Acquisition

Consist of these stages:

*Crying
*Cooing
*Babbling
*Idiomorph
*Holophrase (holophrastic stage)
*Two-word utterances

There are two types of crying:

1-iconic crying → start from day one (from birth)

There is a direct relationship between the physical need of the baby such as being
hungry or in pain (the hungrier or in pain they are the more they cry)
2-symbolic crying → (1 – 2 month)
The baby is not crying because of the physical discomfort instead they cry to get the
attention of the caretaker (or whoever is taking care of the baby)

*The baby is getting smarter and they are trying to use communication
*Even though the baby is crying symbolically but if the baby is hungry, they will
still cry

Cooing (‫ → )المناغاة‬making soft gurgling sounds seemingly to express satisfactions

(the baby is happy)

After several weeks of extensive interaction with caretaker and around the time of
symbolic crying the baby starts to coo.

Some researchers said that sound produced by the baby in cooing stage express
satisfaction which is a reflection or mimicking to the mother (meaning the mother is
happy because she is taking care of the baby and in return, she produces some sounds
that the baby is trying to mimic or it’s the other way around the baby is producing
sounds that the mother is mimicking)

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For example: baby + Japanese mother → there was a clear similarity between the
sounds made by the mother and her child which had emerged by the time the infant
was only 5-month-old (mimicking each other)

*Interaction with the baby is very important for their communication in order for
them to develop (how they cry + coo → then later when they produce sounds
especially when we interact with babies more there is a better chance at using
language + communication)

Babbling → the action of producing sounds that are consonant-vowel cluster (papa,
mama, dada etc.)
1- Marginal babbling 2- Canonical babbling
Produce mainly consonant cluster Child start combining the sounds that
(which is random) from the caretaker are uttered by the caretaker language
language to other languages which mean they start to absorb the
language they are surrounded with (this
has to do with segmental phonemes)

Start at the age of (6-month-old) Start at the age of (8-month-old)

The baby is this babbling stage may not One or two months later the baby starts
produce sounds like an English baby (‫)غ‬ to babble in the mother tongue of the
which does not exist in English caretaker
language (‫ )خ ح ع غ‬from different
languages Let’s say the baby is surrounded by
Arabic speaker the baby will babble in
Arabic sounds only

Or if the baby is surrounded by English

speaker the baby will babble in English
sounds only

*So the sound produced (consonant

cluster) will be similar to the language
they are surrounded with

Segmental phoneme Suprasegmental sounds

Individual consonants and vowels that Refer to the musical pitch, rhythm and
go to make up their native tongue stress which accompany the syllable we
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 produce and it play such an important
So no more (‫ )ح خ ع غ‬if they are English role in making grammar, meaning and
intention
The actual sound
They refer to the musicality of the
language (musical pitch + rhythm +
stress) → they mark (grammar +
meaning + intention)

How we

Irony of the language: in marginal babbling baby produce random words even from
other languages (‫ )ح خ ع غ‬so if this is an American, Australian baby they would
produce those sounds at a very early age without any problem but 20 years later if
they want to study Arabic, they will have a difficult time producing those words
(sounds).

*Stress of Arabic is different from stress of English

8-month babies (English or Chinese or Arab) start to babble with English sound
melody.

Babbling is the first psycholinguistic stage and we have strong evidence that infants
are influenced by all those many marks of exposure of their mother tongue
Segmental phoneme is the evidence that they are absorbing the language (the sound
of the language).

Up to this stage there we only see little difference between the speech production of
a normal child and a deaf child → which mean if the baby is in the crying and cooing
stage, we cannot differentiate a normal baby from a deaf baby but once they start
babbling the deaf baby babbling will be off (not normal) so we know there is
something wrong with the baby’s hearing. Which mean it’s due to the
suprasegmental sounds that we know if the baby is normal or have a hearing
disability because the babbling sound will be off.

In order to preserve a language, you have to teach it to the baby because they will
absorb that language very differently from the adults

The general critical period for learning the language: -

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The higher the score the younger you are in age (which mean until the age of 7) then
it will gradually decrease but it does not mean you cannot learn a language and score
well tests, in fact you are not going to naturally produce language the same way
native speakers do if you don’t learn earlier stages of your life.

Why Scientist focus on critical period for sound development when they can
discriminate between different sounds?
They change the sound and the baby react in time then he is rewarded with a game
(panda playing with the drum)

As we grow old, we are called culture bound listener adults while babies in early age
specifically in the marginal babbling stage they are called citizen of the world
because they discriminate all sounds in all languages unfortunately, we become
adults we cannot do that instead we approximate our sounds to our mother tongue.

When do babies turn from being citizen of the world to culture bound listeners?
Before their first birthday’s.

An experiment with (R) sound + (L) sound: they tested American English and
Japanese babies:
6 -8 months → their score was equal
10 -12 months → American babies could produce (R) + (L) sound better than
Japanese babies why?
Because (R) + (L) sound are important for American babies (the sounds are
important to English but to Japanese) So English babies are taking statistics and
English have a lot of (R) + (L) sound

Babies absorb the statistics of the language and that changes them from citizen of
the world to culture bound listeners so as adults we no longer absorb those statistics
instead, we govern by representation that is formed early in the development.

The same experiment done on American babies with two sounds in mandarin: the
baby born surrounded by mandarin will say sound easily but American English baby
don’t have those sounds which mean they will have a difficult time producing them.
12 sessions talking in mandarin in front of the baby:
The American baby → improved and they were good as Taiwan babies who were
listening for 10 and half months

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They want to test a group of babies by video session instead of being face to face +
audio session
12 sessions (audio) → no improvement
12 sessions (video) → no learning whatsoever

*We conclude that human being need (face to face) interaction to take those statistics
seriously.

Idiomorphs → not necessarily words in the language instead it’s words that are
invented by children

For example: (kaka) for milk, (‫ )امبوة‬for water

They are not English word but they are words invented by infants to refer to things
(this stage starts at the age of one year) where they start using words for things that
they need daily and this is called egocentric speech → things that are important to
children not from our point view but according to children view and those things
children have control over.

For example: water, milk, taking shower cookie

*Whatever they want → they invent a word in order for adult or caretaker to make
their wish come true.

Sometimes they even call you fun names because they cannot pronounce your name
correctly.

If the child cannot manipulate the object, they don’t name it such as diapers or
nappies which mean they don’t have control over them.

First step + word are important activities that the parent may document or make a
great deal of why? Because this is a sign of maturation that they are developing
which mean they are moving from crawling creature (babbling creature) → walking
creature (words).

First (cry + coo + babble) → indistinguishable vocabulary acquisition

Iconic creature → symbolic human beings

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We use words to refer to things which mean that words are used as symbols

Helen (blind + deaf) child is trapped in an iconic world without speech or language
and the only way for her to communicate is using fingers which Annie tried again
and again but there seems no hope. However, one of the days when Helen and Annie
were standing next water pump to fill the pitcher for dinner and when the water and
when the water fall on Helen hand, she takes Annie hand to use the fingers to spell
the word (W A T E R) once this click in her brain (mind) happened she started to
make a link between the iconic world and the symbolic world which mean she
understood words referring to things. → that’s why parent cherish or make great deal
of.

This click signifies that the child is capable of moving to the symbolic world by
using words to do that and this is a sign of maturity.

Once this click happened she went on a journey of linguistic explosion and wanted
to learn everything’s name → she became a scientist.

Normally at the age of one we suddenly recognize the mystic harmony so we link
sense to sound + sight (Symbolic world), so in order for Helen to compensate for
that she used to touch things because she can’t see or hear.

The holophrastic stage → it’s where grammar is born

What is a holophrase? We are still dealing with one word but actually it’s a short
version of a sentence.

For example, milk can be a statement or request or an exclamation (when the son
accidently dropped the milk)

What concept help us differentiate if it’s a statement, request or an exclamation? The

suprasegmental sounds help us because the child is using a certain tone or rhythm or
stress and from that only we can understand if it’s a statement, request or an
exclamation.

They are using holophrase (one word) to indicate a skeletal sentence.

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Holophrase are single word sentences (one word indicate full sentence)
For example: when we are dining then we say (salt) which mean pass me the salt
Milk? → Do you have any milk?
Milk! → I’d like some milk.

Holophrastic speech is the bridge which transport the child from primitive land of
cries, words and names across into the brave new world of phrases, clauses and
sentences. (Idiomorphs + holophrase) are single words

So, we can say that holophrases are single words that indicate a full sentence (one
word sentence) and it’s the bridge between using one word and then later to using
clause and sentences.

Pivots: the nobility of using language by children

*The study of words is much easier than the study of coos, babbles etc.

Father (linguist): I think you’ve got your underpants on backwards.

Daughter: yes, I think so.
Father: you’d better take them off and put them on frontwards.
Daughter: is this the rightwards?

Backwards → frontwards → rightwards

She made up her own word, why? Because she noticed a pattern.
Rightwards is not an English word but here the child notices a pattern (backwards /
frontwards) → rightwards and this is called childish creativity: noticing a pattern
and applying them to language.

Creative construction
The child is not making a mistake here but it’s the mistake of the language, and the
child is following logic and sense because the irregularity of the language is the one
failing the child which mean they are creative, putting things together and produce
creative phrases but unfortunately those words are not part of the language.

Once the children develop and move on from the idiomorphs and the holophrases
they start using two-word utterances (sentences made up of two words)

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For example:
Go park. (I want to go to the park.)
Want cookie. (I want a cookie.)

The concept of pivots applies here, and this concept say that we do not even in the
two-word utterances put words randomly (random order)

For example: when the baby says → want cookie

They know that they should use (want) before (cookie) not the other way around
(cookie want) X this show how they know the rule that some words go first and the
other words go second.

The full version of want cookie → I want a cookie.

Children are following the pattern of grammar here (pivots)

Want ice cream

Children are sensitive to word order so they tend to choose words carefully.

For example:
want mommy They indicate that the child has
acquired sense of structure because
ahmad bad (ahmad is bad) they are using word order which is
want milk (I want milk.) similar to a full sentence.

Two-word utterance
Child Chimpanzee (chimp)
Two-year child They brought the chimp to a house and
taught him American sign language
(ASL)

The chimp name was Nim

Chomsky → referring to the father of
linguistics (Noam Chomsky)

Why teach the chimp sign language not

spoken language? Because they do not

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 have the capability of producing sounds
or make the sound of human language.
-no need for reward just because they
are speaking -always rewarded for using sign
-no repeition language
-diversity of lexical item (19) -there is repetition (banana Nim banana
Nim)
There is sense of syntax (two word) -small lexical item (7)
pivots
Random sequence which mean no sense
of syntax

Three findings
Child Chimp
1) Great lexical diversity ✓ X
2) Repetition X ✓
3) Syntax structure ✓ X

*The chimp produces random words that have no connection between them and just
throw them together at the caretaker (no sense of syntax).

*The child sequences are like words in a sentence so it’s understandable, it follows
word order of normal nature language (sense of syntax).

Limited number of lexical item but infinite use of utterances (finite resources to
produce infinite utterances)

It + noun (a huge number)

Want + noun (a huge number)

*If you ask a child of two-year-old what is a noun or a verb they wouldn’t be able to
tell you but they have it programmed in their brain (mind) so language comes to us
human naturally.

There are sequences that are permissible and there are sequences that are not
linguistically permissible.

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For example: quick you want. (X) it’s not allowed in English they know that because
they absorb the pattern of the language.

*The chimp is only looking for the reward that is why he is motivated to use sign
language.
Human beings are born innately capable of using language.
Case 1: Washo (chimpanzee) Case 2: Coco (gorilla)
The chimp has sense of language They taught Coco sigh language +
especially whenever they have a new spoken English.
assistance to help in the project and the
assistance is in the process of learning One time she was eating lettuce and
sign language Washo would slow the other greens they call it in English
sign language because the assistance is (Bruce) and there was no sign for it so
still learning which the assistance found Coco invented a sign it
a bit humiliating She used the sign for eyebrows to refer
to the Bruce that she wants to eat
They treat them as children but with a
lot of enforcement Create word
For example:
Chimps talk to themselves when they eye hat → mask
are alone inside the language just like Finger bracelet → ring
human children.
Creating new words for word she
Because they all had intonation it’s sign doesn’t know or she hasn’t learned
language they will hold the sign longer
and their face will show that they are
asking a question
Interrogative question using (who)

Washo aspect of language learning

-talking to themselves
-asking question

Human call them ducks but Washo

(chimp) call them water birds because
she doesn’t know the exact word.
Those are the other two cases (chimpanzee + gorilla) who learned sign language or
learning language.

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There are some aspects of language learning that is going on: But it doesn’t
-Self-talk happen naturally
-asking questions so it’s limited
-creating new word or sign for new situations
Evidence of innateness: how we as human beings are genetically capable of using
language in different situations.

Innateness: Human being is naturally born with the ability to use speech + language.
The theory that ascribes a major part of language learning to genetically packaged
knowledge which is then triggered after birth by exposure to large amounts of
linguistic input (page 126) in the book

What does it mean? It is in our genes that we know how to use language and this
package get activated after birth

How does it get activated? by exposure to large amount of linguistic input.

What does it mean? If you bring a child to the world, they already have this capability
of using language on one condition → this language package activates when you
expose the child to linguistic input which mean when you talk to the child and they
listen to you and interact with his surroundings.

If there is no interaction, the activation will be limited which mean the more you
give interaction to the child the better they will be in their linguistic ability.

Which lead us to two concepts:

Nature Nurture
Internal factors VS External factors
Genes Environmental

We already have language in our genes (linguistic ability) and in order to be

activated it needs to go through nurture by taking care of the child talking and
communicating with them.

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Internal factors and nature is the same as our genes we are prewired and have this
built in capability of using language but it doesn’t get activated unless the
environment provide linguistic input.

Sometimes it’s different from one environment to the other environment for
example, in some cultures children communicate or use language more than other
cultures.

If we don’t have genetic capability external influence is not key which means if you
talk to a child with language deficiency no matter how much you talk to them, they
are not going to improve in their linguistic ability because their genes does not carry
this linguistic ability.

Language acquisition is not based on the external influence of a child environment

If we only depend on the external factors: communication, praise giving rewards or

just relying on those things

Child Chimp
Not rewarded just for talking Was given more attention (external
factors) a lot of reward (banana) + care
The child does not need rewards + love → just to use language but he is
(external factors) because genetic still not a good performer
factors is enough.
Relying on external factors is not
enough

Some culture children are encouraged to be seen but not heard (just be quite)
Yet they still use language

Some of the native American tribes of Arizona and New Mexico discourage child
from engaging adults in prolonged conversation because it’s considered impolite for
children to have a long conversation with an adult in these cultures.

We are born with the language ability but do not know how to swim or play the
piano so learn by practicing but when it comes to language abilities it come naturally
(part of our DNA)

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Two concepts
LAD → language acquisition device (in our brain)
UG → universal grammar

Chomsky said human possess a language acquisition device (LAD) and this device
is in our brain and it’s programmed to use language if we have external factors
(influence).

Later on they placed this concept (LAD) with universal grammar (UG) → the same
concept but a more accurate version (term).

Childish creativity (page 19 – 20 – 21)

An earlier example was
Backward → frontward → rightward

Example (1):
Somebody → nobody → yesbody
Daughter → mother → daughter

How did the child come up with word (yesbody)?

The child noticed that the opposite of no is yes so she used (yesbody).

This is creative construction because the child is noticing a pattern, which mean
children produce all kinds of creative words.

Something common at this age:

Regular plurals for irregular ones
Men → man Considered as creative
Knives → knifes construction
Sheep → sheeps

Regular past-tense endings for irregular verbs

Went → goed
Sang → singed
Ate → eated

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Double tensing
Eat → eated
After a while when they are acquiring the language, they will move to the next level
of double tensing: the correct version of eat → ated so they picked this ate and add
(d) ated.
Goes → wented
Singed → sanged

Yesterday we wented to grandma.

Over generalization like these are very common in the mother tongue learning of
young children and maybe mistakenly referred toas (false analogies) but we said
before those are not mistakes so the blame is on the language not the child.

Children are a bit more like well-programmed computers who make creative nut not
often inaccurate guesses about the rules and patterns of the language they are
acquiring.

Creative construction in Arabic

Irregular noun
‫بابات → أبواب‬
When they think that a person is just so they don’t differentiate between feminine
and masculine markers (‫ → )أنت‬for male female

Irregular plural nouns

‫كلبين أو كلبات → كلب‬

Other examples: where is my daddy? Where are you daddy?

Example (2):
There’s Carlos!
There he is!
There Carlos is!
Creative construction
But what is creative about it? Substituting the pronoun with the name, So the child
is saying if I can use the pronoun then I can use the name but it does not apply to
grammar this way because we always say:
There he is

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There she is
There you are
There they are
This construction used with pronouns not proper nouns so the child substituted the
pronoun with proper noun (name) thinking that it’s the correct version.

Example (3) Example (4)

Noun → phrasal verb Verb → phrasal verb
Hiccup → hick up (hicking up) Interrupt → inter up (interring up)

Child thought the word is actually two

words

In example (3) the child from this noun he created a phrasal verb just like the word
hurry up (verb) → hurrying up
The phrasal verb that the child created hicking up is not in English which is a creative
construction.
They are still learning and maybe they don’t know how to write yet.

In example (4) sometimes when native speaker speaks some letters are not
pronounced like the letter (T) in interrupt so the child hears this as interring up

There is nothing wrong with those children hearing in example (3) + (4).

*If the children make those creative construction, we can assume that they are
progressing in their linguistic ability.

In any linguistic unit

For example: present simple, WH questions
Anything that the child wants to learn they have to learn in stages until they master
it.

In term of language learning we look for those structures. For example, we have two
facts:
Stages are fixed (cannot be changed) despite individual differences in rate.

1-every child has to go through the same stages and they are fixed

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2-some children will learn faster than others that’s why there are individual
differences.

Roger brown colleague had to study 3 children over a number of years and they
found out that there is a difference in progress of learning between the children.

One of the children was linguistically advanced and ahead of the other two children
and this is not limited to language only we can see that in math sports we have people
who have more ability.

Even though there are studies about them studying their individual cases (the genius)
who can do math at the age of 7.

There are universal stages of language leaning (mean they are fixed)

All children no matter how slow or quick in their language acquisition they still go
through the same stages of language learning for any linguistic structure.

WH questions:
Stage [1] use of WH word but no (auxiliary verb)
What daddy doing?
Why you laughing?
Where mammy go?
Stage [2] use of WH word + (auxiliary verb) after the subject
Where she will go?
Why doggy can’t see?
Why you don’t know?
Stage [3] use of WH word + (auxiliary verb) before the subject
Where will she go?
Why can’t doggy see?
Why don’t you know?

Children go through all these three stages but the rate of progress is different which
mean some of them will stay longer in some stages than others. No child will go
from stage 1 to stage 3 immediately without going through stage 2.

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Negatives:
Stage [1] use of NO at the start of the sentence and there is no (auxiliary verb)
No the sun shining.
No Mary do it.
Stage [2] use of NO inside the sentence but no (auxiliary verb or BE verb)
There no rabbits.
I no taste it.
Stage [3] use of NOT with appropriate abbreviation of auxiliary verb or BE verb
Penny didn’t laugh.
It’s not raining.

Examples:
Where daddy is going? (S2)
Where daddy going? (S1)
Stages are fixed and
Where is daddy going? (S3)
individual differences
in rate exist.
Where kitty going? (S1)
Where kitty is going? (S2)
Where is kitty going? (S3)

No doggy inside. (S1)

Doggy no inside. (S2)
Doggy isn’t inside. (S3)

I no like it. (S2)

No I like it. (S1)
I don’t like it. (S3)

When will she come? (S3)

When she come? (S1)
When she will come? (S2)

What she eating? (S1)

What she is eating? (S2)
What is she eating? (S3)

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 Production
The author starts by discussing how we take things for granted as human beings until
when we get hurt then we start appreciating the gifts that God bestow upon us every
day. So only through losses or injury we realize how much we take things for granted
(those activities could be walking, going down the step, crying etc.

For example: going down the stairs and sprained an ankle.

Page 26
All the description mentioned is simple because the actual process is much more
complicated than that. All this is taken for granted and considered uninteresting until
we stumble and injure ourselves then we take.

This doesn’t only apply to walking down the stairs but also apply to other gifts like
talking, communicating which mean Speech is far more complicated than going
down the stairs and we should appreciate all the gifts god gave us.

Speech production model developed by a scholar called Levelt:

1) conceptualization

2) formulation

3) articulation

3) self-monitoring

What is the meaning of the word conceptualization?

For us to speak we need to go through concepts then we formulate those concepts
then articulate (we do the actual speaking) then we monitor our production then we
go on.
David McNeill took over and explained conceptualization and how it works
In this stage we are not saying any word, it’s just concepts of what are formed as
two concurrent and parallel modes of thoughts. (Parallel mean they work at the same
time)

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 Conceptualization
Syntactic thinking (content) former Imagistic thinking (delivery) latter
-Syllables -Gesture
-Words -Body language
-Phrases -Facial expression
-Sentence -Tone
-Intonation
*This is the content of our message
*Help us deliver the content
*It implies the order because it’s
syntactic Serious question VS sarcastic question

*We could have two questions with the

same exact words but two different
intentions which mean the difference is
in the delivery

You know what you are going to say (the order that you are going to say those things)
and the way you are going to say them, and once you have those concepts you
formulate them you articulate them and monitor them. The production start from the
conceptualization stage

We don’t just speak but we think about what we are going to say and think about
word order and the way we are going to say them before articulate our words →
meaning of conceptualization

Content + delivery before formulate + articulate

Content and delivery are is tied and timed together in any conversation

For example, in page 28:

We need to visualize how they gesture (pointing out to the object)
The pointing is tied and timed with the word there’s (first dialogue)

What is the difference between the first and second dialogue?

The second dialogue is looking for two objects (coat + briefcase) but the first
dialogue is only looking for one object (briefcase)

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The timing and tying of the content and delivery depend on the situation
They work together (parallel)

Those are attempted for us to understand how speech work but there are limitations.

The one who proposed those mode of thinking is David McNeill explained
conceptualization:
1- we don’t exactly know when conceptualization start because it’s all in our
minds and brains
2- illustration he uses to describe how gestures synchronize with important
syntactic breaks in spoken language are difficult to follow.

Example in page 28 there are written examples

If dialogues were acted out in a video and described then it would be clearer for us
to understand which by now, they actually done this.

In the end conceptualization is where speech start from when we conceptualize what
we want to say and then how we want to say it, we formulate then we articulate.

It gets clearer when we move on down the stages because here it is more related to
the mind so it could be mysterious to us, difficult to examine and study so we are
just trying to understand how things work without being able to examine 100
percent.

Formulation is easier to understand than conceptualization

Karl Lashley
-wrote ana article about the sequence of words very quickly rapidly and very
accurately.
-he presented his essay as an oral presentation to an audience.
-he organized his presentation in a way to talk about how we make mistakes when
we speak.
-he talked about how common we make spelling errors when we are typing and
mention how he misspelled rapid writing → wrapid
Maybe when he was writing rapid, he anticipated the silent W.

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*There slips of the tongue or pen or computer keyboard make us understand what is
the person thinking and then we can analyze it, that’s why it’s interesting for us to
study this.
-as he was giving the presentation, he was experimenting with his audience.
-a sentence in the presentation (rapid righting) is it similar to this (rapid writing)?
No, it is similar phonetically but not in term of contents, and righting mean
correcting or adjusting.

Capsized canoe → the canoe was about to be capsized (flipped)

The person in the canoe rapid righted it which mean he used his hand to quickly
correct the position of the canoe.

So rapid righting with his injured saved from loss the contents of capsized canoe →
the person in the canoe saved the canoe from being capsized with his uninjured hand
due to his rapid righting (rapid correcting of the position).

*The phrase or sentence rapid writing was heard not seen

*The audience was still thinking that he is talking about the process of writing but
in this example the writing process is not in the context

It was natural for the audience to hear rapid writing with his uninjured hand, but
after he finished this sentence, they readjusted their comprehension so that they
would understand the new context (the context of the canoe not the context of
writing)
the audience went back and readjusted their path of understanding as if they were in
the writing context (they got out then they moved to the right context).

This is what Lashley accomplished in his presentation?

1-he showed how the slips of the tongue or the computer keyboard provide vivid
insight into our understanding of how speech is formulated

2-illustrated the power of priming in guiding the direction of speech production and
comprehension.

Priming mean could be direct and indirect

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When I talk about something (when he talked about rapid writing) → he primed his
audience that he is going to continue talking about the writing process.

Then intentionally he shifted the context to another area without warning his
audience and they were still primed in that context.

*Priming is not only related to psycholinguistics but it is related to psychology in

general, priming also work in the production process.

For example: the colors used in advertisement (those are priming colors) they prime
you to believe that this product is refreshing. So, they primed you by using certain
colors and words.

Priming experiment: -
-they divided people into two group
-they will have to do one hand counting task both groups
Group 1: counted paper
Group 2: counted real money
*We want to see the affect in their behavior
Group 1 Group 2
Who count paper only eat enough Who counted money kept eating
chocolate to answer the question. chocolate (50% of sweet) money could
make you hungry.

1-eat less or enough chocolate 1-eat more chocolate

2-they stopped to help 2-they didn’t stop to help because they
3-they were not able to handle ice water think that people should be more self-
for long reliant
3-they were able to handle ice water for
long

Priming is a mistake of sipping behavior without the person being aware of it.

Money seems to trigger a debate desire in many ways it mean having resources.
Money change how people treat each other without than realizing that they were
manipulated. Later they reinforced the priming and gave them work desk, the group
that handled the paper counting got regular work desk while the other group handled

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the money counting were given the same work desk but it was related to money to
reinforce priming.

Money makes you self-reliant and self-reliant people think that other are self-reliant
too which mean money does not only change the way we feel about people but
change the way feel for stock

The power of context (priming)

You may think that no one is going to affect your decision (making your decision
based on facts) but sometimes it’s not the truth and you might be influenced by the
environment. So, priming affects the way we understand and the way we see things.

Lashley discussed one of the concepts (slips of the tongue) which helps us analyze
what’s going on and there are two types of (slips of the tongue) in general:
Unintentional Intentional
Called slips of the tongue Called spoonerism → words or slips of
the tongue that are intentional they
might have a humorous purpose

William spooner
He called a group of Welsh miners (that
was over hundred years ago) he called
them you noble tones of soil but he
intended to actually mean you noble
sons of toils
He scolded an errant student saying you
have hissed all my mystery lectures
instead of you have missed all my
history lectures.

The meaning here is humorous

You have tasted the whole worm →

you have wasted the whole term

An experiment on the effect of priming page 33

Where they brought a number of university students and put them in a lap and
divided them into groups

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Purpose of this study → ask them to read quickly two unrelated words that flashed
in their computer screen.

Participants: college students

-Normal group (no distraction)
-A group threatened to receive an electrical shock at any time
Sham dock → damn shock
-A group of male participants + with attractive female presenter (they were distracted
by the female)
Past fashion → fast passion

What they saw in the screen is this barn door some could have read them correctly
while others with the pressure of time (screen flashing fast) they come up with the
slips of the tongue such as darn bore.

The findings: -
Most of them were accurate but when they produced slips of the tongue there was
differences.

Group: electrical shock → damn shock

They were thinking of the electric shock which made them do the slip of the tongue.

Group: when shown to a group of an attractive female experimenter

They came up with the phrase fast passion instead of past fashion

They may not be the same when we write them (not the same order of letters) but
phonetically they are the same (the same articulation) and this experiment shows
how priming works.

When it comes to the slips of the tongue some people say it’s always the effect of
what we think about in our mind subconsciously or consciously but it may not be
that all the time.

1-sham dock → damn shock Although the slips of the tongue they still fit
2-past fashion → fast passion a linguistic structure which mean they are
considered as an English word

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The psychological reality of the slips of the tongue
Slips of the tongue are psychologically real most of the time and fit a linguistic
structure even if it does not fit a linguistic structure and not a word in the language
it may sound like an English word or an Arabic word.

The sounding of the word or the slip of the tongue is always fit a linguistic structure
most of the time or it’s not a word in the language which mean it seem like an English
word (psychological reality)

You may hear something you don’t recognize but it might be an English word.

To summarize
1-slips of the tongue (SOTs) → wrapid writing (unintentional mistake)
2-priming → rapid righting (intentional mistake)

For example, in the experiment the two words (damn shock) fit a linguistic structure

But this mistake gives us insight on how we are thinking (wrapid) but we know the
correct utterance (rapid), so here we are able to explain why this is a mistake
(wrapid) and what led to this mistake in order for us to explain what went on with
the (brain) mind when they made this mistake that’s why slips of the tongue are part
of formulation.

The experiment that was done on college student show us how sometimes slips of
the tongue that we are thinking subconsciously or consciously sometimes but it is
not always the case.

Slips of the tongue are psychologically real → they fit a linguistic structure

Slips of the tongue are meaningless but still have the same sound of an English word
(damn and shock)

We don’t make a slip of the tongue that doesn’t fit a linguistic structure which mean
If it’s not semantically correct it can be phonetically similar to an English.

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 Slips of the tongue
Phonetic Morphological
We are dealing with phonetic features We are dealing with words

1-a reading list → leading list 5-sesame seed crackers → sesame street
Replacing consonant (place of articulation) itcrackers (popular TV show)
happens because it is close to the place of It may be related to collocations the word
articulation (sesame) collocates with (seed) and it can also
collocate with (street) the popular TV show
2-big and fat → pig and fat The word sesame can collocate with more than
Because we are anticipating the voiceless (f) one word
we need the (p) voiceless that’s why it
becomes (p) 6-rules of word formation → words of rule
formation
Phonetic feature (voiced /voiceless) They changed while maintaining the word
It happen when we speak quickly which mean pattern
we may anticipate this voiceless sound and we We have the word (rules) plural and (word) is
apply voicelessness to those: singular then they swapped the nouns while
v→f keeping the word pattern plural and singular
d→t which mean maintaining the same syntactic
g→k structure (morphological structure) but they
z→s swapped the word

3-fill the pool → fool the pill 7-A New Yorker → A New Yorkan
Replacing the vowel Overgeneralization (the role of nationalities)
If someone form America is an American
4-drop a bomp → bop a dromp which mean someone from New York can be
Replacing the consonant cluster new yorkan but people from New York called
new Yorkers so we are overgeneralizing the
suffix

8-the derivation of → the derival of

Overgeneralization
The root word of (derivation) is (derive)
A similar verb (arrive) → noun (arrival) so the
verb (derive) became (derival) which is wrong
and the correct noun is (derivation)

We see how people reach those slips of the tongue and we can peek on the
formulation process at least if not 100% we speculate what’s going on and that’s the
important of slips of the tongue.

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Slips of the tongue can be educational for example of spoonerism there is a poem by
Chomsky:
The funny bamaily → The bunny family
Runny fad a hamaily → Bunny had a family
Matter of the fact, he had
A sother and two bristers → Brother and two sisters
A dummy and a mad → A mummy and a dad
His mamma fed him marrot cilk → Carrot milk
And parrot cie and such, → Carrot pie
And all of them were happy
In their cozy hunny butch → Bunny hutch

Articulation → words coming from your mouth so this step is the actual production
of words

After you conceptualize them and formulate them then you articulate.

Concepts of speech anatomy → there are three mechanisms are responsible for
production of speech:
1-Respiration when the lung produces the necessary energy in form of a stream
of air.
2-Phonation where the larynx serves as a modifier to the air stream and
responsible for formation.
3-Articulation where the vocal tract modifies and modulates the air stream by
means of several articulators.

1-Respiration
Also called (pulmonic because it come from the lung) whatever we say is energized
by air from our lungs.

When we breath normally inhalation and exhalation are the same amount but when
we use speech inhalation is short while exhalation period is long

The way we change our normal pattern of breathing to last long to speak so normally
we breath in and out every 2 to 3 seconds or it might be 5 seconds before e breath
again (we breath in quickly but then we let the air out slowly)
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When we speak our lungs slow down flowing of air and the air coming form the
lungs move from the trachea (wind pipe) into the throat and passes the larynx (in the
trachea) and once it’s in the trachea it turns to phonation.
Once the air hits the larynx, we start the second mechanism → phonation

2-Phonation
Larynx act as a mouth by closing off air from the nose or preventing foreign
substances from entering the trachea. In the speech production the larynx modifies
the air flows from the lungs in such away as to produce an acoustic signal and the
air that come from the lung pass between vocal fold (vocal cord).

The important thing of vocal fold action is the production of audible vibration and
the buzzing sound is known as voice or vibration (it’s like blowing air through a
rubber band) and what we call this when we test consonant → voiced + voiceless
(voicing)

Vibration
Male 120 cycle per second
Female 220 cycle per second

Modes of phonation: -
1)no voice (voicelessness): phonation is the default and it’s used during normal
breathing (wide opening of the glottis resulting in glottal silence)

2)normal voice: vocal cord vibrates

3)whisper: need greater constriction

4)breathy voice: normal vocal cord vibration + continuous air flow

5)creaky voice: low frequency vibration in the vocal cord + low opening quotation
+ irregular periodicities.

6)falsetto: vocal cord stretched longitudinally and becomes thin in cross section
(this setting of phonation is for singing)

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3-Articlation
Air passes the larynx and start articulation process

Active articulators supported by passive articulators

Active articulators Passive articulators

*They move *They don’t move
• Lower lip • Teeth
• Tongue • Alveolar
• Glottis • Palate
• Uvula • Nasal cavity

Active and passive articulators is referred to as articulation.

Self-monitoring → something goes wrong with the production and the speaker make
mistakes so they catch themselves then stop and go back (retreat a step) and correctly
recreate the intended sequence.

Example
1-the last I knowed about it, he had left Vancouver.
What I mean → knew
2-she was so drank, that we decided to drive her home.
What I mean → drunk

Notice mistake, catch it, fix it

Committed by Native speakers Mistakes
Low percentage of errors Fixable: you know how to correct a
mistake.
If I am unable to fix it then it’s a mistake
Committed by Non-native speakers Errors
High percentage of errors Unfixable: you lack knowledge of the
rules in the sense of the present perfect
I cannot fix it because I don’t know if
it’s actually an error in the first place
If I make a mistake and don’t catch the
mistake and don’t correct then it’s
considered as an error

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*Non-native speakers + native speakers → make mistake but the y correct them
*Native speakers have low percentage of errors because they have more knowledge
of the language while non-native speakers have high percentage of errors.

If you feel something wrong and know that there is something wrong but you are
unable to fix it, where does it fall? Error because it’s not fixable at the moment due
to the lack of knowledge

This distinction between mistakes and errors lead to three insights into the
production process:
1)Speaker + writers constantly make self-editing
we listen to what we say and if there’s no mistake, we carry on but if there’s a
mistake we go back and correct it.
2)We are sensitive to this (conceptualization → formulation → articulation…)
In the feedback loop if there something wrong in the conceptualization we go early
on and recreate the utterance. And if it’s in the formulation and articulation we just
go back to the word, fix it and move on. And this mean we are sensitive if the mistake
took place.
3)
Performance (‫)األداء‬ Competence (‫)الكفاء‬
How we perform in the language by Knowledge of the rules
making mistakes or not

For example: when you take a test and

you get 70 out of 100

The former refers to the word we say or The latter mean even if you don’t know
write exactly the rule but you are able to fix it
you are still competent (no need to know
the rule 100 percent)

Competence monitors performance and also it drives feedback because you know
that something is wrong which mean you are competent (you have the knowledge)
so you go back and correct it.

While Performance if it’s correct then it’s correct but when it comes to a mistake
and you couldn’t fix it then it’s an error which mean that you need to improve or
learn that rule in order to be more competent.
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Naturally the more competent you are, the better your performance will be.

If you chose the wrong word, you go back to feedback loop and begin the utterance
all over again

For example: when the instructor says a sentence and the student don’t understand
what he is saying then if he did a mistake in the conceptualization, you go back and
change the whole sentence because it’s not appropriate or he made a mistake
choosing the words.

If the speaker is happy with conceptualization of their utterance but if they made
mistake in formulation or articulation stage no need to start from the beginning, they
would retreat few syllables or words, fix it and go on. Example (1) + (2) in page 45
+ 46.

Another form of self-monitoring (called hesitations) → they are not mistake instead
we use it in order to avoid mistakes.

For example:
(3) I think it costs just about…uh…twenty-five dollars.
o Before object of the verb
(4) they have to try to…uh…contact an attorney.
o Before the complement

Hesitating happens before important information.

They are not random + they are rule governed meaning they follow a certain system
or structure.

(5) I think it cost just…uh…about twenty-five dollars. (Phrase just about is a unit
together)

(6) they have…uh…to try to contact an attorney. (Phrase have to is one unit)

We rarely find utterances like (5) + (6) they are not natural or common because the
hesitation is placed between phrases and we do not hesitate in the middle the
linguistic unit but after it.

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Self-monitoring does not mean only communicating with others but they
communicate with themselves (they do not just listen to others but they also listen
to themselves) because you need to monitor and correct your mistake.

Communication is an interactive process: we communicate with others +

communicate with ourselves.

Self-editing presence of feedback loops.

Speech production or written composition is not leaner (one way) → we produce

something then we monitor it in order to fix it if needed.

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 Comprehension
Comprehension of sounds: -
Even though when we listen or read something we read sequentially (from the
beginning till the end)

In order for comprehension to happen or take place sometimes we cannot make sense
of the context until the very end of the sentence (which mean I will not understand
if I read half way of the sentence and sometimes I read 90% of the sentence and yet
I need some sort of clue or a context)

As reader listener use more than the language in front of us (we discussed this earlier
when we talked about suprasegmental sounds → we use rhythm, body language,
expression to help deliver our message so we don’t just look at the language or
sounds, we look at the faces and the expressions in order to make sure that we get
the message correctly)

The term that is related to comprehension of sounds is phoneme restoration effect

→ to demonstrate an experiment was done on a group of people and they made them
listen to set of sentences and they were asked to write them down, in the recording
when the group of people listened, they deliberately left out one sound for example
in page 51:

(1) it was found that the _eel was on the axle. (wheel)
(2) it was found that the _eel was on the shoe. (heel)
(3) it was found that the _eel was on the orange. (peel)
(4) it was found that the _eel was on the table. (meal)

More example:
The boy was playing in the _ark. (park)
I saw a _ark when I was sailing. (shark)
My nephew hates to sleep in the _ark. (dark)

They were not told that there will be missing sounds and they were asked to only
write them down. The participant claimed that they did not hear the (eel) sound but
they heard something different like (wheel, heel, peel, meal) but in reality, those

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word were not fully pronounced in the recordings and the only part that was
pronounced is the (eel) sound.

Here comes the phoneme restoration effect → it’s a mechanism to restore the
missing sounds or letters and we do this in reading sometimes.

Listeners do not recall what they hear instead they report what they expected to hear
from the context even if it means they add a sound that was never actually spoken.

Our brain does not like ambiguity so our brain train itself to always find meaningful
situations that’s why we restore consciously missing sounds or letters.

The findings: -
1. we do not record every word we are just looking the meaning even if it means
requires restoring some information for example:
If you listen to five sentences you are not going to recall them but you are
going to recall the meaning

2. we sometimes wait till the very end to clarify the meaning the contact (slight
change of the content will change the meaning) comprehension is influenced
by discourse.

3. we cannot analyze every word instead we look at chunks of meaning (we try
to find a clue in the sentence that will make us understand the meaning)
We chunk information together

As we studied in phonetic and phonology sometimes the same phoneme can have
different characteristics like pool peel. We are concerned about how we process
language.

If we are in a conversation and we are talking about two different people with similar
sounding names Benny and Penny with minor difference

What phonetic information do we employ as we listen to distinguish those names

which are identical in pronunciation expect for the initial consonant? Main feature
that speaker attempts to albeit unconsciously with being aware is voice onset timing
(VOT) → the brief burst of air which precedes the articulation of all stop consonants

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that provides phonetic information listeners use to distinguish between sounds like
/k/ and /g/

-Distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants like /p/ and /b/ or /t/ and /d/
-Puff of air before voicing in stop consonant measured in milliseconds (VOT)
-The difference between those sounds is the burst of air before we pronounced those
sounds is measured by voice onset timing (VOT) and we attempt this mechanism to
differentiate between /p/ in Penny and /b/ Benny.

*The puff of air preceding in the /p/ sound is 61 milliseconds before the voicing start
(the puff of air that come from your mouth before you say the /p/ sound).
*The puff air preceding in the /b/ sound is 15 milliseconds.

If the puff of air is 61 milliseconds before the sound, then it’s voiced but if the puff
of air is 15 milliseconds before the sound, then it’s voiceless.

61 – 15 = 46 → half of it is 23
15 + 23 = 38
Let’s imagine that we created an artificial sound right between /p/ and /b/ with 38
milliseconds what is going to happen? When you listen to an artificial sound with
38 millisecond just between /p/ and /b/ your brain is going to categories it as either
/p/ or /b/ because it’s programmed this way (we only have two categories: voiced or
voiceless) → categorical perception: our brain is going to categories or identify
sound and match it to the category you have programmed which is /p/ or /b/ - /t/ or
/d/ - /k/ or /g/.

*You cannot claim that you listened to a new sound

*We use categorical perception because our brain crave clarity + use phoneme
restoration effect to restore missing sounds.
*Sometimes those categories can be learned

Children born in English speaking countries have categorical perception (distinguish

between voiced or voiceless) genetically. If children are exposed to a different
language like Thai which has 3 VOT (voiced + voiceless + both) they have 3 types
of split. They would have a very short (VOT) something in the middle and something
similar to English.

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Children learning Thai are born to identify 3 categories and that’s what we call inner
factor (innateness)

For example: If I go and live in Thailand for an extended period of time and start
learning the Thai language, I’m going to modify my setting from two voice onset
timing setting to three voice onset timing and this happen on one condition listen to
the language constantly and interact with its people.

Learning to comprehend is a merger of both nature and nurture mean we are born
with certain settings but those setting can be modified according to the environment.

Comprehension of words: -
*Comprehension of sound is easier than comprehension of words
*Words have multiple sounds not only one
Linguist came up with something called (modal of cognition)

parallel
distrbution
processing (PDP)

computer
neurology psychology
science
-

(PDP) have multiple process (neurology + computer science + psychology)

-meaning of cognition: knowledge, comprehension, understanding
-they took aspect from neurological, computer science and psychological research
and came up with (parallel distribution processing)
-according to this model of recognition when comprehend words or sentences there
are several and but simultaneous processes that go on when we comprehend
sentences or words (several processes that work together at the same time) in order
to understand spoken or written language
-(PDP) work with the comprehension of words and sentences

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-(PDP) is part of logogen model of comprehension and this model explains how we
access words stored in our brains
According to this model of comprehension which is part of (PDP) every word in our
brain is stored in a folder and it’s called logogen

It contains how the word:

Spelled
Pronounced
Image of the thing (how it looks like)
Folder Feelings or emotions (it differs from one person to the other
they either could bring joy while other could have a negative
feeling due to a terrible experience)

This folder may create connection with other folders such as the word pond because
duck live in ponds

Duck pond

So, this connection all in our brain stored in logogens. The minute you heard the
word logogen a new folder was created in your brain it stores information related to
this word

-a word that I already know -a word that I learned lately

-it’s a high frequency word (you know -it’s a low frequency word (you learned
this word from a long time) so it recently) so whenever you hear it →
whenever you hear it it will get activated slowly so you will
take longer to remember
High frequency words → the more you
are exposed to the word the activation Low frequency words → the less you
will be faster and better (used more = are exposed to the word the activation
activated quickly) will take more time (used less =
activated slowly)
-have more connection with other
words -have less connection with other words

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If you study logogen in depth, you understand how it works and everything about it
your activation of the word is going to be quicker

We access words stored in our mental lexicon is the logogen model of

comprehension so when you hear the word (logogen for example) in a conversation
or see it in a printed page you trigger an individual logogen → lexical detection
device for that word and the logogen in a big neuronal network so if they get
activated, they work together with other logogens in order to create comprehension
(understanding)

By adopting this model of comprehension, we can look into how we sometimes

comprehend words
Homographs Homophones
Word that has similar spelling but Words that have different spelling but
different pronunciation similar pronunciation
Lead - Lead Son – Sun
Threw – Through

Because the information stored in our logogen includes information about the word
thus when you are reading something or listen you constantly looking for the context

I took my (son) to the school not (sun) even though they have similar pronunciation
but different spelling

We found (lead) in the food. Lead here is a noun not a verb

You can also know the grammatical function of the word like:
(Smell) can act as a noun or a verb

While (hear) is used only as a verb and if you want to use the noun you need to use
a different word with some kind of derivational or lexical changes

Comprehension is linked with (PDP) to the network of association which is triggered

by words meaning like: leaf can remind us of
-an image of tree
-an image of pages in a book
-words that sound similar like the verb leave

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*All of them can be activated just by reading the word (leaf)

Tip-of-the-tongue (TOT) phenomenon is related to (PDP): it’s when you know that
you have the logogen (when you know the word) but you are unable to say the word
when you need it (unable to recall the word) → unable to activate

Why (TOT) happen? Because long term memory storage is better for recognition
than recall so we often know a word even when we can’t recall it from our memory
so it’s in the tip of our tongue which we can instantly recognize the word if it was
presented to us.

Why (TOT) is of interest to some psycholinguists? The word that are lost
momentarily isn’t always completely forgotten parts of the word are often subject to
recall so when we have this phenomenon, we may know the first letter or syllable.
When we try to recall obscure word that refer to the belief that everything happen
for us is already ordained (‫ )مقدر‬by God.

Sometimes we acquire words in our life but then we have some (TOT) memory how
it begins

Let’s say that you have (TOT) phenomenon and there were options presented to you
then what you can do is exclude the one that you are not looking for.

I want a word that start with (pre) and the options are (prestidigitation, pretension,
presbyterian, predilection) but none of them is the one I’m looking for which is

*Bathtube effect is part of (TOT) phenomenon

Beginning Ending

When you have (TOT) experience sometimes you know the beginning of the word
and you know the ending of the word but the middle part is submerged

How does this help us in psycholinguistics? How does this help you find the word
that you are looking for?

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if you know how it begin you can guess or use a dictionary mostly
if you know how it end you can use rhyming strategies and try with different word
until you find the logogen and recall it and this is known by Bathtube effect
model of cognition (PDP)

there are several but separate simultaneous processes going on at the same time when
we comprehend or when we process things.

Model of comprehension (logogen): it explains how we access information in our

memory (mental lexicon) that is stored in our brain.

The activation for the logogen itself and the connection it makes with other logogens

In term of pronunciation In term of spelling

Words that are pronounced like each Words that are spelled like each other but
other but spelled differently pronounced differently (homographs) or
(homophones) grammatical function

Through Smell (verb) or (noun)

Threw Hear (verb) only

(TOT) tip of the tongue phenomenon

We know that we know the word that is in our logogen but for some reason we
cannot recall it. We may know the beginning or the end of a word but the middle is
submerged (we may know how the word start and end but the middle is submerged)
→ bathtub effect
-sometimes we know the beginning only → use dictionary
-sometimes we know the end only → rhyming strategies
-sometimes we know the beginning + end

Comprehension of sentence: -
the main theory: (DTC) derivational theory of complexity
-it was proposed in the 1960s
-the rule for this theory is the more derivations or transformation a sentence has the
more complex it becomes to process

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Kernel sentence → zero transformation
Transformations → (Negative, interrogative, passive)

If sentence have negative then → it’s (1T) one transformation

If sentence have negative + question then → it’s (2T) two transformations
If sentence have negative + passive then → it’s (2T) two transformations

Kernel sentence → (KS)

-Ahmad ate a sandwich. (KS)
-Ahmad didn’t eat a sandwich. (1T) negative
-Didn’t Ahmad eat a sandwich? (2T) negative + question
-Wasn’t a sandwich eaten by Ahmad? (3T) negative + passive + question

They have done a series of experiments:

1)they have them sentences like these and after each sentence they gave them a
number of words and they tested the participants

Kernel sentence + then 4 words → they were able to recall the 4 words
Sentence with one transformation + 4 words → they were recalling less words
Sentence with two or three transformations + 4 words → they recalled even less

They thought the theory is working which mean it’s a good theory

The easier the sentence the more words they are going to recall but the more complex
the sentence is (with more transformations) the less words they are going to recall.

In this experiment participant were given the words before the sentences and they
found out that this theory is not a good theory because they were able to recall the
words before the sentence so they started to doubt that this theory is not a good
theory.

Grammar (syntax) Meaning (semantic)

Less important More important
The struggling swimmer rescued the The struggling swimmer was rescued by
lifeguard the lifeguard

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Page 62
(7) sentence with one transformation (1T) passive
Is more understandable because the lifeguard is the one who rescued the struggling
swimmer
(8) kernel sentence (KS)
Does not make sense because the struggling swimmer cannot save the lifeguard and
this means that (sematic) is more important than grammar (syntax) → to prove this
they took a sentence with negative + passive to test this theory of meaning more

Which is more difficult: to turn a kernel sentence to the negative or the passive?
Passive take more time because you have to change the subject + verb + add past
participle of the verb + you need to have (by)

What about the negative? You only add (not) or (never)

They found out that although passive is more difficult to construct in a sentence it is
still easier to comprehend (passive sentence is a better than negative sentence)

Page 63
(11) it’s not true that Wednesday never comes after a day that’s not Tuesday.

It’s going to take time to comprehend because of the 3 negatives we have.

They came up with a notion that semantic is more important than syntax (grammar)
→ to test this more in an experiment they performed what they call (phoneme
monitoring tasks) where they brought a group of people without telling them
anything and the only thing they were told to do is when they hear the phoneme /b/
they need to press the button → to monitor the phoneme and measure their reaction
time.

Page 64
(12) (14)
They noticed here that the word before the phoneme /b/ had more than one meaning
which make it ambiguous the reaction time was longer (by milliseconds)

(13) march → walk in a certain way (only one meaning) which mean they pressed
the button quickly

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Here ambiguity plays a role so the more ambiguous the sentence the long time you
process or comprehend the more complex it becomes. Meaning is more important
than grammar; if the sentence is more ambiguous then it’s going to take longer to
comprehend so syntax doesn’t play a role in this (grammar and syntax doesn’t play
a big role in this)

We use number of techniques when we try to recall a word → Spreading activation

network term is related to (TOT) when we try to recall:
1. your mind is blank
2. you try to gather some information about the word you are trying how it begin
+ end
3. spread activation network get involved

Model of recognition + comprehension taught us something:

1- we don’t store words only alphabetically we store words according to how
they rhyme at the last syllable.
2- you can comprehend part of the word or full (the whole word)
When we are looking for a word that is unfamiliar the search enables us to
recognize the word, we are looking for (we could understand or comprehend)
but we can’t restore it fully.
3- people don’t rely only on one strategy to comprehend word but use multiple
strategies in order to reach our goal.

Comprehension of sentences: -
Sentences are more complex than words because we are dealing with larger units.

When they started to look at how we comprehend sentences they referred to

Chomsky model of transformational generative grammar and they used phrase
structure skeleton model. And according to this model proposed by Chomsky the
more transformation we have in a sentence the more complex it becomes.

Derivational theory of complexity was inspired by transformational generative

grammar

All sentences can be broken into a kernel sentence (KS)

All sentences can be tracked down into a phrase structure skeleton (simple structure)

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1-the dog is chasing the cat.
2-isn’t the cat being chased by the dog?

Sentence 2 is more complex according to transformational generative grammar why?

Undergone 3 transformational changes while sentence 1 did not undergone any
changes

sentence 1: active, affirmative

sentence 2: negative, passive, interrogative
both sentences have the same meaning

psycholinguist who first experimented on this hypothesis called it derivational

theory of complexity which is similar to transformational generative grammar.
Original (kernel) sentence was added with transformation which made it difficult to
comprehend so they experimented on this theory to see if this theory is accurate.
This theory claims that the more transformation we have in a sentence the more
difficult it will be for us to comprehend it.

Ahmad ate a sandwich. → kernel sentence (KS) Not passive, negative or a question
A sandwich is eaten by Ahmad. → one transformation (1T) passive
Ahmad didn’t eat a sandwich. → one transformation (1T) negative
Did Ahmad eat a sandwich? → one transformation (1T) question
A sandwich is not eaten by Ahmad. → two transformations (2T) passive, negative
Was a sandwich eaten by Ahmad? → two transformations (2T) passive, question
Wasn’t a sandwich eaten by Ahmad? → three transformations (3T) passive,
negative, question

{1} experiment: -
Subject were given random sentences + words after the sentences and were asked to
recall the sentence and the word

Page 60
(3) The dog is chasing the cat. (KS)
(4) The dog isn’t chasing the cat. (1T) negative
(5) Is the cat being chased by the dog? (2T) passive, negative
(6) Isn’t the cat being chased by the dog? (3T) passive, negative, question

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According to this original experiment they may have recalled:
(3) 4 words
(4) 3 words
(5) 2 words
(6) 1 word

The more transformation in a sentence it affected the recalling of the words so they
said the theory is working successfully and there is nothing wrong with it. However,
there was some evidence that it did not work completely well (there was an
exception):

{2} experiment: - page 61

They asked participant to match sentences together
Left side Right side
Kernel sentence Transformation sentence (transformed
from kernel sentence)

The exception is sentence (4) undergone only one transformation change → negative
took less time to match it with sentence that have 2 or 3 transformations. Not all
transformation is easy to do:
Active → passive (hard to change)
Affirmative → negative (easy to change)

If we want to transform the active to passive we need to go through a number of

process while changing affirmative to negative only (by adding not) which led them
to suspect that there is something wrong.

Here they found out that the (DTC) derivational theory of complexity is not a
successful theory and how did they find out? By conducting a third experiment like
experiment {1}

{3} experiment: - page 62

Participant first heard the set of words then they heard the sentences

Here the transformation doesn’t tax memory so does not necessarily occupy more
space in the memory → derivational theory of complexity was confirmed wrong

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Then they moved to another area of knowledge by saying that it’s not grammar that
affect comprehension instead it’s semantic (meaning), how did they find out?

{4} experiment: - page 62

(7) passive → more complex
(8) active → less complex

How are they different? (7) is more logical than (8) although (7) is passive which is
more complex than (8) it’s active and simpler. While in (8) we don’t expect a
struggling swimmer to save the lifeguard.

They found out that meaning is more important than grammar in determining the
comprehension of difficulty

If the sentence is in the negative it takes more time because when we negate, we
have to do some thinking than a sentence that needs 3 transformation and negative
sentence takes more time to understand than a sentence with 3 transformations

Grammatically it’s more difficult to change an active sentence to passive sentence

than changing it from the affirmative to the negative, but in term of meaning negative
sentences are much more difficult to understand than passive sentences (they are
much easier to understand).

Imagine having more than one negative page 63 (11)

This say that sematic (meaning) play a great role in determining the difficulty of
comprehension.

{5} experiment: -
Called phoneme monitoring task where they brought a number of participants

Methodology: subject listen to sentences in page 64 and were asked to press the
button as soon as they hear /b/ sound (first /b/ sound), subject reaction time were
recoded the moment they heard /b/ sound and the instant they reacted (reaction time)

Assumption: sentence that contained more complex information in the clause

preceding the target phoneme will create a correspondingly greater lag in reaction

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time and if they bring an ambiguous word before the /b/ phoneme it will take longer
for them to press the button (to react)

Page 64
(12) drill
-put a hole in the wall
-to practice
Different meaning for one word
(14) straw
-sipping liquids
-dry grass

Participant tool longer to press the button because the word before /b/ sound were
ambiguous.

While looking at these sentences the words were not ambiguous:

(13) march
One meaning for one word
(15) oats

Participant didn’t take longer to press the button so this confirmed that meaning is
the most important element in determining the difficulty of comprehension

The phoneme monitoring task proved that ambiguous situation take us longer to
process or to react to certain situation.

Comprehension of texts: -
Related to meaning
When you read a long text do you recall it word for word? No, only recall the
important points

How people can recall bigger chunks?

[1] A girl named Adriana created a coding system in order to attach meaning or a
story to the thing she is going to memories whether it’s numbers or face etc. She is
creating meaning in order to remember things (card)

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[2] Teenagers can remember score of every single game of their beloved team but
they can’t remember the dates for history class because they are interested in sports
more than history.

Another person who is able to remember numbers because he coded the numbers in
a sequence that is meaningful for him creating a story of the numbers.

There is no such thing as photographic memory just people with good memory
techniques

They are refuting the idea of having photographic memory especially when he was
told to recall the numbers in a different way which took him longer to do that because
his memory is not photographic and only remember the numbers sequence by
sequence and does not have a photo of the numbers in his memory otherwise, he
would recall them faster.

[3] A chess champion who can memories the chess pieces in 5 seconds and he could
place them in a regular match but in the second attempt the piece is not logically
placed he had trouble recalling any of the piece’s places.

Factors to remember:
1-meaning
2-interest
3-context

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 Dissolution
Dissolution (also called language loss)
The anatomy of the brain and how it’s constructed

Neurolinguistic → branch of psycholinguistic and it investigates how the human

brain creates and processes speech and language.

Scientifically speaking we don’t have two separate hemispheres and there are a lot
of discussion about being left or right brain which is a misconception. Anatomically
speaking we have sides of the brain both sides are connected with millions of
associations which mean any information one part received is immediately shared
with the other part.

We have two sides to the brain: left hemisphere and right hemisphere and what
connect them is something called corpus callosum and it make sure that every
information in either side is shared with the other.

In the left hemisphere there are two vertical strips of the brain tissue:
-the motor cortex is responsible for muscular movement (the one you move)
-the sensory cortex is responsible for sensation (from the brain to the body)

*The top part of the brain controls the lower part of the body
*The lower part of the brain controls the upper part of the body
*The left side of the brain controls the right side of the body
*The right side of the brain controls the left side of the body
*The top of our two fingers controls the feet
*The bottom of our two fingers controls the head

Motor cortex (‫ → )تتحكم في العضالت‬Broca’s area named after Paul Broca (French
physician) and this area is responsible for speech production.

Sensory cortex (‫ → )تتحكم في االحساس‬Wernicke’s area named after Karl Wernicke

(Austrian contemporary) and this area is responsible for comprehension.

Aphasia → loss of language and there are two types:

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It happens if there was an accident or a tumor that affected one of the areas.

The severity of the damage:

-if it’s totally damaged → we will have total aphasia
-if it’s partially damaged → we will have partial aphasia

If we have Broca area damage and it’s in the motor cortex (which is related to the
muscles)

Broca’s aphasia patients

They will have difficulty speaking mainly because it’s related to the muscles but
whatever they are going to say will be understood (we are going to understand what
they are saying) plus they are going to understand what we say as long as our
sentence are simple otherwise if we use complex sentences, they will get lost. Also,
when they produce language, they are going to omit unnecessary words such as
(preposition, article etc.) and only stick to the keywords like nouns and verbs
(communicating is still possible with Broca aphasia).

*Broca’s area is related to the muscles → fluency is affected

*Broca’s area is the production center

Wernicke’s aphasia patients

Their speech is going to be fluent mainly because the muscles are not affected and
it’s the sensory cortex that is affected, unfortunately whatever those patients are
saying is going to be meaningless, so they will mix things together although they are
going to give us fluent sentences but it doesn’t mean anything most of the time for
example (I went to the doctor door bank head) they will say it quickly, another thing
is they are not going to understand what we are saying because the sensation is not
there (communication is not possible with Wernicke’s aphasia patients)

*Wernicke’s area is related to sensation → meaning is affected

*Wernicke’s area is the comprehension center

When you read something or when you initiate language which area get activated
first?
Wernicke’s area because we comprehend things or conceptualize things before, we
say them. Both areas Broca and Wernicke are important but Wernicke is more

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important because you need to comprehend first then produce which is related to
Broca’s area.

Broca’s aphasia patients Wernicke’s aphasia patients

Aware of their problem Not aware of their problem

Fluency is affected Meaning is affected

The area is in the motor cortex The area is in the sensory cortex

They understand what we say (simple They don’t understand what we say
sentences) because meaning is lost

The surgical evidence

Hemispherectomy
It’s a compound word, hemisphere means one side of the brain + ctomy means the
removal of (the removal of one of the hemispheres).

If there is something life threatening in one of the hemispheres either left or right
like tumor which cannot be treated by medicine or other treatments.

Neuro surgeons will open the affected side of the skull and remove the entire left or
right hemisphere depending on where the damage is.

This procedure used to be performed on adults but now it’s restricted to children
under the age of 10, why?
There’s dramatic difference between the effects of this operation on adults and
young children when it comes to speech.

90% of people have language area in the left side of the brain so if the left hemisphere
was removed, they would become completely aphasic which mean they do not speak
(lose the ability to speak) expect few words of automatic speech, that why they rarely
performed on adults nowadays. On the other hand, hemispherectomy performed on
children does not lead to loss of speech.

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There is a claim that language center is localized to specific area in the left
hemisphere and the key factor here is the age of the brain

The first 10 years of our life the brain of the human is continuously evolving and
growing cognitive and linguistic function have not been yet localized, the language
center Broca Wernicke area have not been localized to specific area which allow for
neuroplasticity in the still maturing brain and it means when they remove the left
hemisphere for children the brain is neuroplastic (flexible) the language center shift
to the right hemisphere due to the neuroplasticity of the brain.

If the young brain encounters traumatic injury and the neuron have not been
established yet which mean they wouldn’t suffer as adults do and the language center
shifts to the right hemisphere.

The effect of neurological damage on linguistic performance are not strictly

predictable from anatomical change.

Age is a critical factor because the brain is flexible (neuroplasticity) and has not
undergone localization and canalization of the language areas.

Before the age of 10 the process is not yet settled but after the age of 10 those areas
get localized, canalized and they establish neuro network, the language area shift to
the right side of the brain. But when it comes to adults already have their area
localized and canalized which mean they will become completely aphasic.

Operation of hemispherectomy
Children under the age of 10 Adults
Because their brain is not yet developed Because their brain is developed and the
the language center would shift to the language center is in place, they would
right hemisphere and they would be able become completely aphasic and lose the
to use language. ability to use language

Split-brain operation
-Developed in the 1970
-Help treat specific cases of severe epilepsy (‫)الصرع‬

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What causes epilepsy? We have motor cortex in both hemispheres in one hemisphere
the motor cortex is going to produce an electrical discharge that will transfer to the
other motor cortex and this causes seizures (‫)نوبات الصرع‬.

In the mild cases it can be treated by medicine which will they will not have frequent
electrical discharges. But in here we are talking about severe cases that cannot be
treated by medicine.
The electrical discharges can be from left to right motor or right to left motor.

The surgeon will cut the head and go from the front to the back incision (cut) along
the corpus callosum and this will cut the association pathway there will be no link
between right to the left or left to the right at least for the part of the electrical
discharge.

In most of the operation like this nothing will happen to the patients which mean
they will use speech and language normally. This split-brain operation doesn’t affect
language in normal situations however they found out in experimental conditions
there was a finding they noticed:
Selected words flash very rapidly on a screen
-for normal people they read it as a single word even when it flashed quickly
(HEART)
-for split-brain patient they read it as only half
They scan the word from left to right with their eyes to cover the whole word because
it flashed quickly, they only read (ART) but still, they can understand and process
things plus language is not affected in normal situation only in experimental
condition.

HE ART

• •

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