Theories of psycholinguistics

Done BY : NOOR ALAA

UNIVERSITY OF BAGHDAD
College of Education For Women
1.1 Introduction:

Any or every discipline has a history behind it's development and the stages of development
actually entail the contributions of the great minds that have shaped the discipline and in this
regard psycholinguistics. The term psycholinguistics , a word composed of two words –
psychology and linguistics was introduced in 1936 by American psychologist Jacob Robert
Kantor in his book'' An Objective Psychology of Grammar'' and started being used among his
team at Indiana University .The term was popularized in the 1946 by one of Kantor's
students, Nicholas Henry Pronko, in the article "Language and Psycholinguistics: A Review"
where it was used for the first time to talk about an interdisciplinary science ''that could be
coherent '' as well as in the title of Psycholinguistics: A survey Of Theory and Research
Problem , a 1954 book by Charles .E Osgood and Thomas A. Sebeok . (Abhimanyu
Sharma,2015 , p12 )

Psycholinguistics is the discipline that investigates and describes the psychological processes
that make it possible for humans to master and use language. Psycholinguists conduct
research on speech development and language development and how individuals of all ages
comprehend and produce language. (N.B. Ratner, J.B. Gleason 2004)

It combines methods and theories from psychology and linguistics. It attempts to evaluate
the psychological reality and underpinnings of linguistic rules and processes. It also seeks to
link word and sentence processing to the deeper expressive processes of message
construction and interpretation.( B.J. MacWhinney, 2001)

1.2 Theories of psycholinguistics :

There are some basic theories advanced to describe how language is acquired, learnt and
taught such as the behaviorist theory, and the rationalist theory (otherwise called Cognitive
theory) .

1.2.1 The Behaviorist School:

The psychological theory behind behaviorist linguistics was founded by J.B. Watson
(1942).( Malmkjaer .K ,1991 ,p.53).1The extreme behavioristic stand-point is characterized
by B.F. Skinner’s well-known study, Verbal Behavior (1957) which presents a theory of
language learning even more firmly planted in the court of Pavlovian animal behavior than
the language theories of the Russian behaviorist school which was itself greatly influenced
by the work of Pavlov. The work that could be regarded as the basic doctrine of the
structural school of linguistic theory was Leonard Bloomfield’s Language (1933). In this work,
Bloomfield argued that the study of language could be pursued without reference to
psychological doctrines and he took a firmly behavioristic line aimed at scientific objectivity.
Bloomfield did not deny the role of meaning in language, but he objected to its importance
in the study of language at a time when human knowledge of the vast range of semantic
association attached to every linguistic form was so very little. Moreover, he viewed
semantics as a subordinate element to the primary stimulus response relationship of verbal
behavior.

To Bloomfieldians… “language is nothing but a habit that the child comes to learn by
imitation. In their account of language acquisition, the child is exposed to linguistic data
which he/she internalizes and then reproduces at a later stage. Language is thus learned
from outside, we learn it in the same way that we learn other habits. Learning a language is
not very much different from the laboratory mouse learning to expect to be fed each time
someone rings a bell.”( Kebbe, Z.M,1995 p.14,) They believe that, “a scientific theory must
reject all data that are not directly observable or physically measurable.”(Ibid , p53).

To the behaviorists, habit formation is brought about through repetition, mimicry, and
memorization. Thus no clear distinction seems to be made between learning the first
language and the target language. To them linguistic habits, generalization and associations
have to be repeated using different data.

Skinner (1957) based his whole theory of language acquisition and speech realization
on the recognizable external forms of what Chomsky terms “input and “output” and makes
no allowance for any internal process of the organism. Stimulus and reinforcement (or
reward) from the input and the “verbal operant” (or response) forms the output.

The structuralists, whose views are related to behavioral psychology, see language as
a finite list of ordered elements to which one can attach labels. They undertake a systematic
analysis of structure. The teacher depends on such structural description as the distribution
and combination of elements into a chain of speech. It is based on the process of
substitution, the replacement of one unit by another unit of the same grammatical class.
They follow a taxonomic approach in teaching. Their view is characterized by the insistence
that language is learnt by the strength of habitual association and by the context
generalization (i.e. general association). It is more of an inductive rather than a deductive
system.

The Swiss scholar Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who is an associationist,

believes that “all language items are essentially interlinked.”( Aitchison, 1992, p.24) He
argues that “language was like a game of chess, a system in which each item is defined by its
relationship to all the others…language is a carefully built structure of interwoven
elements.”(Ibid)

1.2.2 The Cognitive theory :

(cognitive) theory, represented by Noam Chomsky have been acknowledged by
linguists as a revolutionary contribution to linguistics, though Chomsky himself related his
views to those of Hambolt and to rationalist philosophers of the Seventeenth Century such
as Descartes. The school of thinking, which has developed around Chomsky’s ideas, has been
variously termed “Cognitive”, “mentalist”, “generative” and “transformationalist.” His
Transformational Analysis (1955), Syntactic Structures (1957), Aspects of the Theory of
Syntax (1965), and Language and Mind (1968) are regarded as particular pioneer works of
the new approach.

The cognitivists reject the views of the behaviorists. They believe that “everybody
learns a language, not because they are subjected to a similar conditioning process, but
because they possess an inborn capacity which permits them to acquire a language as a
normal maturational process. This capacity is by definition universal…the nature of language
is such that it is impossible to explain it without postulating an innate mechanism of a fairly
well-defined kind.”( Wilkins, D.A, 1974, p168-169)

They look for a universal grammar that contains universals relating to the deep-seated
regularities characterizing all languages. For instance, subject and predicate, negative and
adjectival forms are present in all languages because they are a universal feature, whereas
the structuring and arrangement of these features belong to individual languages. The deep
structure rules are limited by the grammar of each particular language. Universal grammar,
according to Chomsky is “…a theory of the “initial state” of the language faculty, prior to any
linguistic experience.(Slakie, R,1990., p.19)

To the cognitivist, children are born with an innate capacity for language development. The
human brain is “ready” for language, in the sense that when children are exposed to
speech, certain general principles for discovering or structuring language
automatically begin to operate. These principles constitute, what Chomsky terms, a
child language acquisition device (LAD). “A child uses its LAD to make sense of
utterances heard around it, derived from his “primary linguistic data” hypotheses
about the grammar of the language-what the sentences are, and how they are
constructed. This knowledge is then used to produce sentences that, after a process
of trial and error, correspond to those in adult speech: the child has learned a set of
generalizations of rules, governing the way in which sentences are formed.”(
Crystal1987, p.234)

Chomsky emphasizes the linguistic ‘creativity’, that is “..the ability of human beings to
produce and comprehend an infinite number of novel sentences.”(Ibid )

Basic to this reason, Comsky believes that “Bloomfieldian linguistics was too ambitious
in that it was unrealistic to expect to be able to lay down foolproof rules for extracting a
perfect description of a language from a mass of data. It was too limited because it
concentrated on describing sets of utterances which happened to have been spoken.”(Ibid)

Whilst the structuralist lays emphasis on the surface structure (patterns…etc.), the
transformationalist lays emphasis on the processes of the deep structure; the stress is on
learning to learn the development of a strategy of learning rather than the accumulation of
information and rules. The structuralist tends to overemphasize the surface forms and the
development of rules and to neglect the meaning.
 Unlike the behaviorists who believe that if there is a response there must be stimulus,
the transformationalists (cognitivists) argue that language acquisition is autogenic and that
the environment serves merely to trigger off a maturation process. Language comes
primarily though the maturation that the environment triggers off and not through the
environment itself.

Erric Lenneberg, who is a cognitivist, also suggests that training is not necessary and
that maturation is enough. His critical period hypothesis (1967) holds that “language
acquisition must occur before the onset of puberty in order for language to develop fully.”(
Brown, H.D. and Gonzo, 1995, p.77)

Conclusion :

From the above analysis proceeds that with regard to language acquisition,
behavioristic theory can provide much useful information concerning verbal responses and
reinforcement. But it is inadequate to account for innate and cognitive features. Cognitive
theory, on the other hand, provides much useful information on the basic nature of the
organism and its internal processes, but makes little or no account of stimulus-response-
reinforcement relationships. Unlike the cognitive approach, behavioral approach tends to
manipulate the language and disregard the content.
List Of References :

-Aitchison, J., Linguistics, Hodder Headline, London, 1992.

-Abhimanyu Sharma , Psycholinguistic Basis of Curriculum Development.

2015 .Retrieved from:
https://www.academia.edu/17548209/Psycholinguistic_Basis_of_Curriculum_Development

-B.J. MacWhinney, in International Encyclopedia of the Social &

Behavioral Sciences, 2001. Retrieved from:
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/psycholinguis
tics

-Brown, H.D. and Gonzo, S., Readings on Second Language Acquisition,

Prentice Hall, 1995.

-Crystal,. D., The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Linguistics, Cambridge

University Press 1987.

-Kebbe, Z.M., Lectures in general Linguistics, An Introductory Course,

Arabic Academic Press, Aleppo, 1995

-Malmkjaer K. (Ed.) The Linguistics Encyclopedia, Routledge, Longon,

1991.

-N.B. Ratner, J.B. Gleason, in Encyclopedia of Neuroscience, 2004.

Retrieved from:
(https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/psycholinguis
tics

-Slakie, R., The Chomsky Update, Linguistics and Politics, Unwin Hyman,
Ltd, London 1990.
-Wilkins, D.A., Linguistics in Language Teaching, Edward Arnold, London,
1974.