Language Production

and Conversation
 In linguistics, language production is the
production of spoken or written language. It
describes all of the stages between having a
concept, and translating that concept into
linguistic form
 Stages of Language Production
Stages of Language Production: conceptualization,
formulation, articulation, self-monitoring

 Conceptualization: a conceptual representation of what to say

 Encode message into linguistic form. Select words to express
concepts
 Organize words syntactically to convey a message
 Articulation: generate auditory/written/signed sequence.
Sound goes from speaker's mouth to hearer's ear
 Speech is decoded into linguistic form
 Linguistic form is decoded into meaning
 Message generation
 Message-conceptual representtaion
independent of particular words
 Take into account: level of politeness, speech
acts (question, command, etc.)
 Register (slang vs. Formal)
 Reference
 Listener knowledge
 Word selection
 Lexical access: Look up words in mental dictionary. Pick
word that you want to say, based on semantic features.
Overcome competition from semantically similar words.
Phonological features come into play, too. Sentences get
built when words are selected. Gramatical encoding.
 Adult english
 Speaking vocabulary:........45.000-60.000 words
 Speaking rate....................120-150 words/min
 Selection error rate..........1 in 1000 words
 Word organization
 Apply syntactic and discourse rules to
determine a word sequence: e.g. The glass is
filled with water. vs. Water fills the glass.
 Function words
 Inflectional morphemes
 agreement
 Word organization affetcs future word
organization in sentence production

 Syntactic priming:
 The voice of a context sentence affects how a
picture is described:
 Active voice/passive voice in the context
 Self-monitoring
 Production is not a one-way transmission of
messages. Speakers and writers are quickly capable
of readjusting a message at the stages of
conceptualization, formulation, or articulation,
depending on where they noticed the brakdown in
production occured.
 The fact that native speakers can monitor and
quickly correct mistakes in linguistic output proves
Chomsky’s claim that there is a distinction between
performance and competence.
 There are two main types of research into
speech production. One type focuses on using
the analysis of speech errors.
 The other looks at reaction-time data from
picture-naming latencies.
 Research into production
 Analysis of speech errors has found that not all are random, but rather
systematic and fall into several categories. Although speech production
is very fast, (2 words per second) the error rate of the utterances are
relatively rare (less than 1/1000) and those errors are categorized as
follows:
 Anticipation: The word is in the speaker's mind and ready to be spoken,
but the speaker says it too quickly. This could be because the speaker is
planning and holding words in their mind. Reading list>leading list
 Preservation: The word retains characteristics of a word said previously
in a sentence:
 Taddle Tennis instead of Paddle Tennis
 Blending: More than one word is being considered and the two intended
items "blend" into a single item, perhaps implying the speaker is
waffling between a few word options.
 The child is looking to be spaddled instead of spanked or paddled
 Addition: adding of linguistics material, resulting in words like
implossible, blue bug>blue blug
 Substitution: a whole word of related meaning is replacing
another. These errors can be far apart from another, or target
words, and are generally grammatically consistent and accurate.
 at low speed it's too light (instead of heavy)
 Malapropism: a lay term referring to the incorrect substitution
of words. It is a reference to a character Mrs Malaprop from
Sheridan's The Rivals.
 Makes no delusions to the past.
 The pineapple of perfection.
 I have interceded another letter from the fellow.
 Spoonerism: switching the letters from words. For example,
the phrase slips of the tongue could become tips of the slung.
 You have missed my history lectures> You have hissed my
mistery lectures
 You have wasted the whole term.>You have tasted the whole
worm.
 The dear old queen.>The queer old dean.
 Is the bean dizzy?
Reverend William A. Spooner
 Why Speech Errors?
 Freudian theory of production errors:
Errors represent unconscious beliefs or desires:
repressed thoughts of some kind.
Last night my grandmother (died !) lied.
 Psycholinguistic Perspective:

Speech errors provide insights into the workings of the

language system.
a (real !) meal mystery (anticipation)
he pulled a (tantrum !) pantrum (perseveration)
 It’s my pleasure to prevent, er...present the
next person on the panel.
(infer that the speaker objects to the person)
 Disfluences
 I ahve to remember to...um..leave a note.
 Filler: um, er, uh, etc.
 Phoneme, word and phrase repetition.
 Syntactic Level Errors
 Syntactic level errors are slips involving
whole words.
 Syntactic Category Constraint: Slips involve
words from the same lexical category.
 (I loveverb to dance !)- I danceverb to loveverb
verb

 Exchange the (sun !) -sky is in the sky

noun noun

 Anticipation
 Morphemic Level Errors
Morphemic level errors involve an incorrect association between
a stem and an inflection.
Stranding Error: The inflection gets stranded in its original
correct position, whereas the intended stem is moved.
Closed-class items tend to get stranded, whereas open-class items
tend to get moved.
 • (rules of word formation !) words of rule formation.
 • She's already (packed two trunks !) trunked two
 packs.
 Language Production:
Conversation
 1.LISA: Hey Eva there's something I wanted to tell you
 2.EVA: mhm
 3.LISA: My brother is coming to town for a visit next week
 4.EVA: How nice
 5. LISA: and you know, he broke up with that awful Julie
 *last* week
 6.EVA: *how* very nice., when's he getting here?
 7.LISA: next Monday
 8.EVA: Want to go shopping and help me pick out something
really attractive before Monday?
 Features of Conversation
 Personnel: Participants in a conversation
 Speaker(s) and addressee(s)
 Common Ground: Knowledge and beliefs
shared by the personnel
 Assumptions about what the other(s) know
(s)/believe(s)
 The Production of
Written Language
Three Phases of the Writing Process:
- Planning: Setting goals, formulating and
organizing ideas.
- Translating: Sentence generation.
- Reviewing: Evaluating and revising the text.