Universidade Rovuma

Exam of Psycholinguistics, 2021

1st attempt

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1. The origin of Psycholinguistics as a discipline within the field of Linguistics has led
to so many misunderstandings regarding who could be considered the father
including the birth period. How did the two parent disciplines call it before it was
nominated officially as Psycholinguistics?
2. The study of Psycholinguistics unfolds into three main domains, naming; language
acquisition, comprehension, production. Present one theory behind each domain.
3. Partitioning is a phenomenon which occurs when two more language domains fail
to interconnect. A 22 years old who can understand what people say but can’t
produce enough language to be understood by an ordinary speaker, what is the
nature of partitioning that happens in her language production process?
4. Explain the left-handedness on the basis of the theory of Brain lateralization.
5. Why should a language teacher bother studying Psycholinguistics?

Good Lucky

Tomas Armando
 Possible Answers:

1. The two parent disciplines called it as Psychology of language before it was

nominated officially as Psycholinguistics.

2. a) Language acquisition theory – this theory claims that children must have an inborn
faculty for language acquisition. This natural faculty has become known as the Language
Acquisition Device (LAD).

b) Language comprehension theory - language comprehension involves spoken work

cognition, printed word cognition and discourse.

c) language production - When producing sentences, output is determined by several

factors, including conceptual knowledge and word order.

3. The nature of partitioning that happens in her language production process, is called
critical period.

4. The majority of left-handers are left hemisphere dominant but their dominance tends
to be much less marked than in natural right-handed persons This phenomenon, where
one hemisphere is the controlling one, is called dominance.

5. It helps teachers to consider the use appropriate methods to teach the four language
skills.