Psycholinguistics Essays (Examples)

Likewise, Grenfell and Harris report that some studies have suggested that language is acquired through a universal natural order wherein language acquisition follows an identifiable sequence in the stages through which learners pass to achieve competence.

According to Levy and Schaeffer (2003), though, "It is a truism of research in developmental psycholinguistics that children's behavior looks quite different in different languages. Of course, it is expected that different developing languages will exhibit properties that are different simply because the languages themselves differ. But the errors look different too" (36). These authors emphasize that this general problem in the field has been the source of concern for some time now and the issue of why children make different types of errors in different languages remains unclear as well. For instance, Levy and Schaeffer ask, "hy should children subject to universal principles make a different kind of error, even when the error…

One of the strategies used by psycholinguists is focusing on sentence construction. This is also called statement analysis. This is where potential suspects are interviewed and their language use during the interview is later analyzed using a technique to see if they had been less than truthful. (Adams, 1996)

Workplace violence is another area which can get enormous help from the use of psycholinguists. Law enforcement officers often ask colleagues of a violent employee if the accused had ever used threatening language before committing an act of violence. In most cases, it has been discovered that violence in the workplace is not a sudden eruption. It takes place over a period of time as disgruntled employees get angrier every day and it finally culminates in a serious act of violence. But before the act occurs, the employee's language can provide sufficient clues to possible mental disturbance. The employee would say…

Certainly, an incarceration, simple arrest, questioning, or data gathering on individuals such as wire taps would produce a plethora of data that could be used the statistical analysis of potential, real, or existing threats. Some individuals are under surveillance or incarceration for extended periods of time (such as gang leaders, Mafiosi, etc.) and would provide a huge quantity of analyzable data that could be fed to the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCVAC) at Quantico, Virginia. Such data storage and analysis facilities feed data to law enforcement agencies such as the FI. The ureau is a major researcher into and user of psycholinguistic analysis and products. While much of law enforcement's criminal investigative analysis was designed for and works best in investigations of serial criminal acts (rapes, homicides, or arsons), a more systematic and scientific methodology of data analysis would allow more specific profiling in the case…

Psycholinguistics gives a comprehensive and viable understanding of human language development. The most famous psycholinguist theorist, Noam Chomsky, has argued convincingly that human children develop language abilities according to a predetermined universal deep structure or grammar. The psycholinguistic approach provides invaluable tools for teaching children to read, write, and speak.

The development of language in the human child is certainly one the most astounding and impressive human accomplishments. A child must learn over ten new words each day, from the time they start speaking, in order to reach the average six-year-old vocabulary of 14,000 words (McConnell). Language allows humans to think and reason, and communicate with each other. It is an absolutely essential skill, not only in the complete development of the individual, but for the survival of the human species as a whole.

Psycholinguistics simply deals with the mental aspects of language acquisition, storage, production and comprehension. It has…

Criminal Psycholinguistics as a Predictor and/or Indicator of Criminality (rewritten for grammar)

Language is used differently. Humans use it in many forms and in many means. As it represents someone's character, language helps everyone to perceive what kind of profile a person has. Thus, this brought the researcher to explore the psycholinguistics of criminals.

In this thesis, the researcher will focus mainly on the collective study in determining a criminal based on the language he is using, mainly in verbal form. This means that this study aims to see results of the verbal psycholinguistics or the speech of a suspected criminal.

The study will answer research questions regarding how criminals speak; how criminals use techniques in concealing their profiles; how criminals operate through telephone conversations; how criminals manage upon being caught and how criminals answer questions in police interrogations.

There have been studies that explain the generality of criminals by…

advert employed psycholinguistics in its aim to manipulate readers to buy the product. The 'Fairy Soap' advertisement was used and investigated for the use of concrete imagery -- a strategy of psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics says that concrete imagery not only forges associations but also makes imagery more vivid and helps reader comprehend and faster remember words. Analysis of the advert in terms of the concrete imagery used showed that all applied. Discussion sums up result and concludes that that readers can be more readily manipulated into buying the product -- unless they were aware that they are being deliberately manipulated by people who know how to make words sound psychologically appealing.

The Concrete Appeal of Soap

None of us wish to be manipulated, but unfortunately, advertisements -- the world of marketing -- uses techniques that indiscernibly manipulates us and influences us in certain way. People tend to think that is only…

e. cursing, swearing) and not using discriminatory language or language that is "racist, sexist, ageist" (Caldwell, 2004) or so forth. The concept of 'communicative competence" (Caldwell, 2004) is described as grammar that "relates to the nature of language teaching" in an approach." (Caldwell, 2004) that is fairly universally advocated in L2 teaching." (Caldwell, 2004) the mistakes that are made may either be in "form" due to lack of knowledge or through use of irregular past tense forms implying that grammar should be descriptive or mistakes in 'use" or knowing when the present perfect or the simple past tense should be used implying that grammar should be descriptive.

It is suggested by Tomlin (1994, pp. 141-42) that teaching communicative language in inclusive of (1) systematic attention to functional and structural aspects; (2) Situational and contextualized use of language in class; (3) Teaching and Learning being made transparent through representational support; (4)…

The Pinker vs. Sapir-Whorf debate is central to the study of linguistics and related areas like psycholinguistics and cognitive science. Most linguists can at least agree that humans have a “unique language capacity,” (Levinson 25). Yet the innate capacity to learn language is where the similarities between Pinker and Whorf end. Whereas Whorf radically transformed both cognitive science and linguistics by using empirical evidence to show how language shapes thought, Pinker has also been influential with a nativist, modular, and nativist understanding of human language development. Both theories have their strengths and weaknesses, but ultimately the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis remains far more compelling, more substantiated by empirical evidence, and also more able to explain some of the complexities of language and culture.
Even though children are not born speaking in full sentences, all children have the capacity for language development, the potential to learn verbal and written means of communication as…

90, pp 51-89

In this particular study, Salvarder studied the eye movements of a number of participants while they heard sentences and saw four pictured objects on a computer screen. The study concluded that, "our major finding, however, is that listeners can use the subphonemic acoustic cues often associated with the production of monosyllabic words, such as segmental lengthening, to bias their lexical interpretation of an utterance." (Salvarder 2003-page 82).

orks Cited

Andrews, Sally, Davis Colin, (1999) Interactive Activation Accounts of Morphological Decomposition: Finding the Trap in Mousetrap?, Brain and Language, Vol. 68, pp. 355-361

Bowers, Jeffrey S., Davis, Collin J. And Hanley, Derek a., (2004) Automatic Semantic Activation of Embedded ords: Is there a hat in that?, Journal of Memory and Language, Vol. 52, pp 131-143.

Culter, Anne, (1992) Phonological Cues to Open and Closed-Class ords in the Processing of Spoken Sentences, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, Vol. 22, Issue…

For example law enforcement has been using what is called psycholinguistic theories to figure out levels of escalation and to determine criminal intent. Many theories exist and as we mentioned in our paper, there is a theory where sentence construction is carefully studied and analyzed to see how is meant by the threat. This is done with comparison to past communication between the aggressor and the target and other examples available in separate cases. For example if there exist four letters by the aggressor sent on various dates, law enforcement will study the language used in all four to see how and if the conflict has been escalating or if there is a sign of de-escalation. In a very recent case in Florida, a teenager sent threatening text messages to his former girlfriend' friend before coming to her school and almost beating her to death with spiked steel shoes. These…

2009). Othe studies had peviously concluded that English infants developed a pefeence fo tochaic wods, the dominant stess constuct of English wods, ove iambic stess pattens within the fist yea of life (Hohle et al. 2009). A compaison of Geman and Fecnh infants in fou distinct expeiments confims and even naows down the timefame in which this diffeentiation of pefeence occus, and also shows (though the Fench language expeiments) that the ability to distinguish the two opposing stess pattens does not necessaily esult in the development of pefeence, if the taget language itself lacks a dominant stess stuctue (Hohle et al. 2009). Even at six months, a specific language begins to mediate peception.

An ealie study suggests that the timing of stess and intonation pefeence development is even soone than six months. While citing evidence suggesting that language-independent phonetic contasts and melodic vaiations ae ecognized within the fist fou months…

The focus of academics continues to focus on finding a cause and on developing reliable interventions for children suffering from this condition. It is important to begin intervention as early as possible so that incorrect speech patterns do not become ingrained. In addition, it is important to make certain that other learning complications do not develop as a result of SLI.

The research conducted by ice, Wexler, & Cleave (1995) helped to draw attention to SLI as being different from other language deficiencies. Their work helped to identify and define SLI as its own subset of language delay symptoms. This important step led the way for research that explored causality and intervention. SLI is typically associated with deficiencies in verbal skills. However, research into non-verbal skills was also suggested by these and other study results. This avenue will help to further define and distinguish SLI from other language delays.

eferences…

Once again, time is an indicator. When a significant amount of evidence for a theory is readily available, the theory tends to be older and concomitantly more accepted by the scientific community. If there are significant gaps in the evidence, the theory can benefit from further investigation.

The same is true of the complexity level of the theory is not very high. More components can then be added by further investigation.

A theory can also be evaluated according to its ability to serve as an indicator of future phenomena. This makes a theory applicable to further scientific investigation, and furthermore also allow for further development in the theory itself. If the theory is for example a consistently accurate predictor of future events or phenomena, it can be viewed as valid. If it however proves inaccurate in one or some of its predictions, further evidence and modifications will be necessary.

Furthermore,…

(apaport 1942: 149)

It is important here to have some framework with which to discuss parapraxes

Aitchison, as a psycholinguist blends both the disciplines of psychology and linguistics to give a more balanced view overall. She proposes first two broad definitions for type of parapraxis. (1998: 244) the first is when a wrong item or word is unintentionally chosen, these are generally referred to as slips of the tongue and an example would be, "Did you remember to buy some toothache?" eplacing the word toothpaste, which was intended, with toothache, which was unintended. She also refers to these more properly as slips of the brain. Secondly there is a classification of errors that are due to the faulty assemblages of the language within the statement. The word choice is usually correct but the grammatical assemblage of the statement is not. Here is an example she uses of this:, "Someone's been…

Another theorist with a different view is Chomsky (1988). Chomsky sees the acquisition of language as a process of input-output, what he calls a Cartesian view of language acquisition and language structure. He states: "We have an organism of which we know nothing. We know, or we can discover, what kind of data is available to it, and the first question we must try to answer is: what kind of mental structure does the organism develop when that evidence is presented to it?" (Chomsky, 1988, p. 102). Once we find an answer to this question, we can ask what sorts of processes have intervened leading form the data available to the knowledge that resulted. Chomsky explains:

The input-output situation is this: a child who initially does not have knowledge of a language constructs for himself knowledge of a language on the basis of a certain amount of data; the input…

The Modernization approach and industrial policy in the period of Park Chung-Hee were considered to be much influenced by the South Korean social learning and accepting of Japanese ideologies and institution. The colonial modernity, localization of division of labor, government assisted bilateral cooperation were considered detrimental to the strategic parameters of economic development and industrialization, modernization strategy and industrial policy replicated the emulation of Japanese ideologies and institution.

Most of the Koreans believe Japan to be a perennial evil. The colonial domination by Japan over the Korea have led to massive economic exploitation and also called upon the national dignity severely. However, ever since 1980 a revisionist thought was initiated to being formed around the concepts of the perspective of colonial continuity, the notion of horizontal division of labor, and the movement towards the export led growth. The influence of the ideology of 'Fokoku Kyohei' and the emerging Modernization strategy…

Also different cultures and different regions have their own peculiar requirements. For example, a method that works well in United States of America may not work that well in a country like Malaysia. "With regard to lexical ambiguity, the rich inflectional morphology of Italian makes it relatively easy to distinguish between nouns, verbs, and other grammatical classes. In contrast, the sparse grammatical morphology of English means that nouns, verbs, and other word classes often sound alike and must be disambiguated by context (the comb vs. To comb), or by prosodic cues (to record vs. The record)" (Bates, Devescovi & Wulfeck, 2001).

So the differences are stark. In Chinese context application of morphology becomes more difficult. In countries like Malaysia where different languages are spoken the application of just the method of morphology can not simply work In some countries where English is taught as a second language morphology is used…

Language & Cognition

The relationship between language and cognition continues to be an area of science that is heavily studied and for which research builds in exciting ways (Aitchison, 2007). New learnings about cognition and language are intimately tied to technological advances as neuropsychologists and others probe the human brain ever more deeply and meaningfully (Aitchison, 2007).

Language and lexicon. Language is understood to be the symbolic representation of human thought (Yule, 2005). Language is the most complex method of human communication, whether written or spoken, in that it uses words in a structured manner and in conventional ways that are understood by those who speak, read, and write a particular language (Yule, 2005). Language can also take the form of nonverbal communication through facial and gestural expressions (Yule, 2005). The concept of lexicon takes two general forms: A dictionary of a particular language, and the vocabulary associated with an…

Memory and Language

Semantic memory is part of a larger division of memory known as declarative memory which refers to items in memory that can be consciously retrieved or recalled such as factual information, memories of events, and other types of knowledge (Tulving, 1972). Semantic memory is the memory of meanings and concept-based knowledge that can be consciously recollected such as facts about the world, word meanings, and other related information, whereas the other component of declarative memory, episodic memory, refers to the memory of biographical and event-related information (Tulving, 1972). Semantic memory functions as a storehouse of knowledge that can be consciously retrieved and applied when needed in specific situations and comprises a large amount of what we learn about the world and out relations in it (Tulving, 1972). Semantic memories are language based.

Human language is a different form of communication that used by other species of animals.…

Chomsky

Noam Chomsky and His Theory of Universal Grammar

Noam Chomsky name is not unknown to the world. Though he is not a psychologist or a psychiatrist but his contributions in the fields of psychology and linguistics has a great impact. His theory of generative grammar has been regarded as one of the most considerable contributions to the field of theoretical linguistics (Berger, 2005).

As a Person

Noam Chomsky, a well-known politician and an exceptional linguist, was born on December 7, 1928 in the state of Philadelphia in the home of a Hebrew scholar (Berger, 2005). He got his early education in Philadelphia while he went to study linguistics, mathematics and philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he also achieved his PhD degree though he completed most of his PhD work at Harvard University during early 1950s. Chomsky has been associated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1955. He…

Russian psychologist ygotsky's Sociocultural Theory, with Input and Interaction Theory. Beginning with a definition of both theories the paper will then note how the two theories differ and where they are similar in their approach as well as how they are applied to everyday issues such as teaching language.

Sociocultural Theory

Sociocultural theory was first conceived and developed by Russian psychologist Lev Semyonovich ygotsky's, (1896-1934). His most productive years were at the Institute of Psychology in Moscow (1924-34), where he expanded his ideas on cognitive development, particularly the relationship between language and thinking. His writings emphasized the roles of historical, cultural, and social factors in cognition and argued that language was the most important symbolic tool provided by society. His book, "Thought and Language" is a classic text in psycholinguistics' theoretical contributions to the development of curricula and teaching strategies. (Forman, Minick, Stone 1993)

ygotsky was interested in applying Marxist…

History Of Social Psychology

According to Kruglanski and Stroebe (2012) social psychology is defined as the scientific study of how a person's feelings, behaviors, and thoughts are influenced by the implied, imagined, or real presence of other people. Social psychology will analyze various social topics including social perception, behavior leadership, conformity, prejudice, nonverbal behavior, and aggression. It attempts to understand a person's behavior in a social context. Therefore, social psychology will look at human behavior as other people and the social setting that this occurs shape it. Social psychologists will deal with the factors that lead a person to behave in a given way in front of others, and it looks at the conditions in which some behaviors and feelings will occur. Social psychology is a young field that began in the 20th century. Around 90% of all social psychologists are believed to be alive. The early influencers of this…

Matching Books with ELLs

Description of the Chosen Book

pages book Titles Barenstain Bears (fiction)

It is the classic story of Barenstain Bears. Lots of children love it. They particularly pick out the little bear that creeps into a box.

Interestingly, this adventure is told from a set of vocabulary of only twenty three words.

Berenstain S, Berenstain, J. (2007), Inside, Outside, Upside Down. London: HarperCollins Children's.

Contextualize the ELLs you intend to use the book with: Who are they? You can discuss their age/grade, cultural backgrounds, background knowledge, language proficiency levels, interests, etc.

I intend to use this book with kindergarten learners. These learners are at their critical period (3 to 5 years). During this period they can best acquire language skills and therefore it is very important to prepare them adequately for the task. Additionally, these children have not experienced language from many users apart from their family…

Of these, twenty were of different first languages learning Hungarian and thirteen were of Hungarian as first language learning English." (P 8).

Based on this argument, age is not only the intrinsic factor that influences language acquisition. Typically, educational and maturational factors contribute to the language acquisition. With this claim, there could be a new hypothesis that reveal young= better and adult =better. Singleton (2005) conclusion on CPH is that

"Critical Period Hypothesis is misleading, since there is a vast amount of variation in the way in which the critical period for language acquisition is understood -- affecting all the parameters deemed to be theoretically significant and indeed also relating to the ways in which the purported critical period is interpreted in terms of its implications for L2 instruction."(P 269).

Conclusion

The study summarizes a research paper titled "The Critical Period Hypothesis: A coat of many colors" (Singleton, 2005). The…

The confidence of non-native speaker teachers is expected to be strengthened by better, more direct, access to the way native speakers use the language. ut an option not on offer so far (and, of course, a task impossible for a corpus called the ritish National Corpus) is to give these non-native speaker teachers access to a corpus capturing the successful use of English among non-native speakers, as a lingua franca, thus offering supremely relevant models for many learners wishing to use the language for similar purposes. So when Aston and urnard refer to ?the political implications of changing the basis on which assessments of correctness or appropriateness of usage are made? what has changed about the "basis" is how it can be accessed, not how it is defined. There is also another problem that operates at a deeper and unrecognized level: the language attitudes of those who, paradoxically, are themselves…

Finally, for the purposes of this research proposal we will refer to a third study that suggests education could be at the heart of reducing juvenile delinquency statistics but the conditions in which the child is raised impacts their ability to choose between right and wrong (Hindelang, 1981).

Method and design

The goal of this study is to add to the literature that demonstrates that there is a correlation between poverty and juvenile delinquency. This researcher will begin by reviewing the available statistics provided by the state judicial system related specifically to the number of juveniles currently incarcerated at state facilities as well as the youths' offenses. Once this information has been compiled the next step will be to chart the level of income brought in by the adults within each home as well as to determine if the families live rely on welfare or government assistance for their daily…