Unit 2: Speech Processes

Question 1

What is psycholinguistic?

Answer 1

The use of psychological and neurobiological factors to acquire, use , comprehend and produce language

Question 2

What is neurolinguistics?

Answer 2

Is the study of where in the nervous system (brain) language is situated or processed.

Question 3

The spoken language is closely associated with personality and identity…what are the 10 points which differ from written language?

Answer 3

1: spoken language came first for humans
2: spoken Lang comes first for a child
3: spoken Lang and vocal activity is instinct
4: spoken Lang is universal…many Langston have no corresponding writing systems.
5: we speak much more than we write
6: speaking is more immediate and faster
7: spoken Lang used in wider range of functions
8: spoken Lang is basic medium of social intercourse
9: speech involves a system of multiple signals, inc non verbal
10: spoken Lang is dynamic and creative

Question 4

What a are speech errors?

Answer 4

Sometimes called Spoonerisms after Rev, William A Spooner….transpositions eg. Par cark

Question 5

Speech encoding error what is SHIFT?

Answer 5

One segment disappears from where it should occur and occurs elsewhere
Eg. She decide to hits it…should be to hit it.

Question 6

Speech encoding error what is EXCHANGE?

Answer 6

Two elements exchange positions

Eg. Fancy getting your model nosed…….. Should be getting your nose remodelled

Question 7

Speech encoding errors, what is ANTICIPATION.

Answer 7

A later segment appears in place of an earlier segment

Eg. Bake my bike ….should be take my bike

Question 8

Speech encoding errors, what is perseveration?

Answer 8

An earlier segment takes place of a later one

Eg. He pulled a pantrum…… Should be he pulled a tantrum

Question 9

Speech encoding errors, what is DELETION?

Answer 9

Linguistic material is left out.

Eg. Get up and mutter intelligibly……should be get up and mutter unintelligibly

Question 10

Speech encoding errors what is SUBSTITUTION?

Answer 10

A segment is replaced by an intruder

Eg. At low speeds it’s too light….should be too heavy

Question 11

Speech encoding error what is BLEND?

Answer 11

More than one word is being considered and the two items blend into one
Eg. The future looks rather blim….. Should be bleak or dim

Question 12

What is a hesitation pause?

Answer 12

Where people stop briefly in speaking, when speaking thinking and planning next clause

Question 13

Step 1 of encoding speech…. CONCEPTUALISING.

Answer 13

How we think or conceptualise what we want to say

Question 14

Step 2 of encoding speech, FORMULATING

Answer 14

Has 6 stages identified by Fromkin:
1 identify of meaning of what want to say
2 select syntactic structure…sentence structure
3 intonation contour, how we want stress statement with rise and fall for emphasis
4 insert correct words from our Le icon (mental dictionary) in the appropriate syntactic slots.
5 formation of affixes…generate, suffixes, prefixes and grammatical words like, the or to
6 specification of phonetic segments…select the sound to articulate the message…eg ‘a’ or ‘uh’ for a

Question 14

What is ARTICULATION?

Answer 14

The steps concerning the vocal organ operation

Eg. Somebody’s been eating MY porridge!

Question 15

What are the 3 steps of self monitoring?

Answer 15

Self monitoring is the final step that allows us to monitor and correct our speech so that we say what we intended.
Stage 1: interruption…..speaker interrupts him/her self
Stage 2: editing expression, eg. Oh sorry, uh, I mean
Stage 3: repair of utterance, utterance is corrected.

Question 16

Speech DECODING: what are the three types of memory?

Answer 16

Type 1: SENSORY STORES, memory for sensory stimuli, separate stores for, visual, auditory, tactile, olfactive(smell) and gustatory (taste)
Type 2: WORKING MEMORY, also called short term memory, limited in size, information is interpreted and passed on to a higher level (permanent memory) or dropped to free up room for new incoming information.
Type 3: PERMANENT MEMORY, holds all our knowledge of the world, including ‘semantic memory’…memory of symbols, and ‘episodic memory’….memory of specific events.

Question 17

What is the INTERNAL LEXICON?

Answer 17

The words we know are stored in the internal lexicon, in our permanent memory

Question 18

What is the COHORT MODEL?

Answer 18

This is the process by which word meanings are activated, it proposes….upon hearing the first sound of a word, the listener develops a group of words that might possibly fit the sound, as they hear more sounds, they narrow the group until the correct word is identified, often before the word has been uttered in entirety.

Question 19

What is the SENTENCE PARSING MODEL ?

Answer 19

This involves decoding sentences by assigning words to parts of speech and then grouping one or more words into phrases.

Question 20

Bottom-up decoding…..what is it?

Answer 20

Working from the lowest level first, then step by step move up to higher levels……language is decided by identifying the sounds,the words, then sentences then meaning.

Question 21

What is top-down decoding?

Answer 21

The reverse, eg. Permanent memory has ‘schemata’ or scripts of particular things that occur, like going to the dentist….use our back ground knowledge

Question 22

What is a GARDEN PATH SENTENCE?

Answer 22

Sentence that takes the listener to a seemingly predictable destination, which by the end of the sentence turns out to be false.
Eg. Fat people eat accumulates…….
Fat, people eat accumulates

Question 23

What is the evidence for lateralisation?

Answer 23

People who have suffered strokes, (cerebral haemorrhage ) on the left side of the brain, the right side of the body will show the effects. The left hemisphere of the brain controls the right side of the body, the right hemisphere controls the left side of the body.

Question 24

What is the DICHOTIC LISTENING TEST?

Answer 24

Different but very similar audio stimuli are presented to each ear and the listener has to report what it is they hear.
The right ear seems to have the advantage …in this case the left hemisphere is superior in language processing.

Question 25

What are SPLIT BRAIN PATIENTS?

Answer 25

Sometimes people with severe epilepsy are treated by severing the CORPUS CALLOSUM, bundle of nerves that connects the two hemispheres.
Provides further evidence for language being located in the left hemisphere as, with closed eyes an object like an apple placed in the left hand they have trouble identifying it. HOWEVER, if the apple is placed in the right hand, they can name the object with no problem.
**the split brain effect also works if input is received by one eye only***

Question 26

What is phrenology?

Answer 26

Franz Joseph Gall, a scientist theorised that different human abilities were localised in specific parts of the brain….he claimed looking for bumps on the skull could determine intellectual capacities, and personality traits….HE WAS SOON PROVEN WRONG. His theory was discarded BUT ONE ASPECT OF GALLS THEORY WAS CORRECT!….. Certain skills, abilities and functions are LOCALISED in the brain.

Question 27

What is APHASIA?

Answer 27

A language disorder that results from brain damage

Question 28

What is BROCAS APHASIA?

Answer 28

French neurologist Paul BROCA studied stroke victims and found some could understand language but NOT produce language verbally or on paper. Autopsy showed a large lesion on the FRONT LEFT LOBE of his brain…. He hypothesised the lesion was on the part of the brain responsible for language.This part came to be known as BROCAS AREA

Question 29

What is WERNICKES APHASIA?

Answer 29

German neurologist Carl WERNICKE, also working with stroke patients studied two patients with severe speech impairments, his had no difficulty producing language and spoke fluently but their words made little sense. They also had difficulty comprehending language. Their autopsies revealed lesions on the PARIETAL LOBE of the left hemisphere …known now as WERNICKES AREA.

Question 30

What is dyslexia?

Answer 30

A condition where individual has difficulty reading. It is a condition that occurs in the development of the child.
Many child dyslexics are left handed and male.

Question 31

What is DYSGRAPHIA?

Answer 31

Appears to entail damage to the left side of the brain, effects written language….it can effect some Alzheimers patients too

Question 32

What are the linguistic characteristics of the deaf brain?

Answer 32

Deaf people have no auditory stimulation in the form of spoken words, but still understand and use language.
Sign language is used which relies on VISUAL-SPATIAL changes.
The hearing and non-hearing systems differ radically in their inputs and outputs but involve very similar linguistic processes.

Question 33

Language and the bilingual brain….what are the characteristics?

Answer 33

Bilingual …speaks and understands two languages, multilingual speaks and understands more than two.
Study shows bilingual speakers have denser grey matter or brain tissue, being bilingual from an early age significantly alters the brain structure .
Bilingual rapidly switch back and forth between languages and show significantly more activity in the right hemisphere . Study shows when a bilingual person is speaking in one language, both are simultaneously active in their mind. They use a system called EXECUTIVE CONTROL to resolve the competition between the different linguistic systems…this is the source of their cognitive advantages.