10. language production and comprehension
TRANSCRIPT
8/2/2019 10. Language Production and Comprehension
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Language production and
comprehensionLanguage, Mind and Brain
Week 9
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Brief re-cap…
1. Name and explain 5 of Hockett’s design features.Which of those are unique to human language?
2. What are the 2 main theories regarding languageorganisation in the mind? What evidence exists for
both of them?3. Identify and explain 2 ways of investigating where
language is located in the brain.
4. Identify and explain 2 types of aphasia.
5. ‘Developed Broca’s areas in casts of skulls from H.habilis and H. erectus are a clear evidence that theycould speak.’ Discuss.
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Speech production – first ideas
Based on what you know from the module so
far, but also as a language user, try and
develop a framework/schema of speech
production. What steps would need to be
involved?
What empirical evidence exists to develop
such a model?
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Production – basic issues
Online, real-time process
Processing speed of ~15 phonemes per second
Testing perception is easier, as stimuli can becontrolled ( experiments)
Difficult (impossible?) to test the beginning of theproduction process ( ‘ideas’)
Speakers are constantly monitoring themselves makes correction possible before/during/ after the
utterance But: delays in hearing own utterance can cause irritation
and stuttering
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Basic issues cont’d
Mental information must be brought into serial
order
Link between mental lexicon and concepts
Sentence plan, appropriate word order (context!!)
Appropriate stress pattern
Style, register etc
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Speech production: evidence
evidence scarce
Available evidence:
Pauses Speech errors
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Evidence 1: Pauses
Breathing pauses:
Usually at grammatical boundaries.
Few. Don’t tell us much.
Hesitation pauses:
Frequent, little overt purpose (like breathing)
Usually occur within clauses/grammatical units
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Pauses cont’d
Plan Clause
A
Utter Clause
A
Plan clause
B
Utter Clause
B
Plan
Clause A
Plan
Clause B
UtterClause A
UtterClause B
or
overlap in planning
and speaking process
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Speech production errors:
slips of the tongue
Lots of ‘competition’ during speech
production ( ‘co-activation’)
Separate involvement of meaning and form (
different networks??)
Large distances are covered ahead Internal
representation must be there before slip
happens
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Slips of the tongue
Constraint-based
Usually at onsets (of some kind):
well made mell wade (but not *wem llade)
Only some positions are switched
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Homework!
Collect as many slips of the tongue and/or
other speech production errors you come
across until next week’s session.
Bring your collection to next week’s seminar.
Try and categorise the errors.
What do they tell us about speech production?
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Tip of the tongue phenomenon
You know what you want to say ( concept)
but you can’t remember its form
Very often ‘bathtub effect’: beginning and end
are known, as well as number of syllables
---- \ _____ / ----
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A little experiment…
Write down the first word that comes into
mind as soon as you see the stimulus word
appearing on the slide.
Do not discuss with anyone.
Do not go back to a previous slide/word.
Slides are timed at 5 seconds.
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Book
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Child
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Happy
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Super
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Desire
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<end of experiment>
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Previous findings
Book Child Happy Super Desire
See Tim Sun Good Man
Read Mother Sunshine Party Journey
Pages Toys Birthday Great Dream
Literature Play Feeling Fantastic Wish
Lovely Glad Bad Streetcar
Baby Smiley Man Passion
Mum Sad
Adults
Parents
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The mental lexicon
‘dictionary in our minds’
Contains lexicalised expressions:
(simple) words
fixed multiword expressions, i.e. idioms
How are words stored:
As whole entities/items? I.e. cat and cats
As roots and inflections? I.e. cat and -s{plural}
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Mental lexicon: entries
Contain information about
Phonological form: give /giv/
Word class
Argument structure:V 1 2
give the book to Mary
V NP PP
Meaning: ‘transfer something which in one’s possession to
the possession of someone else’
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Word meaning: 2 approaches
Semantic decomposition:
‘atoms of meaning’ , semantic primitives (can’t be dividedinto smaller units of meaning)
mother: +human +female +adult(?) +given birth to child
Familiar procedure (see dictionaries); definitions can stopafter some features
But: how many features? Which components areprimitives?
No empirical evidence that semantic primitives exist
to die: [become [dead]]
to kill: [cause [become [dead]]]
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Word meaning: network theories
Strong links between individual words (see
also experiment)
Coordinates, synonyms, hyponyms/hypernyms
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How are words stored?
As morphemes? or ready made forms?
Different types of affixes seem to be havedifferently:
Inflectional affixes: Regular forms: added during speech
Irregular: fully listed/independent form
evidence: word recognition tasks
Derivational:
Con-type prefixes: ‘glued’ to their bases: confer,consume, deduct, detain; slips never *desume, *dedamn
t-type suffixes: also glued to base; can change base
radically: sane > sanity
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Mental lexicon: suggested parts
Main lexicon/lexicon proper
Whole words, default cases
Dartmouth, Plymouth
Back-up store: Words disassembled into morphemes
Dart-; Ply-; -mouth
Lexical tool-kit: Procedures for making new words
RIVER-mouth
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Sentence production: steps involved
1. Conceive message (proposition, ‘idea’)
2. Select words: concepts and phonological
shapes
3. Formulate structured sentence: right
grammatical classes in right order (like SVO)
4. Articulate the sentence.