Human Cognitive -Read Entirely FIRST!!
Language I:
Basic Issues and Speech Processing
Language Basic Principles
Linguistics and Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics
The study of psychological processes involved in producing and comprehending language
Linguistic performance
Linguistics
The study of language in its pure form
Linguistic competence
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Words and Rules
- Language
A set of symbols (words) and rules (grammar) for the combination of symbols that allow for communication and comprehension
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Design Features of Language
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Animation put asterisks by defining features discussed in book
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Language in Non-human Animals
- No doubt animals possess communication systems
Honeybees
Vervet monkeys
...but do they possess the design features of language? of language….
Yes
No
No
No
No
No
| Design Feature |
| Semanticity |
| Arbitrariness |
| Displacement |
| Productivity |
| Prevarication |
| Reflectiveness |
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Language Training Projects
Do nonhumans have the capability to learn and use a system of words and rules?
Studies conducted with:
Common chimpanzees
Bonobo chimpanzees
Sea lions
Bottle-nosed dolphins
African gray parrots
Many would argue that performance does not rise to the level of human language
Labeling: Is It Word Learning?
All language training projects involve teaching labels for salient objects in the environment
Non-human animals are able to learn these labels
Does this represent linguistic ability?
Some would say no
They associate labels with objects, but labels are not referential
The label is associated with the object, but does not represent the object in the animal’s mind
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Language as Learning to Do as You are Told
Some language training projects involve nonhuman animals learning how to follow commands
Learning to follow a command requires an understanding of word order
Example: difference between bring the ball to the trainer vs. bring the trainer to the ball
Does this represent linguistic ability?
Some would say no
Only perform commands to get reward
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Language as Engaging in Social Routines
Language is social
Intentional and referential communication between at least two people
To assess this ability, cross-fostering studies have been conducted
American Sign Language taught to chimpanzees within context of daily interactions
Eventually, chimps began to produce the symbols
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Does this represent linguistic ability?
Some would say no
In order to learn symbols, experiments had to shape the hands of the chimps
Once learned, symbols had to used to gain access to desired activities
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Kanzi and the Bonobos
Most impressive evidence of language in non-humans
This work is noteworthy for several reasons
Language was learned spontaneously
Kanzi learned lexigram symbols by watching researchers use them with his mother
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Language evolved through his everyday activities; did not attempt to engage in human-like conversation
Led to a great deal of data—13,000 utterances generated over a 4-month period
Analysis revealed he:
could generate novel combinations of symbols
could distinguish between different types of symbols (nouns and verbs)
could place symbols in appropriate slots in an utterance
made up his own grammatical rules and consistently used them
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Some do not believe this represents true linguistic ability and argue for:
Nativist view of language
Language is based in brain systems that only evolved in humans
Some argue that recursion is a language characteristic that is unique to human
Embedding sentences within sentences
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Levels of Analysis
Phonology
Morphology
Syntax
Semantics
Pragmatics
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Phonology: The Sounds of Language
- Analysis of the basic speech sounds
/ / represents the sound, apart from spelling
Acoustic structure can be viewed with the use of a speech spectrograph, which produces a spectogram
Plots sound waves of differing frequencies that result from speech
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Phones and Phonemes
- Phone (phonetic)
An acoustically discriminable language sound ("a" sound in cat, vs. "a" sound in bat)
Phonetic differences do not change the meaning of a word
Phonetic level is acoustic—the physical sound that we produce
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- Phoneme (phonemic)
Speech sound represented by a single symbol
letters
Contain no meaning
Phonemic differences do change the meaning of a word
About 200 phonemes across all known languages
44 in English
Practice
Bat
3
Chat
3
Love
3
Find
4
Trick
4
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Producing Phonemes
- Consonants
Air flow in the vocal tract is obstructed
Formed by varying
Place of articulation
Where the airflow is obstructed
Manner of articulation
How the airflow is obstructed (stopped, just interrupted, etc.)
Examples:
Stop: complete closure (temporary built up of air pressure) with release (top)
Fricative: narrowing of two articulators, such that a turbulent airflow is produced (see)
Affricates: a stop consonant with a slow release (stop + fricative) (Chicken)
Voice onset time
Temporal relationship between release and vocal cord vibration
Voiced: release and vocal cord vibration occur almost simultaneously (“b”)
Voiceless: release is followed by vocal cord vibration (“p”)
Vowels
Vocal tract is open
Formed by varying placement of the tongue
Vertical: high – mid – low
Horizontal: front – central – back
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Phonemes also differ by suprasegmental factors
Rate, stress, and intonation
Coarticulation
A given phoneme sounds different depending on neighboring phonemes
Phonemes are articulated simultaneously
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Perceiving phonemes
Despite coarticulation….
- Categorical Perception
Tendency to perceive phones within a phoneme category as the same
Phonemes are invariant across different contexts
Cat
/p/
/p/at
/p/et
/p/it
/p/ot
/p/ut
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Liberman, Harris, Hoffman, and Griffith (1957)
Used speech synthesizer to produce and present speech sounds that differed on a continuum (b-d-g)
Increased voice onset time in 5 millisecond increments
Despite continuous variation in the acoustic signal, participants did not classify the sounds continuously
Classified sounds into 3 distinct categories corresponding to the phonemes /b/, /d/, and /g/
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Phoneme boundaries
Differ for every language
Development of language specific phoneme boundaries occurs early in infancy (6 months)
“Tune in” relevant phonemic differences
“Tune out” irrelevant phonemic differences
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The Importance of Context
The role of top-down processing in perceiving phonemes
Phonemic restoration effect
We tend to perceptually “replace” sounds that are missing from a speech signal
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Warren (1970)
Presented with one of four sentence:
It was found that the *eel was on the axle
It was found that the *eel was on the shoe
It was found that the *eel was on the orange
It was found that the *eel was on the table
* phoneme replaced by cough
What did subjects report hearing?
Wheel
Heel
Peel
Meal
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Morphology: From Sounds to Words
Combining phonemes into morphemes
Morpheme
Smallest unit of language that has meaning
Words, prefixes, and suffixes
Types
Free morpheme
Word or part of a word that may stand alone
Bound morpheme
Part of a word that may not stand alone (suffix or prefix)
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Practice
Loved
Two
1 free (“love”)
1 bound (“-ed”)
Unhappiness
Three
1 free (“happy”)
2 bound (“un-” and “-ness”)
Game
One
1 free (“game”)
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Producing (or “Morphing” the Spoken Word)
- How do we change the form of words? (i.e., singular to plural, present to past, etc.)
Two Systems
Regular transformation (askasked; add –ed)
Irregular transformation (know known)
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Perceiving the Spoken Word
Theories
Cohort model
When first phoneme is uttered, a set of possible matches is activated in LTM
With each successive phoneme, the set is reduced until a match found
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Allopenna, Magnuson, and Tanenhaus (1998)
Procedure
Given spoken instruction to interact with simple objects (e.g., beaker)
Target object was presented with other phonologically similar distractor objects (e.g., speaker and beetle)
Eye movements were tracked as they followed the instructions
Results
Participants glanced at the object that began with same phoneme as the target item (e.g., beetle)
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Problems with the model
Places importance on perceiving the initial phoneme
Difficult given the continuous acoustic nature of speech
Relies solely on phonology (as do other word recognition models) and ignores prosody
Rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech
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Nygaard and Queen (2008)
Investigated the role of emotional prosody in word recognition
Pitch and tone associated with emotional speaking
Independent variables
Word valence: Happy, sad, and neutral words
Tone: presented in happy, sad, or neutral tones
Task: repeat the word after hearing it
Dependent variable: RT to say the word
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Results
Congruency effect
RT to say the word was faster when valence and tone matched than when they mismatched
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Discerning Word Boundaries
- Weak relationship between breaks in the acoustic speech signal and breaks between words
Never touch a snake with your bare hands
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Bottom-up factors
Phonotactic knowledge
Sensitivity to the rules that govern phoneme combinations in a given language
Example: jp never occurs in English
Metrical segmentation
Phonological regularities of a given language
Example: In English, content words tend to start with strong syllables and end with weak syllables
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Using Statistical Probabilities to Detect Word Boundaries
Statistical regularities present in the speech sequence is used to detect word boundaries
Saffran, Aslin, and Newport (1996)
Phase 1
Presented infants with a two-minute continuous speech stream composed of 4 different 3-syllable nonsense words strung together in random order
Bidaku/padoti/golabu/fotavi
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Phase 2
Two types of test trials
Previously defined “words” heard by infants
New experimenter defined words containing the same syllables, but in new combinations
Old: bidaku/padoti/golabu/fotavi
New: kupa/dotigola/avibida/bufot
Infants controlled listening time by staring or not staring at a blinking light
Infants prefer “novelty”
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Novel
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Old
And look away when hearing old words because not novel
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Prediction
If picked up on words from phase 1
Will look at blinking light when new “words” are heard
If did not pick up on the “words” from phase 1
Will look at light for old and new “words”—both are novel
Results
Animation reveals results
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Top-down factors
Knowledge of the words in a given language help locate word boundaries
IRANDOWNTHESTAIRS
MYDOGCHASEDTHECAT
THEREDONATEAKETTLEOFTENCHIPS
Visual analog--Just like these examples, speech is a continuous stream of information, and we must impose boundaries
Parse this sentence into words—your knowledge of the words in our language help you to do it—did you get confused at beginning? Yes because Iran is a word in our language. But once you got past that, the rest was easy because down the stairs is the only parsing that works in our language. My dog chased cat—easy as no other interpretation. There donate a kettle of ten chips/the red on a tea kettle often chips/There don ate a kettle of ten chips—multiple interpretations as the boundary between words is difficult.
Consider what would happen if you had little or no familiarity with a language. Have you ever listened to a person engaged in the fluent speaking of a language other than English? It sounds like they’re talking a mile a minute, but really, this is a sort of illusion induced by your lack of familiarity with the language. Because you have only minimal (or no) knowledge of the words in that language, parsing them is nearly impossible.
Think about taking cognitive psychology in Norwegian? Would be hard.
Even in our own language we often we make mistakes
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Mondegreens
Misheard word boundaries
- Often experienced in song lyrics
Putting speech to music leads to distortions in the typical acoustic signal for speech
When the data for bottom-up processing is distorted, we apply top-down processing
Extensive experience with artist or type of music
Knowing what the person is singing about
Could additional bottom-up information help?
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Massaro and Jesse (2009)
Independent variables
Stimuli
Spoken speech
Sung speech
Computerized “talking head”
Present
Provided additional bottom-up information of facial and lip movements
Absent
Identification was better with talking head, but effect was smaller for sung than spoken speech
So the distortion created by setting morphemes to music cannot be completely overcome by additional bottom-up information.
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The Mental Lexicon
Mental lexicon
General knowledge representation of words in semantic memory
Lexical Access
Process by which a word is activated within the mental lexicon
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Factors Affecting Lexical Access
Word frequency
How commonly a word occurs in one’s day-to-day linguistic encounters
High frequency words are more easily and quickly accessed than low-frequency words
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Foss (1969)
Phoneme monitoring task
Listen for a target phoneme (e.g., /g/) while attempting to comprehend a speech passage
Target phoneme occurred after a:
low-frequency word
high-frequency word
Dependent variable: RT to detect the target phoneme
Results
RT was longer after a low than high-frequency word
Additional resources are needed to access a low-frequency word, slowing RT
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Lexical ambiguity
A word that has more than one meaning
Does encountering an ambiguous word, activate all representations or just the one relevant to the context?
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Foss (1970)
Phoneme monitoring task
Listen for a target phoneme (e.g., /g/) while attempting to comprehend a speech passage
Target phoneme occurred after:
an ambiguous word
a non-ambiguous word
Dependent variable: RT to detect the target phoneme
Results
RT was longer after ambiguous than non-ambiguous words
Both representations were activated and additional resources are needed to disambiguate, slowing RT
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The Bilingual Lexicon
Separate stores approach
Two separate mental lexicons; one for each language
The one that is accessed corresponds to the language being used
Support
Priming in lexical decision tasks is stronger for same word than cross-language equivalent prime
“cat-cat” > “gato-cat”
Priming would be the same if gato and cat shared one representation in the mental lexicon
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Common stores approach
One common mental lexicon that is accessed by all languages
Support
RT to decide if a concept (gato, or cat) is a member of category (animal or sustanivo) is the same for concept-category match as mismatch
Cat-animal = gato-animal
RT would differ if two representations were accessed
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Preponderance of the evidence supports the common-stores approach, but:
Depends on the nature of the lexical item
Cross-linguistic cognates (flute and flauta) are more likely to share a common representation
Depends on the nature of the bilingual individual
Late bilinguals (2nd language late in development) tend to have separate lexicons for each language
Those who learn both languages early in development tend to have a common lexicon
It is possible that bilinguals can choose which mode to use depending on task demands
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Entrance Into the Mental Lexicon: Word Learning
Estes, Evans, and Alibali (2007)
Investigated if infants could associate new learned “word” sequences to objects
Procedure
Phase 1
Used Saffran, et al. (1996) procedure to teach infants new “words”
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Phase 2
Word-labeling habituation task
Object is moved about while hearing a “word” label
Conditions
Word condition
“word” was learned in phase 1
Non-word condition
“word” was not learned in phase 1
“Word” label-object pair shown until habitation
Infant stops looking at moving object
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Phase 3
Object presented with a word label
Conditions
Same condition
Same label associated with “word” in phase 2
Switch condition
Label was associated with a another “word” in phase 2
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Prediction
If an infant learned the “word” label in phase 1 and associated label with a specific object in phase 2
Infant should:
be surprised by the new label (switch condition)
not be surprised by the same label (same condition)
Consequence
Infant should stare longer at the object in the switch condition than the same condition
Results
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Syntax and Semantics: From Words to Sentences
Syntax
Set of rules that specify legal combinations of words within a given language
Semantics
Set of rules that govern the effective transmission of meaning
The boy kissed the girl
The girl was kissed by the boy
Boy the girl the kissed
Colorless green dreams sleep furiously
The cat chased the dog
His insecurities chased him in his dreams
1 and 2 are the same semantically but differ syntactically
3 is syntactically and semantically invalid
4 is syntactically valid but semantically invalid
5 is syntactically and semantically valid but unusual based on our semantic knowledge
6 is syntactically and semantically valid but violates the literal meaning of chase yet we understand the meaning is metaphorical
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Dissociation that supports distinction between syntactic and semantic processing
Broca’s aphasia
Associated with frontal lobe damage
Loss of syntactic ability, but preserved semantic ability
Wernicke’s aphasia
Associated with temporal lobe damage
Loss of semantic ability, but preserved syntactic ability
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Transformational Grammar
Noam Chomsky argued that language cannot be learned due to the “poverty of the stimulus”
Children apply rules (represented physiologically from birth) to the symbols of language
Develops in the absence of formal “teaching”
True regardless of the language being spoken, so approach is often referred to as universal grammar
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Phrase Structure, Surface Structure, and Deep Structure
- Phrase structure
The rules that define:
the fundamental components of a sentence
the types of words that comprise these components
the ways that words may be arranged
…but phrase structure is insufficient to explain the production and comprehension of a sentences
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- Sentences exist at two levels
Surface structure
Superficial external version of sentence
Syntax
Deep Structure
Meaning of the sentence
Semantics
Sentence generation
Phrase structure rules used to create the deep structure
Transformational rules are applied to the deep structure to create the surface structure
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Challenges to Chomsky
(Non) Universal Grammar?
Evans and Levison (2009) review
Diversity of the world’s languages makes it improbable that a set of features describes all of them
Estimated that current languages only constitute 2% of all languages ever spoken
Current linguists and psycholinguists only study 10% of that 2%!
Making universal language claims based on studies of this limited range of languages seems invalid
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Pinker and Jackendoff (2009)
Acknowledge linguistic diversity is often ignored
Disagree that no aspect of language can be considered universal
Semanticity all languages convey meaning
Universal grammar is a set of abilities that allow a person to develop language
These abilities manifest themselves regardless of the specific linguistic context
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Language: Not So Unlearnable?
Constraint-based approach
Language is filled with probabilistic constraints that can be used during language learning
For example, through linguistic experience we learn that:
Some meanings of words are more probable than others
The structure of a sentence constrains how parts of the sentence can be interpreted
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Pinker (2007)
Probabilistic constraints used to learn how syllables combine into words don’t generalize to combining words into sentences
Words can be constructed in a finite number of ways
Sentences can be constructed in an infinite number of ways
Sentence and syllable sequencing are fundamentally different
Sentence sequencing isn’t just about sequencing words, but hierarchically organizing them to convey meaning
Syllable sequencing does not require this
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Child Directed Speech (CDS)
- Adult speech with infants
Altered prosody
High pitched
Exaggerated ups and downs
Slower cadence
Well-articulated and exaggerated phonemes
Found in all cultures
Infants show preference for this type of speech relative to normal adult speech
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- Altered prosody of CDS
Serves two functions
Linguistic function
Helps distinguish non-informative, nonlinguistic sounds from informative, linguistic sounds
Helps segment speech signal into words by isolating them with exaggerated pauses
Conveys syntactic rules
Emotional
Positive affect draws infant’s attention to important aspects of the environment
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Burnham, Kitamura, and Vollmer-Coona (2002)
We talk to pets in a similar way as we talk to infants
Limited to pitch and affect (emotional prosody), but not vowel hyperarticulation (linguistic prosody)
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Kempe, Shaeffler, and Thoresen (2010)
Investigated the relationship between the emotional and linguistic prosodic cues to syntax
Varied the emotional relationship between adult and child
High affect: mother talking to own child
Low affect: non-mother talking to child
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Task
Convey a syntactically ambiguous instruction (touch the cat with the spoon) that represented one of two meanings
Prosodic indication for this interpretation is a pause between cat and spoon
Prosodic indicator for this interpretation is the lack of a pause between cat and spoon
Animation reveals which picture the prosodic indicators represent
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Results
CDS prosody provided disambiguating information, but only for non-mothers
Mothers lengthened all pauses (emotional prosody) not just the one between cat and spoon
Conclusions
Non-mothers use prosodic cues to syntactic structure to maximize the effectiveness of the communication
Emotional prosodic cues (exaggerated pauses) diminish prosodic cues to syntax
Mothers use CDS to forge a bond with the infant, rather than produce effective communication
Makes evolutionary sense
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…other evidence for the evolutionary value of CDS
Put the baby down hypothesis
Early in the evolution of language, mothers needed to put their baby down to complete daily tasks
Song-like vocalizations kept the baby content
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Pragmatics: The Social Aspects of Language
- Practical knowledge we need to use language effectively
Conversational Structure
Characteristics
Conversations start with one of several standard greetings
Most of the time, standard greetings are met with standard response
Conversations involve turn-taking; conversational overlap is rare
Turn-taking styles vary and tend to be a stable characteristic of a person’s conversational style
- Three principles that guide turn-taking in conversations
Current speaker may choose the next speaker by directing a comment or question to a particular person
If this does not happen, it is acceptable for anyone to fill the conversational gap
The original speaker may continue talking
- Four Gricean maxims
Contract between speakers that has the following characteristics
Quantity
Say as much as you need to, but not more
Quality
Don’t say things that you believe to be false or for which you lack evidence
Relation
Be relevant to the topic at hand
Manner
Be clear; avoid obscurity and ambiguity
Gender and Conversation
Conversational differences between men and woman
Woman tend to be more polite than men
Woman tend to use indirect requests
Meaning communicated does match the explicitly stated meaning of the request
Woman tend to employ tag questions and hedges
Tag questions: questions added to the end of a statement like “isn’t it?”
Hedges: qualifiers like “kind of”
Male conversations feature more interruptions
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What do these gender differences indicate?
Reflect power differences between men and woman
Simply reflect differences in way the gender’s prefer to communicate
Some argue that gender differences are not consistent
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Mehl, Vazire, Ramírez-Esparza, Slatcher, and Pennebaker (2007)
Investigated the oft-cited 3:1 female to male dominance in conversations
Used an electronically activated recorder (EAR) to record natural conversations
Recorded for 30 seconds every 12.5 minutes extrapolated likely daily output for the day
400 individuals wore the EAR during waking hours
Results
Conversation output was the same for men and women
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Thomson, Murachver, and Green (2001)
Speakers change their conversation style so that it matches the style of the person with whom they are conversing
Men talk like women when conversing with women and vice versa
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Putting It All Together: Speech Perception and Production
Speech Production
Stages of Speech Production
- Conceptualizing
Deciding what we want to say
- Planning
Developing a linguistic plan–organizing our thoughts in terms of language
- Articulating
Executing the linguistic plan
- Self-monitoring
Tracking what we say to determine if message and tone are as intended
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Conceptualizing
Difficult to investigate, so little is known about it
Planning and Articulating
Slips of the tongue serve as a rich database for investigating the stages of language production
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Slips of the tongue
Errors in which sounds or entire words are rearranged between 2 or more different words
8 types
A thee prage paper (three page paper)
- One segment disappears from its appropriate location and appears somewhere else
- Shift
R disappears from three and appears in page
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The cookie is ginormous (gigantic or enormous)
- Occurs when more than one word is being considered and the two intended items "fuse“ into a single item
- Blend
Gigantic and enormous fuse into ginormous
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The new “Winnie the Pooh” Blue Roo disk (Blue Ray disk)
- Earlier segment replaces a later segment, but does not disappear from its appropriate location
- Perseveration
Earlier “oo” sound in Pooh or Blue places the later “ay” sound but does not disappear from its appropriate location
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What’s the feather forecast (weather forecast)
- Later segment replaces an earlier segment, but does not disappear from its appropriate location
- Anticipation
Later ‘’f’ sound replaces an earlier “w” sound but does not disappear from its appropriate location
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Please untie your shoe (tie your shoe)
- The addition of linguistic materials (added linguistic unit is not from the rest of the utterance)
- Addition
“un’’ is added to “tie”
Joe Nathan is done—he needs Jimmy John surgery (Tommy John)
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She is occupied with the problem at work (preoccupied)
- The removal of linguistic material
- Deletion
“pre” is removed from occupied
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I want to bank my thoss (thank my boss)
- Two segments exchange places; both segments disappear from their appropriate location
- Exchange
“b” and “th” exchange places, both disappearing from their appropriate location
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We destroyed the major (revised the major)
- When one segment is replaced by an intruder (source of the intrusion is not in the rest of the utterance)
- Substitution
destroyed replaces revised
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Be Careful !!!!!!
I straw the boy on the seet (saw the boy on the street)
Shift
Remember it is sounds that are moving
Practice:
Shift-- tr is moving NOT s exchanging with str
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Slips of the tongue can occur at any linguistic level
Phoneme level
Morpheme level
Word level
But within an utterance, slips only occur at one level
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A thee prage paper (three page paper)
- Shift
- Phoneme level
The cookie is ginormous (gigantic or enormous)
- Blend
- Word level
The new “Winnie the Pooh” Blue Roo disk (Blue Ray disK)
- Perseveration
- Phoneme
What’s the feather forecast (feather forecast)
- Anticipation
- Phoneme level
Please untie your shoe (tie your shoe)
- Addition
- Morpheme level
She is occupied with problems at work (preoccupied)
- Deletion
- Morpheme level
I want to bank my thoss (thank my boss)
- Exchange
- Phoneme level
We destroyed the major (revised the major)
- Substitution
- Word level
Consistencies in slips of the tongue
Interacting elements tend to
come from similar positions within a word
be similar to one another
receive the same stress they would have if they had not interacted
Interactions tend to be based on phonological, rather than semantic similarity
Slips obey the rules of phonology
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Explanation for slips of the tongue
Cognitive explanations differ in terms of the process involved in planning and articulation
Stages occur in serial or parallel fashion
Stages
Stage 1
Conceptualization and determination of syntactical structure
Stage 2
Insertion of content words and/or free morphemes into the word slots
Stage 3
Insertion of bound morphemes
Stage 4
Insertion of function words
Stage 5
Overt articulation
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Stage 1
Idea: In the past, an old man was enjoying listening to music
____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____ ____
Stage 2
____ ____
Stage 3
____ old man enjoy listen ____ music
Stage 4
old man enjoyed listening music
Stage 5
The old man enjoyed listening to music
old
man
enjoy
listen
ed
music
ing
The
to
The old man enjoyed listening to music
Stage 1
- Conceptualization and determination of syntactical structure
Stage 2
- Insertion of content words and/or free morphemes into the word slots
Stage 3
- Insertion of bound morphemes
Stage 4
- Insertion of function words
Stage5
- Overt articulation
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Blend slips of the tongue
Occur at stage 1
Word-level slips
Occur at stage 2
Morpheme level slips
Occur at stage 2 if a free morpheme
Occur at stage 3 if a bound morpheme
Phoneme level slips
Occur at stage 5
A thee prage letter (three page letter)
- Shift
- Phoneme Level
- Stage 5
The cookie is ginormous (gigantic or enormous)
- Blend
- Word Level
- Stage 1
The new “Winnie the Pooh” Blue Roo disk (Blue Ray disk)
- Perseveration
- Phoneme Level
- Stage 5
What is the feather forecast (feather forecast)
- Anticipation
- Phoneme Level
- Stage 5
Please untie your shoe (tie your shoe)
- Addition
- Morpheme level
Bound morpheme
- Stage 3
She is occupied with problems at work (preoccupied)
- Deletion
- Morpheme level
Bound morpheme
- Stage 3
I want to bank my thoss (thank my boss)
- Exchange
- Phoneme level
- Stage 5
We destroyed the major (revised)
- Substitution
- Word level
- Stage 2
Freudian explanation
Emphasized the role of psychodynamic forces in making certain content more available than others
Slips-of-the-tongue arise from the mutually opposing action of two different intentions/thoughts
Conscious intention of the speaker
Unconscious disturbing thought/intention
The disturbing comment is typically censored
When a slip-of-the-tongue occurs, it represents some aspect of the unconscious intention
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Motley Baars (1979)
Procedure
Presented with pairs of words or nonsense syllables were presented
HAT – RAM
RUF – GAM
At random times, buzzer sounded, and they were to say the previous pair aloud
Design
Experimental groups
Heightened sexual arousal
Heightened fear of shock
Control group
Concerned with neither sex nor shock
Materials
Some nonsense-syllable pairs were designed to promote sex-related slips
GOXY FURL (FOXY GIRL)
LOOD GEGS (GOOD LEGS)
Some nonsense-syllable pairs were designed to promote shock-related slips
SHAD BOCK (BAD SHOCK)
WOT-HIRE (HOT WIRE)
Some pairs did not suggest slips related to either sex or shock
HOT-GAM
Results
Self-Monitoring
Process by which we keep track of what we’re saying and change it as necessary
Unknown if we edit what we say before we say it
But we engage in self-repair after an utterance is made
We interrupt ourselves when we detect an error
We issue an editing expression
We repair what we’ve said
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Perceptual self-loop theory
Two chances at repair
Internal monitoring before utterance is articulated
External monitoring after utterance is heard and comprehended
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Slevc and Ferreira (2006)
Investigated if internal monitoring process is more sensitive to phonological or semantic factors
Utilized a stop-signal paradigm
Presented with line drawings (i.e., target) of everyday objects (e.g., couch)
Task: name the object as quickly as possible
Presentation was followed by:
Word label for the object
A different word
This was a stop-signal and participants were to withhold their response
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Conditions
Varied the relationship between stop-signal and the target
Phonologically related (e.g., pouch)
Semantically related (e.g., sofa)
Prediction
Stopping should be more difficult when stop-signal matches what is going on internally
If internal monitoring process is phonological
Harder to stop when target and stop-signal are phonologically related
If internal monitoring process is semantic
Harder to stop when target and stop-signal are semantically related
Results
Animation reveals the result
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Speech Perception
- Modular view
Language processes cannot be explained in terms of other cognitive processes
Speech is special—comprised by a unique set of abilities and capacities
- Nonmodular view
Language processes can be explained by normal cognitive processes
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Motor Theory of Speech Perception
- Modular view of speech perception
Implicit knowledge about how speech sounds are articulated aids perception of those speech sounds
Two important principles:
Only humans possess the ability to produce speech and so only humans can perceive speech
Speech perception is innate—special mechanism present at birth
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Arguments for a special speech mechanism
Categorical perception
Special mechanism to deal with coarticulation
Different from other perceptual abilities where fine discriminations are possible
The speed of processing required to perceive speech
Phonemes occur at a rate of 10-20 per second
Special mechanism is needed as other perceptual abilities cannot make such fast discriminations
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Auditory Theory of Speech Perception
Nonmodular view of speech perception
Speech perception is just another exercise in auditory perception and pattern recognition
Other species share similar auditory abilities to humans, so should be able to perceive speech
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Refuting the speech is special view
Unit of perception may be the syllable, not the phoneme
If so:
Coarticulation is not so problematic
Processing speed could be slower (10-15 units per second)
In line with other perceptual abilities
Categorical perception may not be so categorical
More evident with consonants than vowels
While phenomenologically true, we are capable of finer-grained discriminations
Nonhumans can perceive speech
Quail can perceive phonemic categories
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Re-Assessment: Kind of Special
A resurgence of interest in the motor theory as it fits with:
Findings from embodied cognition
The processing of mirror neurons
React the same way when perceiving an act as when performing an act
Could be the link between speech perception and production proposed by the motor theory
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Evidence for speech being special is mixed
Speech would be special if:
It was the only perceptual system directly tied to the motor system
It’s not
It was the only auditory stimulus whose perception required more than just the acoustic signal
It’s not
If it utilized auditory perception mechanisms dedicated exclusively to speech
Different brain areas are devoted to vocal vs. nonvocal sounds
Same brain mechanism used for speech and nonspeech sounds
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Some think it is special enough in that its link to the motor system warrants further investigation
However this link does not necessitate the need for a “special mechanism”
Others argue that the only thing special about speech is its importance for daily living
The study of speech should be subsumed under a general auditory cognitive science framework
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