PSYCHOLINGUITICS:

AN OVERVIEW
NIA KURNIAWATI
ENGLISH EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
UNIVERSITAS SURYAKANCANA
2021
DEFINITION

• Psycholinguistics is the study of the mental aspects of language and speech. It is

primarily concerned with the ways in which language is represented and processed in the
brain. A branch of both linguistics and psychology,psycholinguistics is part of the field
of cognitive science.
PSYCHOLOGY AND LANGUAGE

B.F Skinner 1904-1990

- conducted pioneering work in experimental
psychology
- leader of behaviorist psychology, which seeks to
understand behavior as a function of environmental
histories of reinforcement
- language is a form of behavior

1957 “Verbal behavior”:

- each act of speech is an inevitable consequence of
the speaker's current environment and his behavioral
and sensory history
-derived mentalistic terms such as "idea", "plan" and
"concept" as unscientific and of no use in the study of
behavior
COGNITIVE REVOLUTION:
NOAM CHOMSKY (1928-)

1959 Review of Skinner Verbal Behavior

- paved the way for the revolution against behaviorist
doctrine
- language acquisition could not be explained with the
resources of the classical theory of conditioning
- it requires the positing of innate representational
structures governed by rules (Universal Grammar)

• Chomsky‘s questions:
• How powerful must human language be?
• cf. Chomsky hierarchy
• How should it be described?
• cf. Principles and Parameters (P&P)
: DESCRIBING LANGUAGE: CHOMSKY

• Chomsky has argued that human beings have a „genetically endowed language faculty“

• The language faculty must be such as to allow the child to acquire the grammar of any
natural language on the basis of suitable experience of the language

• The defining characteristics of this faculty are described by a set of principles of

Universal Grammar (UG)
THE BIOLOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF LANGUAGE

• Evidently, our linguistic ability does not depend primarily on the structure of our vocal
cords, for other mammals also have vocal cords. Human linguistic ability largely
depends, instead, on the structure and dynamics of the human brain.
• Human beings are the only organisms in which one particular part of the left half of the
brain is larger than the corresponding part of the right half.
THE HUMAN BRAIN

• The most important part of the brain is the outside furface of the brain, called the
cerebral cortex. The brain is divided into two roughly symmetrical halves, called
hemispheres. In general, the right hemisphere controls voluntary movements of, and
responds to signals from, the left side of the body, whereas the left hemisphere controls
voluntary movemetns of, and responds to signals from, the right side of the body.
BRAIN LATERALIZATION

• The left hemisphere has primary responsibility for language, while the right hemisphere
controls visual and spatial skills as well as the perception of nonlinguistic sounds and
musical melodies. The localization of cognitive and perceptual functions in a particular
hemisphere of the brain is called lateralization.
BRAIN LATERALIZATION FOR MAJOR MENTAL FUNCTIONS UNDER
THE CONTROL OF EACH HEMISPHERE IS GIVEN AS FOLLOWS

• (1) Left hemisphere Right hemisphere

• Language and speech perception of nonlinguistic sound
• Analytic reasoning holistic reasoning
• Temporal ordering visual and spatial skills
• Reading and writing recognition of patterns
• Calculation recognition of musical melodies
• Associative thought
STAGES IN LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
CRITICAL PERIOD
THANK YOU