit is a word, but we will see that there are units of different sizes:
- Un- in unpleasant
- Work hard, strong coffee (and not work strong, hard coffee)
- The X-er the Y-er (the sooner the better; the more you pay attention, the more you’ll remember)
Language use
- Language is spoken and heard, signed and seen, and written and read.
- Language is acquired, learned, and sometimes forgotten or lost.
- We know that we can use language
- We don’t necessarily know how we do it: there is much about which we are unaware (how do you move your
tongue when you speak?)
Intentional communication
- We use language to exchange information, to express emotions, to get others to do something, etc.
- This makes language very relevant for students of communication sciences
Communication meaning
We can communicate almost anything, including
- deceiving and saying things that are not true (prevarication)
- talking about things that are not physically present or do not exist (displacement)
(These are two of Hockett’s ‘design features’; more about these in week 3)
Linguistics – the study of language
Language can be studied in a number of different ways, at different levels and with different foci:
- Phonetics = the study of raw sounds
- Phonology = the study of how sounds are used within a language
- Morphology = the study of words and word formation
- Semantics = the study of meaning
- Syntax = the study of word order
, 4
- Pragmatics = the study of language use
- Discourse studies = the study of language in interaction
Psychology of language
The study of language in mind and brain
- Focus on acquiring and processing language
- Often from a cognitive point of view (memory, attention, etc.)
- Approaching language from a functional perspective
Evidence
If this is the field of study, what types of evidence would we need and value when we research it?
- Actual language use (production and perception)
- Language processing data: eye tracking, brain activity
- Behavior as influenced by language
- Attitudinal measures
- Errors, problems in language use
Lots of experimental data (e.g., reaction times in lexical decision tasks)
- Tightly controlled for many factors, but...
- Not very realistic / close to what people do in real life
So be critical! Keep asking yourself (and us): what does this experimental result imply for how we store and use
language?
Chapter 1 – Science, Language, and the Science of Language (extra information)
Psycholinguistics: a field that uses experimental methods to study the psychological machinery that drives language
learning, language comprehension and language production. The study of the psychological factors involved in the
perception, production and acquisition of language
- Theoretical linguistics: provide detailed descriptions and analyses of the structure of language
o Patterns found in languages
o Examining intricate constraints
o Come up with generalizations
- Computational linguistics: write and implement computer programs to explore the data structure of human
language
o Useful for uncovering patterns in enormous amounts of data
- Neurolinguists and cognitive neuroscientists: study the brain
- Biolinguists: look into the biological makeup
o Why are we the only species that uses language to communicate?
o Geneticvariation
- Language typologists: collecting data samples from many different languages
o Discover deep similarities among many languages
- Historical linguists: reconstructing extinct ancestors and establishing the connections and relationships
among existing languages
o Predict trends / directions in which languages are most likely going to change
