Language Production and Comprehension

• Derived from Latin “lingua” which means “produced with the tongue”
• Evoluntionarily advantageous- could convey meaning
• A language is a system of communication which consist of a set of sounds and written
symbols which are used by the people for talking or writing
- Plays a vital role in human life
- It is a system of communication, a medium of thought and social interaction

Definition of Language
• Edward Spair- language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating
ideas, emotions, and desires by means of system of voluntarily produced symbols
• George L. Trager- language is a set of arbitrary vocal symbols by means of which a social
group operates, communicates and express their emotions, feelings, and desires

Meaning in Language
• Meaning is an indirect connection with the very existence of language
• Language is creation of meaning, while meaning is universal and necessary for language to
exist
• Meaning is the internal and original function of language. It is nothing but contents of
conscience, something created when language is created, i.e., when language is spoken
• Meaning is something objective or objectified, belonging to a particular language, something
offered to speakers from the tradition in the technique of speaking
• Meaning os common and participated in a particular speech community
• Meaning manifests itself a sporadic, contextual, and individual
• Language is real, something lived by speakers; meaning appears in contexts and situations
(meaning is sense)

Differences between Human Language and Animal Communication

• Displacement- feature by which human beings can talk about remote objects and events
• Duality of patterning- fact by which language makes range of distinguished sounds that can
be combined and recombined enormous vocabulary
• Productivity- human beings can develop and produce utterances that have never been heard
before
• Transmission of knowledge- the act of transmitting human language across generations and
races through the process of teaching and learning

Nature and Characteristics

• Language is learnt- anyone can learn it by imitation and practice
• Language is acquired behavior- languages acquire behavior if a baby/man is shifted to another
community/culture group, he will acquire the language spoken by that culture community
• Language is a system
• Language is ever-changing and dynamic- no language on earth is static; all undergo changes in
grammar, vocabulary, structure, and phonology
• Language is based on cultural experiences- every language is a product of particular society
and culture. In each language, there are words that show the specific culture of that community
• Language is unique- each language is unique. No 2 languages are alike. They cannot have the
same set of patterns or structures, sounds, grammatical rules
• Language is vocal
• It is for communication
• It is for habits
• Language is idiolect- it means that it has its own individual characteristics as no two people
speak exactly in the same way. There are variations in voice, pitch, speech, and rhythm
• Language is universal
• Language is heterogenous in nature- English language contains words from so many other
languages that it has become the most mixed language that’s why it’s called heterogeneous

LANGUAGE
• Linguistics subfields:
1. Phonetics- production and perception of speech sounds as physical entities. Phonology
involves the sound system of a particular language and sounds as abstract entities
- Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound
- Phoneme roughly corresponds to a letter of the alphabet
- Different languages have different numbers of phonemes (eg: 30 in English)
2. Morphology- word structure and systematic relations between words. Morphemes are the
building-blocks of words, the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning grammatical
function. Eg: talked = talk + ed
3. Syntax- Phrases and sentence structure. Set of rules of a language that determine the ways
words are combined to make sentences
4. Semantics- meanings of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences. Overlaps with semantic
memory
5. Pragmatics- the way language is used, how context influences the interpretation of
utterances, and how sentences fit into a conversation

Criteria of a Language
• Semanticity- sounds are attached to meaning
- Semantics is the study of expression of meaning through words, sentences
- Semanticity/meaningfulness is the most basic element of language
- If a species does not communicate meaningful information, no language is present in that
species
- Some species have limited communication, but humans have no such limit
• Generativity- the ability to use a finite number of words and rules for combining words to
produce an almost infinite number of sentences
- The simple idea can be changed into a number of different ideas by rearrangement or
adding elements of the sentence
 - Generativity is importnat because all organisms have limitations on what they can
remember
• Displacement- reference for a distant object
- Not limited to communicating about the immediate surroundings
- We can describe the past and present events
- Our sentences are independent of their setting in which they are spoken known as the
skill of displacement
- It permits the rapid transmission of complex information from person to person and from
generation to generation

• Language is a system that associated sounds/gestures with meanings in a way that uses words
and sentences
1. Phonetics- production and perception of speech sounds as physical entities. Phonology
involves the sound system of a particular language and sounds as abstract entities
- Phoneme is the smallest unit of sound
- Phoneme roughly corresponds to a letter of the alphabet
- Different languages have different numbers of phonemes (eg: 30 in English)
2. Morphology- word structure and systematic relations between words. Morphemes are the
building-blocks of words, the smallest linguistic unit which has a meaning grammatical
function. Eg: talked = talk + ed
3. Syntax- Phrases and sentence structure. Set of rules of a language that determine the ways
words are combined to make sentences
4. Semantics- meanings of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences. Overlaps with semantic
memory
5. Pragmatics- the way language is used, how context influences the interpretation of
utterances, and how sentences fit into a conversation
• Language production moves from semantics to phonology
• Language comprehension moves from phonology to semantics

Functional Organization of Language

• Different functional components of language production have been attempted to be mapped to
different regions of the cerebral network
• Levelt, Roelofs, Meyer (1999)- LRM model- stages of computation of spoken word production
• Conceptual preparation- the production of a content word starts by activating some lexical
concept and selecting it for expression
• Conceptual semantics- the knowledge one has about the various attributes of a concept,
independent of the linguistic realization. Eg: what a DOG is
• Lexical semantics- formal linguistic properties of single words that have precise processing
consequences (eg: bit is eventive; an action word)
• Lexical concepts- multiple activation in response to visual input. Eg: picture of a sheep
activates concept for sheep, animal, and goat
- The communicative situation determines what concept is going to be selected for
expression
 - Impaired semantics- patients with impaired conceptual knowledge use objects
inappropriately; unable to be able to match pictures with names
- Associative visual agnosia/optic aphasia is a condition wherein an individual has an
impaired ability to access lexical semantics from vision
- Impaired access to modality-independent lexical representation- meanings of items,
or their lexical semantic representations (lemmas) are independent of output modality
(oral/written)- impairments at this level manifest as anomia
• Lemma retrieval (lexical selection)- accessing the target word’s syntax. Grammatical
encoding is urgent, since we must determine the appropriate word order and form constituents
of a sentence.
- Lemma nodes represent these syntactical properties (parts of speech, gender of nouns,
etc)
- Each node at the conceptual stratum is linked to its unique lemma node at the syntactic
stratum
- Compositional semantics is related to syntactical structure. Eg: allowing one to
distinguish ‘dog bites man’ from ‘man bites dog’
• Form encoding- Start from accessing the target word’s phonological code; ends when word is
being articulated
- Constituent processes: morpho-phonological encoding/retrieval//accessing
phonological codes for all morphemes of word -> phonological encoding//form
syllables; this is an incremental process -> phonetic encoding//turn syllables into motor
action instructions (syllable scores)
- Impaired access to modality-speci c lexical representation- phonological rep
(spoken) or orthographic (written/spelled)- can do either or but not both
- Speaking aloud also has 2 processes: maintain the phonological representation of the
spoken word + articulation (motor output)
- Apraxia- impairment of motor planning/programming of speech articulation- errors of
insertion, deletion, transposition
- Dysarthria- motor planning is intact, but word is incorrectly articulated due to
impaired strength, range, rate, or timing of movement of lips, tongue, etc. Consistent
across short and long words, but more inconsistently articulated in long words
compared to short words in apraxia
- Challenging to determine the exact nature of these processes in the brain

Relations between Production and Comprehension

• Goal of comprehension is to infer meaning from linguistic signals
• That of production is to express a particular meaning, about which we generally have little or
no uncertainty
• Comprehension is affected by both bottom-up, stimulus-related information and top-down
expectations, and the representations we extract and maintain during comprehension are
probabilistic and noisy
• Meanwhile, production is more precise and involves a number of linearized processes
• Thus, functional dissociations among different brain regions are observed in production, while
in comprehension, the very same brain regions appear to support different aspects of the
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 interpretation (like understanding individual word meanings and inferring the syntactic/
semantic dependency structure)

Neuroanatomy of Language
• Temporal lobe is associated with language function (Bi et al., 2009)
- Anterior temporal lobe comes into play
 - Hypothesis- binds semantic properties to words, however, it has been challenged in lieu
of ndings that damage to this area does not cause conceptual errors
• Critical period- brain more open to forming connections for speci c abilities
- Infants able to spot differences between sounds of all languages; less of non-native
languages by age of 6 months
- Door for new grammar and syntax recognition closes by ages 5-6
• Brain and language connection- nerve connections enable language comprehension and
production. Frequency of usage leads to better language usage due to strengthening
connections
• Left hemisphere- Broca and Wernicke area
- 1865- Broca- left frontal lobe damage patient- dif culty speaking but could comprehend
- Wernicke- damage to left temporal lobe- dif culty understanding and speak meaningless
sentences
- However, language function is not fully lateralized. Banich (1997) nds that 96% of
right-handers have this pattern, while the other 4% show activation in right hemisphere.
This latter is more common in left-handers
• Brain and sign language- visuospatial language
- Both left and right hemisphere activated in deaf people using sign language
- Damage to left hemisphere- still able to process non-language visuospatial relations;
damage to right hemisphere had opposite de cits
- Language is modular (Bellugi et al.)- each part of the brain performs a certain function
- Learning sign language requires equal effort as learning a foregin language
• According to the Wernicke-Leichtheim model (Lichtheim, 1885; Wernicke, 1874), the
language areas contain memory representations of the input auditory images (in wernicke’s
area) and output motor images (in Broca’s area)
• Connectionist model (Gill & Damann, 2015): Frontal lobe may play a role in activating the
semantic-conceptual areas, which then activate the phonological lexicon, allowing the person
to produce spontaneous speech
- When the frontal love activates the semantic-conceptual eld, they then activate the
phonological lexicon, leading to spontaneous speech production
- Phonological lexicon contains memories of word sounds
- Speech enters through auditory cortex, is sent to Wernicke’s area, and then distributed to
semantic-conceptual areas to allow comprehension
- To produce spontaneous speech, the frontal lobe activates the semantic-conceptual areas,
activating areas of Wernicke’s area, then projecting to Broca’s area, and then to the motor
cortex
- Auditory stimuli are projected to Wernicke area from the nearby Heschl gyrus (Brodmann
areas 41 and 42), whereas visual forms of communication (e.g., reading and sign language)
are processed by the primary and secondary visual cortices that then project to Wernicke
area through the ventral visual stream. The arcuate fasciculus then projects from Wernicke
area to Broca area (Brodmann areas 44 and 45) and the surrounding area to permit
repetition. Broca area is the center for expressive language planning.
• Lateralization of language is associated with handedness- approximately 90% of right-handed
individuals and 70% of left-handed individuals being left-hemisphere dominant for language
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 • Left-handed individuals, about a third are either right-hemisphere dominant or have bilateral
language dominance. The right hemisphere is thought to play a role in the prosody of language.
Assessment of Language Function
1. Observation- listen to spontaneous speech to assess articulation, uency, and prosody. For
instance, ask them to describe a picture such as the Cookie Theft picture from the Boston
Diagnostic Aphasia Examination
2. Comprehension (verbal/written)- Start with one-step midline commands (“close your eyes”);
progress to distal one-step commands (“hold up your left hand”); then progress to complex
commands (“point to the door after you point to the window”)
3. Repetition- Start with short complete sentences and progress to an open-ended phrase of at
least ve words in length, such as the one used in the Boston Diagnostic Aphasia
Examination (“near the table in the dining room”).
4. Naming- Start with whole items. Ask, “What is this?” and point to the object (e.g., pen,
watch), then progress to parts (e.g., watchband, cuff of shirt). In patients who either cannot
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 perform these tasks or are non- uent, test receptive naming by stating, “Point to the pen,”
and hold out a pen and a watch.
5. Writing- Have the patient write a sentence spontaneously. If the patient cannot produce a
sentence spontaneously, have him or her try to write by dictation. Because written expression
can be affected separately from verbal expression, writing should be tested in addition to
testing verbal output.
6. Testing for apraxia- have the patient attempt to alternate between labial (produced by the
lips), lingual (produced by the tongue), and guttural (produced by the soft palate and other
throat structures) sounds by saying words such as “patty-cake” or “irresponsibility.”

Forms of Aphasia
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 Language Production

• Psycholinguistic models have tried to provide an explanation for the ef ciency and accuracy of
the language production system (rate of 2/3 words per second, with 1 error every 1000 words)
• L1- rst language; L2- second language
• Two types of models:
1. Modular- existence of a number of specialist modules/processes through which
production proceeds without interaction amongst them
- Unidirectional ow of information
- Eg: conceptualization is followed by encoding, but the encoding formulator does not
give any information to the conceptualizer
- Suggest that the minimum necessary information ows from one component to the
next
2. Non-Modular- exible models where information ows both ways (from message
generator to message formulator and back)
- Input at one level can converge from different levels

Levelt’s Model (1989, 1993)

• Most widely used model
• Compliments processes like attention and memory that mediate language
• This model is a development on other models and synthesizes them
• Components:
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 1. Conceptualizer: Component responsible for generating and monitoring messages
2. Formulator: Gives grammatical and phonological shape to messages and feeds on the
lexicon
3. Articulator: Motor execution of the message
4. Acoustic-Phonetic Processor: Transforms acoustic signal into phonetic representations
5. Speech Comprehension System: Permits parsing/processing of self- and other-generated
speech

Message Conceptualization
• Generates the communicative intention and encodes it into a coherent conceptual plan
• Monitors what is about to be said and what has been said and how
• Declarative knowledge is accessed
- What the person knows
- Knowledge about the situation
- Information about the discourse record
• 2 stages of planning:
1. Macroplanning- retrieve information to express subgoals into which the overall goal of
communication is elaborated (generating speech act intentions, like narration)
2. Microplanning- divide information into smaller conceptual chunks which are given
propositional shape and information perspective. Eg: choosing how to organize words in
a sentence to properly communicate the though, ‘the man gave the woman the money” v/
s the “woman was given the money by the man”
• The product of planing is the preverbal plan- an organized conceptual structure which is not
yet linguistic, and which consists of input for the formulator to work on
• Conceptualization requires the following processes:
- Selectively attending to information in the right order
- Retrieving information from the LTM
- Using the working memory

Message Formulation
• Preverbal plan activates the items in the lexicon that best correspond to different chunks of the
intended message that will be responsible for transforming it into a linguistic structure
• Grammatical encoding is lexically driven- requires lexical and syntactical processes
- Lexicon has semantic and syntactic information (lemmas) + morphological and
phonological information (lexemes) of each lexical item
• Dell’s (1986) spreading activation theory of lexical access
- A chunk of the preverbal plan activates a number of lemmas in the lexicon
- The lemmas that receive the highest activation because their semantic specifications
match the concepts in the preverbal plan are selected
- Eg: “The man gave the woman the money”- these words face highest activation, but
conceptually similar words are also activated
• When a lemma is retrieved, its syntactical properties become available and trigger syntactic
building procedures
• The lexical pointer specified in the lemma triggers the phonological encoding process which
results in the selection of specific morphological and phonological forms
- Eg: ‘gave’ receives highest activation because the tense matches the lemma

• Thus, a series of phonological segments are activated, and a phonological word is produced,
which leads to the generation of the phonetic-articulatory plan
• The output of the formulator is a phonetic or articulatory plan which is ready for articulation-
this plan is referred to as internal speech
• Message formulation is relatively automatic, flows art the rate of 3-5 words a second
(automaticity not necessary for L2 speakers)

Articulation
• Motor execution of the phonetic plan; involves respiratory, laryngeal, and supralaryngeal
systems
• As the phonetic plan is being generated, its bits are temporarily stored in an articulatory buffer,
which triggers the unpacking of motor commands, which finally cause articulation of the
message- this is internal speech, which is then articulated as overt speech

Audition, Speech Comprehension, and Monitoring

• Conceptualizer is in charge of generating messages and the whole process of production
• Speech comprehension system also listens to and processes own speech- access to both
internal and overt speech
• Articulatory plan can be checked from working memory
• Audition component of the system recognizes articulated words, and the speech
comprehension system retrieves their meaning
• Once each lemma is given morphological and phonological form, articulation will begin and
overt speech will take place while the conceptualizer supervises

Assumptions of Components
1. Unidirectional and minimal flow- Components are specialist processing systems which do
not need to share information with other components to carry out their job
- Only possible feedback is that provided by overt or internal speech to the conceptualizer
- Vigliocco and Haersuiker (2002) oppose this, stating that information may not flow
unidirectionally or minimally. For instance, phrasal construction can occur before lemma
selection, not only for the lemma that will be selected but also for competitor lemmas
that are highly activated

2. Parallel processing- Different components can process their specific types of information
simultaneously or in parallel. Serial and parallel processing occur together
3. Incremental processing- Production is incremental- a different hunk of input can be
processed once the current chunk has been sent to the next component. Eg: “man” is
conceptualized and sent for formulation; “woman” can be conceptualized as it is being
formulated
4. Automaticity- At least some parts of the processing system work automatically.
Conceptualizer requires executive control (conscious allocation), but grammatical and
phonetic encoding are automatic
• Last 3 of these explain why production is so fast

L2 Production and Levelt’s Model

• Processes of conceptualization are most important in understanding L2 production
• Poulisse (1997)- 3 major differences between L1 and L2 production:
1. L2 knowledge is not as complete as L1 knowledge. Thus, there can be difficulty
expressing some concepts. Also, semantic, syntactic, morphological, and phonological
information is incomplete in the lexicon for lexical items.
 2. Not as automatic- encoding and lexical retrieval may require serial processing, This
mainly happens at the morphophonological and articulatory levels. Rate of speech is
lower
3. L2 production carries traces of L1. This can lead to unintentional code-switching, or even
intentional switching due to a lack of missing lexical items. Unintentional switching is
due to cross-linguistic interference. This is influenced by proficiency

Conceptualization
• Conceptual representations are shared between L1 and L2, but lexical representations are not
• Poulisse and Bongaerts (1994) suggest that there is a single network/lexicon where L1 and L2
lexical items coexist
• De Bot (1992) proposed that 2 preverbal plans are made, one in each language, hence
explaining code swtching
• Poulisse and Bongaerts, meanwhile, state that conceptualizer generates the preverbal plan and
specifies the language as well. Concepts are generated and tagged for L2, and the conceptual
information and language label together activate the lemmas which contain the appropriate
meaning and language
• Apart from specification of language in preverbal plan, conceptualization remains the same for
L2 as for L1

Formulation
• Different concepts of the preverbal plan contain the specification of [+L2]
• Spreading activation remains the same, but lexical items of L2 are also activated now, coming
from the same conceptual notes.

• For low proficiency learners, L1 lemmas receive more activation than L2 ones
• Morphological encoding is language-specific
• There is a single store of sounds that is drawn on during phonological encoding; an incomplete
store may lead to errors
Self-Monitoring
• 3 monitoring loops in production:
- Check preverbal plan against intention
- Check internal, articulatory plan against overall plan
- Monitor overt speech by means of acoustic-phonetic processor
• L2 leads to more errors, and more recognition of errors in processing
• Dörnyei and Kormos (1998) classify communicative problems faced by L2 in terms of Levelt’s
model:
1. Resource deficits (incomplete lexicon)
2. Processing time pressure
3. Perceived trouble in own output
4. Perceived problems with the interlocutor’s output
• Associated problem-solving mechanisms (PSM):
Resource-Deficit PSM: Incomplete lexicon of L2 + incomplete specification of items in lexicon

Error PSM Description

Content Reduction Message abandonment Leave message unfinished because of difficulties

(abandon micro- with language
planning)
Message reduction Avoiding problematic structures/topics because of
(reduce micro-plan) lack of linguistic resources
Message replacement Replace message with a new one because of not
feeling able to execute it
Substitution Code-switching Include L1 or L3 words in L2 speech

Approximation Use a single alternative lexical item that is similar

in meaning
Use all-purpose words Use an empty lexical item in a context where a
specific word is lacking (eg: overuse of “thing”)
Complete omission Leave a gap and continue with speech

Substitution plus Foreignize Use an L1 or L3 word by adjusting it to L2

phonology or morphology
Grammatical word Create a nonexistent L2 word by applying a
coinage supposed L2 rule to an existing L2 word
Literal translation Literally translating a L1 or L3 lecival item to L2

Macro- Restructure Abandon a verbal plan and communicate the

Reconceptualization message according to an alternative plan
Micro- Circumlocution Provide examples, illustrating or describing the
receptualization properties of the target object or action
Semantic word coinage Create a nonexistent L2 word by compounding
existing words
Grammatical Resource-Deficit PSM

Substitution Certain grammatical specifications of the lemma are

changed through transfer/overgeneralization
Reduction Using simplified grammar in the belief that the
interlocutor will be able to reconstruct the
grammatical meaning from the context
Phonological Deficit PSM

Retrieval TOT phenomenon Utter a series of incomplete word forms until

reaching the complete form, or uses several
alternative pronunciations until one sounds right
Substitution Use of similar sounding Compensating for a lexical item whose form the
words speaker is unsure of with a word (either existing or
non-existing) that sounds approximately like the
target
Reduction Mumbling Muttering or swallowing a word or a part of it
because speaker is not sure about it.
Time Pressure PSM: Aware that long pauses are unacceptable; need to fill space

Unfilled pause Remain silent Silent for a few seconds till word is found

Umming/erring Use nonlexical pauses Use pause to plan message

Sound lengthening Lengthen the sound Lengthen sound of a word to check for inaccuracy
or plan ahead
Fillers Time-gaining devices
like “okay” or “you
know”
Repetitions Repeat a word or string of words right after they
were said, or right after the interlocutor said them to
gain time
Deficit Own Output PSM: Perceived deficiency in own production (self-repair)- given by Kormos
(1999)
(a) D-Repairs- Different repairs- consequence of errors with the conceptualization of the message

Different Reconceptualize speech Change speech plan by encoding different

information repair plan information (eg: change how you’re explaining
directions)
Inappropriate Detect a problem with Change gender
information repair info, then repair
Different order Speakers change order of
repair different parts of the
message
Message Replace originally
abandonment intended message with a
repair new one
(b) A-Repairs- Appropriateness repairs- resolve ambiguity, achieve precision, maintain coherence with
previously used words
- Pragmatic appropriacy repairs are repairs for “good language” (Bredart, 1991)
Appropriate-level- Decide to be more
of-information precise or specific
repair
Ambiguous- Speaker repairs the referring expression because of
reference repair ambiguity
Coherent- Speaker repairs a term to be more coherent with
terminology repair terms used so far
Pragmatic Repair part of the message to make it more
appropriacy repair pragmatically appropriate in a specific situation
Repair for good Repair message in order to use more sophisticated
language language
(c) Error Repairs- Result of wrong formulation; may be used to correct an inappropriate syntactic
structure, a lexical problem, faulty morphology, or a phonetic error
Lexical Detect a lexical error and self-correct. Eg: and a
man and a other man enter to the to the room who
after wa bueno before was Guelda
Syntactic Self-correct after detecting a syntactic error

Morphological Find a problem with morphology of word and repair

it
Phonological Detect a phonetic error and repair it

1. Resource deficit PSM:

- Incomplete lexicon of L2 + incomplete specification of items in lexicon
- 3 options:
- Abandon micro-planning
- Change micro-plan by reducing it
- Change it by replacing it with a new message
- May maintain micro-plan and modify pre-verbal message
- 3 compensatory strategies:
- Substitute one lemma in preverbal message or omit it (use approximation or code-
switch)
- Modify conceptual information of lemma and apply encoding, with the wrong word as
the outcome
- Reconceptualize on macro (series of chunks of the plan are regenerated) or micro
(revise single chunk by using a semantic word coinage) level
- Problems of grammatical encoding are solved by:
 - Changing characteristics of the lemma in terms of form or argument structure. Eg: if
arguments of a specific lemma are not specified, rules of L1 may be used
- Reconstructing the grammatical meaning from the context of the interaction
- Problems of phonological encoding solved by:
- Avoiding term that cannot be verbalized
- Try out several alternative pronunciations before settling on one
2. Time-pressure PSM
3. Self-Repair: Kormos (1999) states that perceptual loop theory can be used to explain L2, but
falls short for 2 phenomenon: (a) a lot of L2 errors are not noticed despite having sufficient
knowledge; (b) certain types of errors go undetected
- Monitoring needs attentional control. This is less for L2 since otherwise automatic
processes also become non-automatic
- Fewer resources for self-monitoring
- ID in working memory also affects self-monitoring
- Increasing task demands also reduces self-monitoring
- However, certain task demands can be resource-directing and thus draw attention to
the monitoring process (Robinson, 1995)
- Kormos gives 3 types of repairs (shown in table)

Role of Attention and Memory in Language Production

• Language processing = comprehension + production + learning

Attention
• Both procedural and declarative knowledge are attended to
• Attention is part of STM, which is the currently activated part of LTM
• Attention is a executive control process that directs the serial passage of information from
short-term memory (STM) to long-term memory (LTM)
• This has been challenged by connectionist models that believe that attention is distributed
throughout the entire processing system
• Selection involves selection, capacity, and effort or sustainability in information processing;
helps us select what information is subjected to further processing
• IP: sensory register -> STM -> LTM -> response selection -> response execution
• Perceptual encoding -> Central processing -> Responding

Selection
• Not sure when selection of information to be processed takes place
• Broadbent- selective filter at sensory register; filtered info passed to detection device and then
processed in STM
- Filter comes early
• Triesman (1964)- attenuation filter- processes both sensory and semantic info
• Other models- parallel processing with selection coming later in working memory and after
full semantic processing has occurred
• Selection is important for generating a communicative plan
Noticing
• Schmidy (1990)- we select a number of features in the surface structure of utterances in the
input
• Noticing = Registering the simple occurrence of some event; Understanding = recognition of a
general principle, rule, or pattern
- Eg: L2 learners noticing a certain form of address v/s understanding why it has been used
• Tomlin and Villa (1994) model of attention:
- Alertness- predisposition or readiness for incoming stimuli
- Orientation- activation of higher level schema or an action plan according to the
expectations about the type of incoming stimuli
- Detection- focusing on just a bit of the information which will be further processed in
working memory
- Acquisition occurs at level of detection and not at the level of selection + noticing
- Thus, learning can take place without awareness
• Attention is needed for second language acquisition (SLA) to take place
- Noticing contributes to learning, even if it is not necessary

Capacity
• Differentials in cognitive load affect capacity limits
• Higher task demands -> need for more attentional resources to attend
• Kahneman (1973)- attention part of working memory- single volume of attention whose limits
are dependent on level of arousal
- Fails to explain divided attention
• Wickens (1989)- model of dual-task performance- break single volume of attentional resources
in a series of dichotomical dimensions.
- The dichotomy affecting processing stages opposes the perceptual/cognitive dimension
(i.e. encoding and central processing) to the response dimension
- Processing: spatial is opposed to verbal; Modality: auditory is opposed to visual;
Responses: manual or vocal
- Wickens holds that because these different dimensions draw on different resource pools,
competition for attention may not necessarily happen
 - There is competition when 2 tasks/two dimensions of the same task feed on the same
resource pool. Eg: 2 convos at same time feed on the verbal pool
- However, something like singing while driving has less competition since manual
and vocal are different pools
• Other models- similar to Wickens, but abandon the idea of capacity limitations
- Suggest that less efficient performance is due to interference
- Oberauer and Kliegl (2001)- interference is the mutual degradation of memory traces that
are held in working memory simultaneously
- Eg: 2 similar words in WM cause interference
- Can overwrite shared features
- Cross-talk may occur due to selection of one of many elements in the working memory
as well
- Attention is, thus, responsible for the decision to engage, disengage, and shift attention
between tasks and for the pursuit of intention
- When task demands are higher because of more input, there are many alternatives,
which are similar and may lead to cross-talk
• Sanders (1998)- connectionist models of representations, processing, and attention- propose
units in a network which are mutually being activated and deactivated; these work in parallel at
different levels of processing
- Processing limits are due to interference, confusion, and cross-talk among elements of a
neural net and not to capacity constraints

Memory
• Different parts of memory serve different function
• Working memory- interface between everything we know and everything we perceive or do
- Place where connections are established between incoming information
- Cowan (1993)- WM as the currently activated parts of LTM and attentional focus
• Robinson (1995)- WM is that part of STM which receives attentional focus
- Thus, input can go either in the periphery, or be rehearsed in WM due to focal attention
- Maintenance rehearsal, which is data-driven, instance-based processing to implicit
learning, while elaborative rehearsal would consist of conceptually-driven, schema-based
processing which would be related to explicit learning
- WM and what is left of STM (peripheral attention only) are the activated part of LTM,
while WM is the part of STM that receives focal attention
Language Processing, Memory, and Attention
• Language processing starts when input is perceived and automatically processed by the
perceptual store of WM
• It then goes into STM, where an automatic process of recognition (detection without awareness
or noticing) activates a number of categories- which pre-existed- to the input
• A number of mechanisms compare similarities and differences of new input to what is already
in LTM
• In case of L2, new input has access to interlanguage representations
- This is different from learning, which requires no matching of new input to previously
existing knowledge
- Info must enter focal attention (not just automatic recognition) and enter STM, and then
it has to undergo both maintenance and elaborative rehearsal

Memory and Learning

• Micro-processes- dependent on current processing conditions
• Two micro-processes of memory contribute to learning:
1. Selective attention- learners need to notice a gap (b/w what they need to say but can’t
and need to look for additional knowledge for) and also notice the solution to the gap
in others’ communication
2. Cognitive comparison- Need to have enough resources to be able to compare own
utterances or failed attempts at building them to the utterances of more competent
interlocutors
• Macro-processes- automatic and inaccessible; 4 important in memory and learning:
1. Internalization- Process by which some data in linguistic input are held in WM for
further processing against prior knowledge
- Learning L2 is a process of comprehending input that contains linguistic features one
step beyond their current level of competence [comprehensive input]
- Use context and extra-linguistic info for this upgrade
- Intake- process of assimilating linguistic material, by which new input is matched
against prior knowledge, and processing occurs against internalized grammar rules
2. Mapping- continual and cumulative process of linking concepts to phonological
forms and grammatical functions
- L1 acquisition = linking of basic cognitive notions to a fixed set of phonological forms
which children extract from the input they receive
3. Analysis- input dependent; continual and cumulative process by which linguistic and
conceptual representations become susceptible to inspection because they become
more explicit, structured, and accessible
4. Restructuring- the abrupt process by means of which some aspect of interlanguage
becomes more efficiently represented in the learner’s mind

Language Production and Interlanguage Development

• Being exposed to input is essential for language learning, but not sufficient to acquire an
almost native level in L2
 - Evidence: immersion programs show that learners exposed to language advance
comprehension, but are gramatically inaccurate
• Swain (1985)- comprehensible output- interaction learners faced with communication
problems will be forced to be more precise with their language, and will thus get better
- Difficulty in being understood -> paying attention to own language -> better comm
- 3 functions of output:
1. Output Hypothesis: Hypothesis-testing is the first function of production
- As learners use lang, they test own hypotheses against their receptive knowledge
- Receptive knowledge is considered more stable/reliable than productive knowledge
- May extend L1 meaning to L2 context, or L2 to new contexts
- Through interaction, they test if they are understood, and try to receive feedback
- Output also helps develop automaticity of production
- Move from meaning-focused processing to syntactic processing
2. Output also has a metalinguistic function- learners control and internalize linguistic
knowledge- modifying output to be syntactically accurate contributes to acquisition
3. Output also has a noticing/triggering function- learners notice gaps between what they
said and what they wanted to express, thus eventually filling them. If input is available,
they revise, otherwise they pay attention to subsequent input to fill the gap
• Skehan- additional functions of output:
1. Output is a generator of better input- listener can provide feedback that input from
speaker is not being understood, forcing speaker to adapt and match the listener’s level of
competence, thus providing better input
- Negotiation of meaning
- However, it may not help due to cognitive load of the communicative shortcoming
2. Automaticity function- practicing speaking becomes a skilled behavior, thus requiring
less effort- connecting components of utterances repeatedly makes it require less effort
3. Discourse skills development function- competent speaker in a community, one must
master not only the code but also the system or rules underlying conversation
• Robinson (2001)- cognition hypothesis:
- Cog hyp of adult task-based language learning
- Proposes that increasing cognitive demands of lang learning tasks can recapitulate or
reproduce “the ontogenic course of conceptual development in childhood”
- L1 acquisition applied to L2
- Increasing number of elements in task, degree of displaced past time reference, or
reasoning demands lead to second lang development, since cognitive machinery is
already in place and complexity is needed to force development
- Adults adults retain a scale of conceptual complexity acquired in childhood; increasing
the cognitive demands of tasks may provide learners “with optimal, ontogenetically
natural, contexts for making form-function mappings necessary to L2 development”
 Levelet Model of Speech Production

Conceptualizer
• Ideas are generated
• Preverbal message exists in a form other than language
• Knowledge of the world (encyclopedia) + current situation (situation knowledge) + rules of
discourse -> message generation

Formulator
• Takes preverbal message and creates a phonetic plan ready to be articulated
• 3 processes:
1. Lexicalization- assign words to preverbal message
- 2 levels of representation in lexicon: lemmas and lexemes
- Lemma- abstract entities that represent words but which are not encoded for form
- Have access to grammatical properties of the word and the semantic properties but it
is not spelled phonetically
- Evidence comes from TOT phenomenon
- Proven by the fact that sometimes we can talk about a word, but not retrieve its form
- Lexeme- surface form given to lemma
 - One lemma can have multiple lexemes
2. Grammatical encoding- process of giving the message a structure which corresponds to the
utterances grammatical form. Morphemes are attached to words and functional words will be
inserted to create a grammatically encoded message
3. Phonological encoding- phonetic plan for utterance is spelled out

Articulator
• Phonetic plan is converted into muscle movements for the articulators (tongue, lips, etc)
• Overt speech is produced
• 2 forms of feedback- internal (before articulation) and external
 Reading Comprehension

• Acquired behavior, not natural

• 5 processes in reading aquisition (Siegel, 1993):
- Phonology- association of sounds with letters
- Syntax- the way words are put together
- Working memory- ability to hold info in STM
- Comprehension of meaning or semantics
- Orthography- understanding of writing rules and knowledge of spellings
• Proficient readers not only use low-level processing to recognize individual words, but also
high-level processing skills to collect info from different sources and form meaningful
representations of texts, and relate it back to previous knowledge
• A lot of skills are combined in reading- word identification, reading fluency, vocabulary

Psycholinguistic Model
• ESL reading theory- Goodman (1967) psycholinguistic model of reading
• Regard meaning construction as a continuous process of testing the reading text
• Reader strives to predict, sample, and confirm/change previous predictions, and consequently
tests and samples the text again
• Using all textual hints is not required of a skilled reader
- The better the guessing, the less visual perceptual information is needed
• Basic psycholinguistic model was developed by Coady (1979)- suggested that reader’s
conceptual abilities and Strats act together with their background knowledge to understand the
text
- Criticism of model- role of background knowledge is not emphasized

Bottom-Up Model
• Feature detection; starts the perceptual process to create a meaningful unit for the brain to
process
• Dole et al. (1991)- a set of hierarchical sub-skills are acquired by beginner readers
consecutively to build towards comprehension ability
• Disadvantage- over-emphasizes formal features of language, such as words and structure
• Recognizing words and their meaning refers to decoding which usually are utilized in the
bottom-up processing model, whereas comprehension needs relevant background knowledge
and the application of general reading strategies
• Paran (1996)- bottom-up model assumes that the reader recognizes every letter, organizes the
perceived letter into words, and finally classifies the words into phrases, clauses, and sentences
• Meaning at any level is accessed only once the processing at the previous level is completed
• Drawback: if students focus too much on decoding every single word, their understanding of
overall meaning will be hindered (STM has a limited capacity)
• Processes: literal comprehension, surface meaning, translating to L1

Top-Down Model
• Bartlett (1932)- higher-level processes necessary to get information from the text; try to verify
or decline previous expectations
• Reading is more than a perceptual process
• Based on schema theory- schemas are structured knowledge structures about people, places,
things and events
- Try to connect information acquired through reading to information previously stored in
schemas
• Processes: skimming, scanning, triggering background knowledge

Interactive Model
• Alyousef (2005)- sees reading as an interaction between the reading and the text
• Reader uses both bottom up processes (linguistics) and top-down processes (schematic
knowledge)
• 1980s- recognized that neither bottom-up nor top-down were sufficient on their own, and came
up with an assimilation of the two in the interactive model
• Both perspectives included
- Bottom-up processors- transfer language on the page into the information it embodies
both quickly and precisely
- Top-down processors- connect this new information to the related knowledge because
they already have time to make a reasonable meaning out of the text
• Both top-down and bottom-up are important and they interact with each other when we are
reading a message
• Depends on proficiency (how much we use a certain process over the other)

Factors Affecting Comprehension

1. Background Knowledge:
- Traditionally, vocabulary learning and interpretation of meaning were emphasized in learning
how to comprehend texts, but now top-down processes are also given due importance
- Writers assume that readers have sufficient background knowledge to be able to understand
their texts
- Two types of schemata are important (Carrll and Eisterhold, 1983):
- Formal schemata- knowledge about linguistic rules regarding how text is prepared,
knowledge of language, and recognizing the main characteristics of a genre
- Content schemata- knowledge of the content
- Can be background knowledge of subject matter knowledge
2. Vocabulary Knowledge:
- Alderson (2000)- measures of reader’s vocabulary correlates highly with comprehension
- Readers require knowing 95-98% of words in text for comprehension (Liu and Nation, 1985)
- Laufer (1989)- 90-95% of words must be automatically understood
- Perfetti (1985)- lexical access is essential in reading because it is the central repeating process
in reading
 Language-in-Context

Language, Culture and Thought

• Different cultures require different degrees of specification regarding descriptions of different
objects- eg: types of computers
• Different syntax- order of verb, object, and subject in a sentence differs
• Linguistic relativity- the idea that speakers of different languages have differing cognitive
systems and that these different systems influence the ways in which people think about the
world
- Also called the Sapir-Worf hypothesis
- However, blown out of proportion- Eskimo do not have multiple words for snow
- In a milder form, language may not determine thought but may influence it. Eg: a label
for an ambiguous object affects how it is perceived (Glucksberg, 1988)
• Linguistic universals- characteristic patterns across all languages of various cultures. Eg: 11
basic colors common across languages

Language in Social Context

• Pragmatics- how language is used in social contexts
• Nonverbal communication- proxemics (interpersonal distance)- Bater (1980)- 1.2 feet of
distance in Costa Rico v/s 2.45 feet in USA
• Speech acts- what we can accomplish with speech- 5 basic categories (Searle, 1975)
- Representative- covey a belief that a given proposition is true
- Directive- attempt to get a listener to do something
- Commissive- commitment to engage in some future course of action
- Expressive- statement regarding speaker’s psychological state
- Declaration (performative)- the very act of making a statement brings about an intended
new state of affairs
- Speech acts can be direct (saying something directly) or indirect (make a statement/request
in an implicit way)
- Indirect speech acts include: (a) abilities (“can you…”); (b) desire “I would be
grateful…”; (c) future actions (“would you…”); (d) reasons (“I need you to…”)
- Pinker theory of indirect speech (2007)- communication is a mixture of cooperation and
conflict- voicing an ambiguous request will allow the listener to accept/decline without
reacting adversely to it
- Plausible deniability
- Relationship negotiation
- Language as a digital medium of indirect and direct communication
• Gricean maxims of communication: (a) quantity; (b) quality; (c) relation- should be relevant;
(d) manner- do not be vague
• Gender differences- young girls are more likely to ask for help than boys (Thomspon, 1999)
- Women disclose more about themselves than boys (Morton, 1978)
- Tannen suggests that this is because of different goals of communication (men focus on
status and independence; women focus on commitment and establishing equality)
• Metaphors and similes- metaphors juxtapose two nouns to assert similarities positively,
similes draw comparisons
- 4 components: (a) tenor- topic of metaphor; (b) vehicle- what tenor is described in terms
of; (c) ground- set of similarities between tenor and vehicle; (d) tension- dissimilarities
between the two
- Theories of metaphors:
- Comparison view- similarities define a metaphor (Malgady and Johnson, 1979)
- Anomaly view- dissimilarity defines a metaphor (Searle, 1979)
- Domain-interaction view- interaction of some kind between the domain (area of
knowledge) between the two leads to a metaphor-tenor and vehicle should be similar,
but from widely dissimilar domains
- Non-literal form of class inclusion (Glucksberg & Keysar, 1990)

Bilingualism
• Bilingualism has been found to have mixed effects- differences in populations (middle class
and balanced bilinguals v/s low SES)
- Seems to improve EF
- Vocabulary in both may be lower due to underdeveloped lexicon
• 2 types of bilingualism (Cummins, 1979)
- Additive- second language is acquired in addition to a relatively well-developed first
language
- Subtractive- elements of second replace elements of the first
• Both languages can be learned simultaneously or sequentially- fluency can develop either way
• Factors affecting second language acquisition:
1. Age- Mechelli et al. (2004) found negative correlation. However, high individual
differences and some studies find that everything except mastery of pronunciation can be
gained post-adolescence with sufficient practice
2. Novel phonemes are acquired easier than ones similar to mother tongue
3. Nature of first language- first language affects how difficult learning of the second
language is
• Theories:
- Single-system hypothesis- two languages are represented in just one system or brain
region (Hernandez et al., 2001)
- Contested- A 32-year-old French-German bilingual who suffered from a stroke and
subsequent aphasia was trained in German but was given no training in French. The
researchers found significant recovery of German, but his German language abilities
did not transfer to his French abilities (Meinzer et al., 2007)
- Dual-system hypothesis- two languages are represented in separate systems in the mind
• Dialect differences can lead to confusion