Introduction

Psycholinguistics is a discipline which has been considered to be the “marriage” between Psychology and Linguistics and, thus, it has to do with mental (cognitive) processes and language. Although this academic blog will cope with that topics, the core one is related to L2 learning and bilingualism, since we are studying to become teachers of English as a foreign language.

In order to clarify the right order of the research, I suggest to click on the “etiquetas” in the following order:

- Introduction

- Key Concepts

- Psycholinguistics / Cognitive Processes

- Language Brain

- Language Acquisition

- First Language Acquisition

- Second Language Learning and Bilingualism

- Conclusion

- Sources

Furthermore, if you are engaged and interested in this topic, there is a brief survey to be answered and some interesting links to study Psycholinguistics in depth.

Sources

Books

• De Bot, Kees and Kroll, Judith F. (Chapter 8) “Psycholinguistics”

• Taylor, Insup and Taylor, M. Martin “Psycholinguistics: Learning and Using Language” (1990). Prentice – Hall, Inc. New Jersey

• Field, John “Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts” (2004). TJ International Ltd. Padstow, Cornwall

Internet

• http://www.utexas.edu/courses/linguistics/resources/psycholing/

• http://liceu.uab.es/~joaquim/general_linguistics/internet_ling/rec_ling_internet.html

• http://www.sil.org/linguistics/topical.html#languages

• http://www.wikipedia.org

• http://www.youtube.com

To Sum Up and Conclude

Creating an academic blog on Psycholinguistics has not been an easy task to deal with, because this subfield of Linguistics is concerned with complex processes, such as cognitive processes, language, brain processes, etc which are connected with language acquisition and language learning (in Krashen’s words). Thus, the following conclusions will try to analyse the most valuable and relevant contributions of this discipline towards L2 teaching/learning.

First of all, most theories and hypothesis held by the different representatives of this discipline have a strong weight in this discussion, since several important notions about different topics are extremely relevant and significant to understand L1 acquisition and L2 learning. For example, it would have been very difficult trying to understand the two processes previously mentioned without understanding the Critical Period hypothesis.

Second, although the insistence on considering early language acquisition as the most successful way to master a new language, it will be always positive learning something new, no matter if somebody is ninety years old or is not that “kind” of people who are considered to have a special aptitude (talent or gift) for language learning and use. Probably, that person will learn, at least, some new words that will be useful to open his/her mind, since knowing new concepts and their deep meaning broadens the scope of understanding one’s own language.

Third, and closely related to the previous idea, if L2 teachers are aware of the importance that learning a new language can have for their students, and the motivation that this importance implies, it will not be difficult to teach a L2 language, though their students are not highly proficient L2 learners. Why? Because teachers and students will be open to learn from each other, in a relaxed and cooperative atmosphere.

And last, but not least, research on psycholinguistic issues should leave the laboratories, in order to carry out investigation in real-world settings, which would be much more meaningful for us, for example, future teachers of English, people who want to teach based on a reliable theory (and as close to the reality as possible) about L2 learning.

Second Language Learning and Bilingualism

First of all, it must be stated that there is a distinction between Acquisition and Learning, according to Krashen (1982), acquisition is a process by which children unconsciously acquire their native language; and learning is a conscious knowledge of a second language, knowing the rules, being aware of them, and being able to talk about them.

Therefore, a bilingual speaker uses two languages, that differs in speech sounds, vocabulary and syntax; that is why bilingualism may also involve a dialect and a standard language. For example, there are countries in Africa where one official language (often one of the former colonizers’ languages) coexist with diverse other vernacular languages.

Early Bilingualism

As it was stated previously, acquiring a language strongly differs from learning a language, since a child acquires or picks up a language informally, mainly by being exposed to them, whereas an older child (or an adult) learns a language through conscious effort and often using formal methods (such as, school, e-learning, etc). So, we can distinct early bilinguals (those who have acquired their languages before about 6 years old) from late bilinguals or second/foreign language learners (those who have learnt their languages in adolescence and adulthood). As a consequence, early bilinguals are more likely to attain native-like proficiency than late bilinguals are.

The previous idea can have strong consequences in the person’s life, since a language acquired in early childhood (even when “forgotten” from long years of disuse) can leave some residue in the mind, making later learning of the same language easier. A so called completely forgotten language can reemerge under special circumstances, such as hypnosis.

Advantages of Early Acquisition of L2

Some of the most important are:

- Neurologically, the brain functions of young children are more “plastic” than those of older people.

- Sociologically, children enjoy ten favorable conditions for language acquisition (some of them are: they have a compelling need to communicate, they have imitative impulses, family members tolerate children’s ‘cute errors’, speech is used in a concrete way, in a context of here and now, etc.

- In Phonology, older people have lost some ability to discriminate and pronounce sounds that do not occur in their early language.

Early Acquisition versus Late Learning of L2

Although all the convicing ideas exposed above, some researches claim that early adolescence is the optimal period for L2 learning, considering that older children are superior to younger children in knowledge of the world, cognitive capacities, ability to read, disciplined classroom behaviour, study habits and test-taking experiences.

Despite younger ones are superior in listening comprehension and interpersonal communicative skills, older students are superior in reading comprehension, cognitive – academic aspects of language proficiency and can also learn certain linguistic items and rules faster than younger children.

As a conclusion, we can state that by starting L2 acquisition early, a child can reap the benefits of both early acquistion and late learning, but by starting late, he/she misses the benefits of early acquisition. Furthermore, L1 acquisition and L2 learning have outstanding advantages and some so called disadvantages.

L2 Learning Stages

To learn about the stages of L2 learning in a more entertaining way, watch the video below:

However, if you are a more “traditional” learner, click on the following link: L2 Learning to
read about the five stages of L2 Learning.

Important Concepts on Bilingualism and L2 Learning

- Language (Code) Switching: refers to a bilingual tendency to switch from one language to another, which does not need to take much time, is not disruptive and a bilingual can not turn off one language while he/she is turned on to another.

- Linguistic Interference: refers to the involuntary intrusion of one language into another (usually from L1 to L2) in phonology, vocabulary, syntax and conversational conventions, which is less likely to be permanent and intractable in children than in adults. The types of interference can be predicted by comparing the two language systems.

- Keeping Languages Apart?: words from two languages can be stored:

- in one common store for both languages,

- in separate stores for two languages, and

- in a distributed way, with both overlapping and separated elements across related words from the two languages. If you want to understand this better, look at the following representation:

If you want to learn more about Bilingualism and L2 Learning, click on the following link: Bilinguals and L2 Learners

Language Acquisition

Because of the fact Psycholinguistics is not an easy subject to deal with, it was necessary to explain all the concepts, ideas, theories that have been previously exposed in the blog, and now, we are ready to understand L1 and L2 acquisition which are the most important topics to be considered. Therefore, in order to comprehend how we acquire a language, several theories have tried to explain this complex process, considering diverse aspects of language, society, age, etc which can sometimes be mutually exclusive, but can also be complementary theories.

Some of the most important theoretical positions are: Behaviourism, which considers language as a set of habits, with associations formed between words and the real-world states/objects which they refer to. In simple words, it is principally a theory of learning based upon the relationship between an external stimulus and the individual’s response to it through acquired behaviour. One influential author in the behaviourist position is B.F Skinner, who claimed that a child acquires language through imitating adult utterances and based his theory on the ideas of operant conditioning and negative/positive reinforcement.

Empiricism claims that language is acquired through extended exposure to adult speech and a desire to make sense of the environment. In other words, it is stated that all knowledge is acquired through experience and that the speech to which the child is exposed provides linguistic information of sufficient quality and quantity to support acquisition.

Nativism considers there is an innate language faculty, which is fully developed at birth or programmed into the maturation process. In other words, it is the view that language is genetically transmitted. The nativist position is closely related to Chomsky’s Universal Grammar, which, in simple words, is understood as a set of innate principles and adjustable parameters (lexical categories, structure-dependency, etc) that are common to all human languages. If you want to read more about this theory, there is an absorbing paper called Nature, Nurture and Universal Grammar.

Cognitivism affirms that a general cognitive predisposition equips infants to trace patterns in the miscellaneous language which they encounter. In addition to the previous general idea, some important cognitive views are that: a child can not express concepts in language unless it has previously developed them; both language and cognition are part of a staged maturation programme, in which they operate in parallel, supporting each other; innate cognitive tendencies can predispose us to find certain patterns in language data and to adopt certain strategies in response to language data, to apply individual learning styles to language data; the child’s limited cognitive capacity renders it more sensitive to the features of language than it might be before or later.

“Less is more” theory, closely related to the cognitivist one, states that the cognitive limitations of the infant equip it for cracking the language code, because it can be an advantage in terms of language acquisition that they notice only the most general syntactic patterns and only manage to hold a few words of an utterance in short-term memory.

Social-interactionism claims that language is acquired through the infant’s desire to interact with its carers. In other words, it emphasises the parts played by the child’s environment, its social instincts, its pragmatic needs and its relationship with the carer. A very important representative of the social-interactionist thinking was Lev Vygotsky. He was a Russian psychologist, who saw the child’s development as a progress from dependency to independence, since the adult offers support, recently termed scaffolding (looked at the representation below), which is gradually withdrawn as a task becomes more familiar and as the child becomes more practised.Other important representatives are Jerome Bruner and M.A.K Halliday.

Connectionism has raised the possibility that language is acquired by a process of association and without the need of cognitive pattern-recognition skills.A good example of this model is Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP).

Language and the Brain

A very important aspect that must be considered in the study of Psycholinguistics is related to the brain. Since this field of Linguistics is concerned with the study of language acquisition, the characteristics and areas of this organ are involved in our scope of study. However, in this academic blog, the most essential and meaningful features will be highlighted in order to understand better the complex system called language. Moreover, Neurolinguistics is the study of the relationship between lanaguge and the brain, and we are not studying that discipline, but Psycholinguistics (which does not mean these two fields of Linguistics are separate areas, indeed, they are closely related to each other).

Parts of the brain

Since it was already said, some areas of the brain are essential for the use of language abilities and they are the following four: Broca’s area (also called anterior speech cortex), which was studied by a French surgeon (Paul Broca), who stated that damage to this specific part of the brain was related to extreme difficulty in producing speech, being concluded that Broca’s area is crucially involved in the production of speech. Wernicke’s area (also called posterior cortex), which was studied by a German doctor (Carl Wernicke), who stated that damage to this part of the brain was found among patients who had speech comprehension difficulties, being concluded that Wernicke’s area is crucially involved in the understanding of speech. The motor cortex, which was studied by the neurosurgeons Penfield and Roberts, generally controls movement of the muscles, being specified that close to the Broca’s area is the part of the motor cortex that controls the articulatory muscles of the face, jaw, tongue and larynx. The arcuate fasciculus, which is a bundle of nerve fibers, was also discovered by Carl Wernicke and it forms a crucial connection between Wernicke’s and Broca’s areas.

Brain Lateralisation

Since all the previously mentioned areas are located in the left hemisphere, it has been stated that this hemisphere has or develops a special responsability fro language; in fact, in most human beings, language appears to be particularly associated with the left hemisphere of the brain. The evidence comes from several sources, such as: brain damage, commisurotomy, wada injections and dichotic listening. And it is in the last source that this research will be focused, because of its connection with the field of Psycholinguistics.

First of all, we have to explain that a dichotic listening test is an experimental technique which has demonstrated that the language functions must be located in the left hemisphere, using the generally established fact that “anything experienced on the right-hand side of the body is processed in the left hemisphere of the brain and anything on the left side is processed in the right hemisphere”. Therefore, in simple words, the previous assumption leads us to think that:

The Experiment itself: a person sits with a set of earphones on and he/she is given two different sounds signals simultaneously, one through each earphone (for example, through one comes the sound dog, and through the other, comes the sound cat). When the man/woman is asked to say what was heard, he/she often identifies the sound which comes via the right ear. This process has been known as the right ear advantage for linguistic sounds.

But why? Because the language signal received through the left ear is FIRST sent to the right hemisphere AND THEN has to be sent to the left hemisphere for processing. While, a signal received through the right ear goes DIRECTLY to the left hemisphere and the first signal to get processed wins.

Perhaps, the explanation will be clearer if you have a look at the following representation of the language route:

It is also thought that the right hemisphere has the responsability for processing many incoming signals of a non-linguistics nature, because in the dichotic listening tests, the non-verbal sounds are recognized more often via the left ear, such as music, coughs, etc. Although, it can not be stated that the right hemisphere ONLY handles non-verbal sounds and that the left hemisphere handles language sounds, since we should avoid a reduccionist view of the human brain.

Up to now, you can conclude the brain lateralisation is closely related to the critical period (briefly explained in the key concepts), seeing it is generally thought that the lateralisation process begins in early childhood and it coincides with the period during the language acquisition takes place (this discussion will be explained below, in the section called first language acquisition).

If you want to watch an interesting video on what has been discused here, click on the following link: LEFT HEMISPHERE

In addition, if you want to watch another interesting video on what has been discused here, click on the following link: RIGHT HEMISPHERE

Finally, I challenge you to look at the following picture and say the COLOR, NOT THE WORD:

Why is it too difficult to do? Because your right hemisphere is trying to “say” the color, but your left hemisphere insists on reading the word. Interesting, isn’t it?

First Language Acquisition

All normal infants, no matter their cultural differences, develop language at roughly the same time, but they progress at different rates. Although this biological schedule is tied very much to the maturation of the child’s brain and the lateralization process, we can not forget the diverse social factors in the infant’s environment.

But, in order to be clear and not to get lost with too many details, when considering a “normal” child, several stages have been established, which are the following ones:

STAGE	CHARACTERISTICS
Cooing (about 0 – 3 months) Prelinguistic stage	Gurgling moves on to vocalisation involving sounds which resemble vowels. The first recognizable sounds are velar consonants (such as /k/ and /g/) as well as higher vowels (such as /i/ and /u/. The child responds vocally to human speech.
Babbling (from 0 – 6 months) Prelinguistic stage	The infant produces consonant vowel sequences which can resemble those of the L1. The child’s later productions become imitative.
Echolalia (from 0 – 8 months)	The child imitates adult intonation patterns with some degree of accuracy.
One-word or Holophrastic Stage (from 1 year – onwards)	Holphrastic means a single form functioning as a phrase or sentence. Therefore, from the twelve months, the child begins to produce a variety of recognizable single unit utterances. While most of these single forms are used for naming objects, they can suggest the child is already extending their use. Moreover, the infant can have a vocabulary of around fifty words, usually nouns, and he/she is able to recognize the referential function of words.
Two-word Stage (from 18 months – onwards)	The infant’s vocabulary moves beyond fifty words. But the most significant consequence is that the child not only produces speech, but receives feedback. Some “mini-sentences” with simple semantic relationships are produced by the child.
Telegraphic Stage (from 2 years – onwards)	Telegraphic speech refers to the absence of most function words. Moreover, the two-word combinations exhibit a set of primitive semantic relationships of which the earliest are usually naming (this), recurrence (more) and non-existence (no). At about the same time, the vocabulary burst begins (that is a sudden rapid increase in the vocabulary produced by the child), with an increase of about six to ten words a day. He/she has developed some sentence-building capacity and the pronunciation has become closer to the form of the adult language.
Multi-word Stage (from 3 years – onwards)	The infant uses strings of three or more words, often based upon established two-word patterns. The adult syntactic patterns gradually become more prevalent.

Infant’s Language Acquisition Conclusions

Children actually are not “taught” language, but they actively construct, from what is said to them, possible ways of using the language. Then, the child’s linguistic production is mostly trying out constructions and testing if they work or not. That is why adult correction does not seem to be a very effective determiner of how the child speaks. However, one factor that seems to be extremely relevant in the child’s acquisition process is the actual use of sounds and word combinations, either in interaction with others or in word-play, alone.

Finally, it is usually assumed that, by the age of five, the infant has completed the greater part of the basic language acquisition process. According to some authors, the child is then in a good position to start learning a second or foreign language.