Language production

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Language production is the production of spoken or written language. In psycholinguistics, it describes all of the stages between having a concept to express and translating that concept into linguistic forms. These stages have been described in two types of processing models: the lexical access models and the serial models. [1] [2] Through these models, psycholinguists can look into how speeches are produced in different ways, such as when the speaker is bilingual. Psycholinguists learn more about these models and different kinds of speech by using language production research methods that include collecting speech errors and elicited production tasks. [3]

Contents

Stages involved

Language production consists of several interdependent processes which transform a nonlinguistic message into a spoken, signed, or written linguistic signal. Though the following steps proceed in this approximate order, there are plenty of interaction and communication between them. The process of message planning is an active area of psycholinguistic research, but researchers have found that it is an ongoing process throughout language production. Research suggests that messages are planned in roughly the same order that they are in an utterance. [4] But, there is also evidence that suggests the verbs that give case may be planned earlier than objects, even when the object is said first. [5] After identifying a message, or part of a message, to be linguistically encoded, a speaker must selects the individual words—also known as lexical items—to represent that message. This process is called lexical selection. The words are selected based on their meaning, which in linguistics is called semantic information. Lexical selection activates the word's lemma, which contains both semantic and grammatical information about the word. [6]

This grammatical information is then used in the next step of language production, grammatical encoding. [7] Critical grammatical information includes characteristics such as the word's syntactic category (noun, verb, etc.), what objects it takes, and grammatical gender if it is presents in the language. Using some of these characteristics as well as information about the thematic roles of each word in the intended message, each word is then assigned the grammatical and thematic role it will have in the sentence. [8] Function morphemes, like the plural /s/ or the past tense /ɪd/, are added in this stage as well. After an utterance, or part of one, has been formed, it then goes through phonological encoding. In this stage of language production, the mental representation of the words to be spoken is transformed into a sequence of speech sounds to be pronounced. The speech sounds are assembled in the order they are to be produced. [9]

The basic loop occurring in the creation of language consists of the following stages:

According to the lexical access model (see section below), in terms of lexical access, two different stages of cognition are employed; thus, this concept is known as the two-stage theory of lexical access. The first stage, lexical selection provides information about lexical items required to construct the functional level representation. These items are retrieved according to their specific semantic and syntactic properties, but phonological forms are not yet made available at this stage. The second stage, retrieval of wordforms, provides information required for building the positional level representation. [10]

Models

Serial model

A serial model of language production divides the process into several stages. [1] For example, there may be one stage for determining pronunciation and a stage for determining lexical content. The serial model does not allow overlap of these stages, so they may only be completed one at a time.

Connectionist model

Several researchers have proposed a connectionist model, one notable example being Dell. [11] According to his connectionist model, there are four layers of processing and understanding: semantic, syntactic, morphological, and phonological. These work in parallel and in series, with activation at each level. Interference and misactivation can occur at any of these stages. Production begins with concepts, and continues down from there. One might start with the concept of a cat: a four-legged, furry, domesticated mammal with whiskers, etc. This conceptual set would attempt to find the corresponding word {cat}. This selected word would then selects morphological and phonological data /k / at/. The distinction of this model is that, during this process, other elements would also be primed ({rat} might be somewhat primed, for example), as they are physically similar, and so can cause conceptual interference. Errors might also occur at the phoneme level, as many words are phonetically similar, e.g. mat. Substitutions of similar consonant sounds are more likely to occur, e.g. between plosive stop consonants such as d, p and b. Lower primed words are less likely to be chosen, but interference is thought to occur in cases of early selection, where the level of activation of the target and interference words is at the same level. [11]

Lexical access model

This model states that the sentence is made by a sequence of processes generating differing levels of representations. [12] For instance, the functional level representation is made on the a preverbal representation, which is essentially what the speaker seeks to express. This level is responsible for encoding the meanings of lexical items and the way that grammar forms relationships between them. Next, the positional level representation is built, which functions to encode the phonological forms of words and the order they are found in sentence structures. Lexical access, according to this model, is a process that encompasses two serially ordered and independent stages. [10]

Additional aspects

Fluency

Fluency can be defined in part by prosody, which is shown graphically by a smooth intonation contour, and by a number of other elements: control of speech rate, relative timing of stressed and unstressed syllables, changes in amplitude, changes in fundamental frequency. In other words, fluency can be described as whether someone speaks smoothly and easily. [13] This term is used in speech-language pathology when describing disorders with stuttering or other disfluencies. [14]

Multilingualism

Whether or not a speaker is fluent in one or more languages, the process for producing language remains the same. [15] However, bilinguals speaking two languages within a conversation may have access to both languages at the same time. [16] Three of the most commonly discussed models for multilingual language access are the Bilingual Interactive Activation Plus model, the Revised Hierarchical Model, and the Language Mode model:

Speakers fluent in multiple languages may inhibit access to one of their languages, but this suppression can only be done once the speaker is at a certain level of proficiency in that language. [19] A speaker can decide to inhibit a language based on non-linguistic cues in their conversation, such as a speaker of both English and French inhibiting their French when conversing with people who only speak English. When especially proficient multilingual speakers communicate, they can participate in code-switching. Code-switching has been shown to indicate bilingual proficiency in a speaker, though it had previously been seen as a sign of poor language ability. [20]


Research methods

There are three main types of research into language production: speech error collection, picture-naming, and elicited production. Speech error collection focuses on using the analysis of speech errors made in naturally produced speech. On the other hand, elicited production focuses on elicited speech and is conducted in a lab. Also conducted in a lab, picture-naming focuses on reaction-time data from picture-naming latencies. Although originally disparate, these three methodologies are generally looking at the same underlying processes of speech production. [21]

Speech errors

Speech errors have been found to be common in naturally produced speech. [3] Analysis of speech errors has found that not all are random, but rather systematic and fall into several categories. These speech errors can demonstrate parts of the language processing system, and what happens when that system doesn't work as it should. Language production occurs quickly with speakers saying a little more than 2 words per second; so though errors occur only once out of 1,000 words, they occur relatively often throughout a speaker's day at once every 7 minutes. [22] Some examples of these speech errors that would be collected by psycholinguists are: [3]

target: paddle tennis
produced: taddle tennis
target: red wagon
produced: red ragon
target: shout/yell
produced: shell
target: impossible
produced: implossible
target: at low speed it's too heavy
produced: at low speed it's too light
Makes no delusions to the past.
The pineapple of perfection.
I have interceded another letter from the fellow.
target: slips of the tongue
produced: tips of the slung

Picture-naming

Picture-naming tasks ask participants to look at pictures and name them in a certain way. By looking at the time course for the responses in these tasks, psycholinguists can learn more about the planning involved in specific phrases. [24] These types of tasks can be helpful for investigating cross-linguistic language production and planning processes.

Elicited Production

Elicited production tasks ask participants to respond to questions or prompts in a particular way. One of the more common types of elicited production tasks is the sentence completion task. [25] These tasks give the participants the beginning of a target sentence, which the participants are then asked to complete. Analyzing these completions can allow psycholinguistics to investigate errors that might be difficult to elicit otherwise.

See also

Related Research Articles

The following outline is provided as an overview and topical guide to linguistics:

Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. The field of phonetics is traditionally divided into three sub-disciplines based on the research questions involved such as how humans plan and execute movements to produce speech, how various movements affect the properties of the resulting sound, or how humans convert sound waves to linguistic information. Traditionally, the minimal linguistic unit of phonetics is the phone—a speech sound in a language which differs from the phonological unit of phoneme; the phoneme is an abstract categorization of phones.

Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind and brain; that is, the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend, and produce language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neurolinguistics</span> Neuroscience and linguistics-related studies

Neurolinguistics is the study of neural mechanisms in the human brain that controls the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. As an interdisciplinary field, neurolinguistics draws methods and theories from fields such as neuroscience, linguistics, cognitive science, communication disorders and neuropsychology. Researchers are drawn to the field from a variety of backgrounds, bringing along a variety of experimental techniques as well as widely varying theoretical perspectives. Much work in neurolinguistics is informed by models in psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics, and is focused on investigating how the brain can implement the processes that theoretical and psycholinguistics propose are necessary in producing and comprehending language. Neurolinguists study the physiological mechanisms by which the brain processes information related to language, and evaluate linguistic and psycholinguistic theories, using aphasiology, brain imaging, electrophysiology, and computer modeling.

In linguistics, linguistic competence is the system of unconscious knowledge that one knows when they know a language. It is distinguished from linguistic performance, which includes all other factors that allow one to use one's language in practice.

Code-mixing is the mixing of two or more languages or language varieties in speech.

A speech error, commonly referred to as a slip of the tongue or misspeaking, is a deviation from the apparently intended form of an utterance. They can be subdivided into spontaneously and inadvertently produced speech errors and intentionally produced word-plays or puns. Another distinction can be drawn between production and comprehension errors. Errors in speech production and perception are also called performance errors. Some examples of speech error include sound exchange or sound anticipation errors. In sound exchange errors the order of two individual morphemes is reversed, while in sound anticipation errors a sound from a later syllable replaces one from an earlier syllable. Slips of the tongue are a normal and common occurrence. One study shows that most people can make up to as much as 22 slips of the tongue per day.

In linguistics, lexicalization is the process of adding words, set phrases, or word patterns to a language's lexicon.

The term linguistic performance was used by Noam Chomsky in 1960 to describe "the actual use of language in concrete situations". It is used to describe both the production, sometimes called parole, as well as the comprehension of language. Performance is defined in opposition to "competence"; the latter describes the mental knowledge that a speaker or listener has of language.

Sentence processing takes place whenever a reader or listener processes a language utterance, either in isolation or in the context of a conversation or a text. Many studies of the human language comprehension process have focused on reading of single utterances (sentences) without context. Extensive research has shown that language comprehension is affected by context preceding a given utterance as well as many other factors.

Speech production is the process by which thoughts are translated into speech. This includes the selection of words, the organization of relevant grammatical forms, and then the articulation of the resulting sounds by the motor system using the vocal apparatus. Speech production can be spontaneous such as when a person creates the words of a conversation, reactive such as when they name a picture or read aloud a written word, or imitative, such as in speech repetition. Speech production is not the same as language production since language can also be produced manually by signs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics</span>

The Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics is a research institute situated on the campus of Radboud University Nijmegen located in Nijmegen, Gelderland, the Netherlands. The institute was founded in 1980 by Pim Levelt, and is particular for being entirely dedicated to psycholinguistics, and is also one of the few institutes of the Max Planck Society to be located outside Germany. The Nijmegen-based institute currently occupies 5th position in the Ranking Web of World Research Centers among all Max Planck institutes. It currently employs about 235 people.

The cohort model in psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics is a model of lexical retrieval first proposed by William Marslen-Wilson in the late 1970s. It attempts to describe how visual or auditory input is mapped onto a word in a hearer's lexicon. According to the model, when a person hears speech segments real-time, each speech segment "activates" every word in the lexicon that begins with that segment, and as more segments are added, more words are ruled out, until only one word is left that still matches the input.

Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Linguistics is concerned with both the cognitive and social aspects of language. It is considered a scientific field as well as an academic discipline; it has been classified as a social science, natural science, cognitive science, or part of the humanities.

In psycholinguistics, a lemma is an abstract conceptual form of a word that has been mentally selected for utterance in the early stages of speech production. A lemma represents a specific meaning but does not have any specific sounds that are attached to it.

The mental lexicon is defined as a mental dictionary that contains information regarding a word, such as its meaning, pronunciation, and syntactic characteristics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bilingual memory</span>

Bilingualism is the regular use of two fluent languages, and bilinguals are those individuals who need and use two languages in their everyday lives. A person's bilingual memories are heavily dependent on the person's fluency, the age the second language was acquired, and high language proficiency to both languages. High proficiency provides mental flexibility across all domains of thought and forces them to adopt strategies that accelerate cognitive development. People who are bilingual integrate and organize the information of two languages, which creates advantages in terms of many cognitive abilities, such as intelligence, creativity, analogical reasoning, classification skills, problem solving, learning strategies, and thinking flexibility.

Viorica Marian is a Moldovan-born American Psycholinguist, Cognitive Scientist, and Psychologist known for her research on bilingualism and multilingualism. She is the Ralph and Jean Sundin Endowed Professor of Communication Sciences and Disorders, and Professor of Psychology at Northwestern University. Marian is the Principal Investigator of the Bilingualism and Psycholinguistics Research Group. She received her PhD in Psychology from Cornell University, and master's degrees from Emory University and from Cornell University. Marian studies language, cognition, the brain, and the consequences of knowing more than one language for linguistic, cognitive, and neural architectures.

Bilingual lexical access is an area of psycholinguistics that studies the activation or retrieval process of the mental lexicon for bilingual people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Dell</span> American cognitive scientist

Gary S. Dell is an American psycholinguist. He is Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Center for Advanced Study Professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

References

  1. 1 2 Dell, Gary; Burger, Lisa; Svec, William (1997). "Language Production and Serial Order: A Functional Analysis and A Model" (PDF). Psychological Review. 104 (1): 123–147. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.104.1.123. PMID   9009882.
  2. ↑ Levelt, Willem J. M. (2001-11-06). "Spoken word production: A theory of lexical access". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 98 (23): 13464–13471. doi: 10.1073/pnas.231459498 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   60894 . PMID   11698690.
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  5. ↑ Momma, Shota; Slevc, Robert; Phillips, Colin (2016). "The Timing of Verb Selection in Japanese Sentence Production". Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. 42 (5): 813–824. doi:10.1037/xlm0000195. PMID   26569434 – via APA PsycNet.
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  9. ↑ Schiller, Niels; Bles, Mart; Jansma, Bernadette (2003). "Tracking the time course of phonological encoding in speech production: an event-related brain potential study". Cognitive Brain Research. 17 (3): 819–831. doi:10.1016/s0926-6410(03)00204-0. hdl: 11858/00-001M-0000-0013-17B1-A . PMID   14561465.
  10. 1 2 Psycholinguistics : critical concepts in psychology. Altmann, Gerry T. M. London: Routledge. 2002. ISBN   978-0415229906. OCLC   48014482.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  11. 1 2 Dell, Gary S. (1986). "A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production". Psychological Review. 93 (3): 283–321. doi:10.1037/0033-295x.93.3.283. ISSN   1939-1471. PMID   3749399.
  12. ↑ Bock, Kathryn; Levelt, Willem (1994). "29". In Gernsbacher, Morton Ann; Traxler, Matthew (eds.). Language Production: Grammatical Encoding. Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Academic Press, Inc. pp. 945–983.
  13. ↑ Housen, A.; Kuiken, F. (2009-12-01). "Complexity, Accuracy, and Fluency in Second Language Acquisition". Applied Linguistics. 30 (4): 461–473. doi:10.1093/applin/amp048. ISSN   0142-6001.
  14. ↑ Ward, David, 1956 December 9- (2006). Stuttering and cluttering : frameworks for understanding and treatment. Hove [England]: Psychology Press. ISBN   1-84169-334-0. OCLC   65617513.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  15. ↑ Fernández, Eva M.; Cairns, Helen Smith (2011). Fundamentals of Psycholinguistics. Wiley-Blackwell. pp. 138–140. ISBN   9781405191470.
  16. 1 2 Grosjean, F (1999). "The bilingual's language modes" (PDF). One Mind, Two Languages: Bilingual Language Processing. 7 (11): 1–22. S2CID   9325654. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2019-08-24.
  17. ↑ Dijkstra, Ton; Van Heuven, Walter (2002). "The architecture of the bilingual word recognition system: From identification to decision" (PDF). Bilingualism: Language and Cognition. 5 (3): 175–197. doi:10.1017/S1366728902003012. hdl: 2066/62675 . S2CID   11306773.
  18. ↑ Kroll, Judith F.; Stewark, Erika (1994). "Category interference in translation and picture naming: Evidence for asymmetric connections between bilingual memory representations". Journal of Memory and Language. 33 (2): 149–174. doi:10.1006/jmla.1994.1008.
  19. 1 2 de Bot, K (2004). "The multilingual lexicon: Modeling selection and control". The International Journal of Multilingualism. 1: 17–32. doi:10.1080/14790710408668176. S2CID   218496462.
  20. ↑ Poplack, Shana (1980). "Sometimes I'll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en español" (PDF). Linguistics. 18 (7–8): 581–618. doi:10.1515/ling.1980.18.7-8.581. hdl: 10315/2506 . S2CID   201699959.
  21. ↑ Levelt, Willem J. M.; Roelofs, A.; Meyer, AS. (Feb 1999). "A theory of lexical access in speech production". Behav Brain Sci. 22 (1): 1–38, discussion 38–75. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.104.7511 . doi:10.1017/s0140525x99001776. PMID   11301520.
  22. ↑ "Slips of the Tongue | Psychology Today". www.psychologytoday.com. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  23. ↑ "Definition of MALAPROPISM". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 2020-10-21.
  24. ↑ Brown-Schmidt, Sarah; Konopka, Agnieszka E. (November 2008). "Little houses and casas pequeñas: Message formulation and syntactic form in unscripted speech with speakers of English and Spanish". Cognition. 109 (2): 274–280. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.07.011. hdl:11858/00-001M-0000-0012-C6EC-5. PMC   2665878 . PMID   18842259.
  25. ↑ Humphreys, Karin R.; Bock, Kathryn (2005-08-01). "Notional number agreement in English". Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 12 (4): 689–695. doi: 10.3758/BF03196759 . ISSN   1531-5320. PMID   16447383. S2CID   30400728.

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