Basic Aspects of Psycholinguistics

[Antara11]

Psycholinguistics, earlier called the psychology of language, is the study of the language-processing mechanisms. It is concerned with the relationship between language and the human mind.


Psycholinguists are interested in the acquisition of language, how children acquire their mother tongue. The study of the acquisition of language by children is often called developmental psycholinguistics.

There are two possible directions of study in psycholinguistics. One is that we may use language as a way of explaining psycholinguistic theories and processes, for example, the role of language as it influences memory, perception, attention and learning. The other is that we may study the effects of psychological constraints on the use of language, for example, how memory limitations affect speech production and comprehension. It is the latter which has provided the main focus of interest inlinguistics, where the subject is basically regarded as the study of the mental processes underlying the planning, production, perception and comprehension of speech. The best-developed branch of the subject is the study of language acquisition of children.

[Antara11]

                                                         Language Acquisition

Language acquisition refers to the learning and development of a person’s language. The learning of a native or first language is called first language acquisition (FLA), and te learning of a second or foreign language is called second language acquisition (SLA). It is shown by psycholinguistics that children’s use of language is rule-governed. Ex. Tooths and mouses. These are examples of overgeneralization or overextension: the extension of a rule beyond its proper limits.

Overgeneralization is a frequent phenomenon in language development. It can be found not only in syntactic usage but also in word meanings. Ex. All four-legged animals as dogs. All round objects as moons, or call all vehicles cars.

Children also undergeneralize. When a child uses a word in a more limited way than adults do (e.g. refusing to call a taxi a car), this phenomenon is called undergeneralization or underextension. Indeed, undergeneralization is also a frequent phenomenon if first language acquisition.

 
 

[Antara11]

                                      Different Stages of Child Language acquisition


The prelinguistic stage (babbling stage): At this stage, the earliest sounds produced by infants cannot be considered early language. The first recognizable sounds are described as cooing and the sounds and syllables that children utterer are as yet meaningless.

The one-word stage: At some point in the late part of the first year or the early part of the second year, the babbling stage gradually gives way to the earliest reocgnizable stage of language, often referred to as the one-word stage.
At this stage children learn that sounds are related to meanings. Children’s one-word utteracnes are also called holophrastic sentences, because they can be used to express a concept or predication that would be associated with an entire sentence in adult speech.
Ex. “dada”, “more”, “up”. Usually, these one-word utterances serve a naming function to refer to familiar people.

The two-word stage: In general, the two-word stage begins roughly in the second half of the child’s second year. At first, these utterances apepar to be strings of two holophrastic utterances.
Soon after, children begin to form actual two-word sentences with clear syntactic and semantic relations.

Examples:Baby chair.
Daddy hat.
Mummy sock.
Doggie bark.
Shoe mine.

The multiword stage :Between two and three years old, child starts stringing more than two words together,the utterances may be the multiword stage. The early multiword utterances of children have a special charactereistic. They typiclly lack inflectional morphemes and most minor lexical categories.

Examples: Cat stand up table.
Daddy like this book.
He paly little tune.
This shoe all wet.
Chair all broken.

Telegraphic speech: Because of their resemblance to the style of language found in telegrams, utterances at this acquisition stage are often referred to as telegraphic speech.
Although they lack grammatical morphemes, telegraphic sentences are not simply words that are randomly strung together, but follow the principles of sentence formation.
Children have clearly developed some sentence-building capacity.

[nusrat-diu]

good to know about psycholinguistics. want more posts on it.

[Antara11]

Thank you madam. I will of course continue.

[Antara11]

                                                             Child Language

PIAGET'S COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENTAL THEORY

Children move through four stages of development between infancy and adolescence.
Sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operations and formal operations

Piagetian Concepts: Schemes

Psychological structures
Organized ways of making sense of experience
Change with age
Action-based (motor patterns)
Later will move to a mental (thinking) level

Building Schemes

Adaptation
Process of building schemes through direct interaction with the environment

Assimilation
Part of adaptation in which the external world is interpreted through existing schemes

Accommodation
Part of adaptation in which new schemes are created or old ones adjusted

Equilibrium
Not changing; steady, comfortable cognitive state
Assimilation used more than accommodation

Disequilibrium
Cognitive discomfort during rapid change
Accommodation used more than assimilation

Movement between equilibrium and disequilibrium
More effective schemes are produced.

[Antara11]

Sensorimotor Stage (0 to 2 Years)

Infants and toddlers "think" with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment.    

Circular Reactions 0-12 months

Infants explore the environment and build schemes by trying to repeat chance events.

First centered on own body (e.g. sucking)

Change to manipulating objects for effect
Object permanence

Mental Representation (18 Mths. To 2 Yrs.)

Mental representations
Internal images of absent objects and past events
A toddler can solve problems through symbolic means instead of trial and error.
Permits make-believe play

Deferred imitation
Ability to copy behavior of models who are not present

[Antara11]

INFORMATION PROCESSING
Focus is on different aspects of thinking:
Attention
Memory
Categorization
Problem solving


Memory
Sensory register   
Represented directly and very briefly
Short-term (working) memory
Actively "work" on limited information
Long-term memory
Permanent knowledge base
Limitless capacity   
Sometimes problems with retrieval

Attention and Memory
Infants gradually become more efficient at managing their attention.
Recognition
Simplest form of memory
Recall
Remembering something not present
By toddlerhood, recall for people, places and objects is excellent.

Categorization
Infants can organize their physical, emotional, and social worlds.
Early categories are perceptual.
By the end of the 1st year, categories become conceptual.
During the 2nd year, children actively categorize items during their play.

[Antara11]

THE SOCIAL CONTEXT OF EARLY CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT

Vygotsky
Complex mental functions originate in social interaction.
tools of the mind i.e. language, pivot objects, social interaction
Role of private speech

Zone of Proximal Development

Tasks a child cannot yet handle alone, but can with help of skilled partners
Guidance within the zone of proximal development is related to advanced play, language, and problem-solving skills.

Infant Intelligence Tests
Measure early language and problem solving
Test perceptual and motor responses
Test scores may not accurately reflect abilities.
Bayley Scales-mental and motor tasks

[Antara11]

Early Environment and Mental Development

Early childhood mental development predicted by:
Organized, stimulating physical setting
Parental encouragement, involvement, and affection
Regardless of social-class and ethnic group

Care Outside of Home

Child care has an impact on children's mental development and social skills.
Care standards are set by the states and vary greatly.
USA study showed few provided care adequate for healthy development.: Note higher standards in Australia
Developmentally appropriate practice
Program standards that meet the developmental needs of children

Early Intervention for At-Risk Infants and Toddlers

Children of poverty
Often show gradual declines in intelligence test scores
Achieve poorly when at school age
Interventions are center- or home-based.
The more intense the intervention, the greater the intellectual gains

Individual and Cultural Differences

Girls are ahead of boys in early vocabulary.
Referential style
Toddlers use language mainly to label objects.
Expressive style
Toddlers talk about feelings and needs and those of other people.
Parental speech is related to variations in early word learning. Class and cultural variations
Child directed speech supports development

[mih_diu]

its become ones note wow

[shamsi]

Dear Antara,

Your posts are always informative.And as Psycholinguistics is one of my most favorite areas of teaching,I have found your posts beneficial.

Keep it up.

Regards

Shamsi Ara Huda

Senior Lecturer,Dept.of English

[Antara11]

Dear Samsi madam,

Many thanks for your appreciation and interest. I will of course carry on.

[nafrin]

I am taking notes from your post, it really helps me

[Antara11]

Thank you dear Nujhat madam.