The psycholinguistics is the study of the cognitive processes implemented in the treatment and the production of the Langage. Founded in the years 1950, psycholinguistics calls upon many disciplines, the such Sciences of the language, the Neurologie and the Neurobiologie, the Psychologie and the cognitive Sciences.

The faculty of the man to be communicated requires many intellectual tasks which are carried out very quickly, in the space of a few hundred milliseconds. Their variety and their complexity rest on cognitive, most of the time unconscious processes and of this fact not easily definable. Their observation can thus take place only indirectly, thus knowledge in psycholinguistics is primarily empirical.

Psycholinguistics is interested particularly in neurological pathologies which affect the linguistic capacities, such as the aphasias, the Dyslexie, etc

Fields of study

Psycholinguistics is interdisciplinary by nature and is studied by fields varied such as psychology, sciences cognitive, and linguistics. One can distinguish several components inside psycholinguistics:

• the Phonetic and the Phonology which are interested in the study of the sounds of the word. In other words, how the brain make does to produce and include/understand these sounds?

• the morphology;
• the Syntax;
• the Semantic ;
• the Pragmatic .

It is made up of the following fields:

• the Acquisition of the language
• the Comprehension of the language
• the Perception of the word
• the oral and written
• Speech difficulty
• Language and thought verbal Production
• the visual Recognition of the words (or reading)

Theories

One of the most known psycholinguists is Noam Chomsky. Chomsky thinks that the human ones have a universal Grammaire innate. This universal grammar would force the grammatical rules making it possible to speak all the languages. It is a point of view challenged in particular by the current of the Connexionnisme.

Methods

Many research in psycholinguistics are based on behavioral Expériences or of neuroimagery. In the experiments of the behavioral type, one presents about the linguistic stimuli and one asks him to carry out a particular task. The reaction times as well as the proportion of correct answers are measurements most often employed.

Such tasks could include, for example, to require of subjected to convert names into verbs; for example, " the livre" suggest " écrire" ; " eau" suggest " boire" , etc Another experiment could present an active sentence like " Bob threw the ball with Bill" and a passive equivalent, " the ball of Bob was thrown to Bill" and to put the question, " then; who threw the ball? ".

The researchers will be able to then conclude that active sentences are treated more easily (and more quickly) than of the passive sentences. In a more interesting way, we could also discover (as is the case) that some people are unable to include/understand passive sentences; we could then take some steps towards the comprehension of the certain types of linguistic deficits (often gathered under the term of Aphasie).

The experiments psycholinguistics rest on precise protocols which make it possible to highlight a phenomenon on certain subjects, and to reproduce these experiments on other subjects. The comparison of the results between healthy and prone subjects defective makes it possible to identify the cerebral zones implied in a cognitive process of linguistic treatment, grace in particular to the techniques of cerebral Imagerie: EEG and MEG, Mtoe and IRM.

Example of experiment psycholinguistics using the EEG

After affixing of the electrodes, the subjects are confronted with experiments of semantic and syntactic transgression. In the first case, a negative wave (called N400) is emitted approximately 400 ms after the transgressive stimulus corresponding to the semantic anomaly. In the second case, a positive wave (called P600) is emitted approximately 600 ms after the stimulus corresponding to the syntactic anomaly.

That indicates that the semantic activity precedes the syntactic activity, at least at the healthy subjects. Among patients aphasics, the N400 wave being later and of less amplitude, their access to semantic information would be slower.

Questions in debate

1. the capacity to use did the language appear abruptly (position defended by Noam Chomsky) or thanks to the natural selection (position defended by Steven Pinker?
2. Which faculties necessary to the language are modular?
3. Y-a it a Period criticizes to learn how to speak? (see the question of the wild Children) is
4. Comment organized the mental lexicon?
5. does Our language influence our way of thinking (see Hypothèse_Sapir-Whorf)?
6. Comment is one second language acquired? Does
7. has what serve the language?

Great partly solved questions

1. do the animals have linguistic faculties?
2. the language: an innate or acquired faculty?
3. does the reading rest on the quiet reading? (phonological way)

See too

• Acquisition of the language
• wild Children
• Language of the signs
• Zoosémiotique
• Reading
• Surface of Broca
• Surface of Wernicke
• Aphasia S

Important Psycholinguists

• Gustave Guillaume, sometimes regarded as the inventor of psycholinguistics;
• Noam Chomsky ;
• Steven Pinker ;
• Mark Seidenberg;
• George Lakoff;
• Eleanor Rosch .

See too

• Linguistic cognitive
• Oculométrie

Random links:

Huia (kind) | Septenary (Theosophy) | Joseph-Denis Odevaere | FIAT 1800/2100 | Sarah Roemer