Introduction to Linguistic *All utterances have been learned from other

and their reinforcement

Psycholinguistics – the study of the
psychological and neurobiological factors that *Applies for humans and non-human species
enable humas to acquire, use and understand
Noam Chomsky (1957-1965)
language.
*Critique of Skinner (1959)
The Three Primary Processes Investigated in
Psycholinguistics -Sentences are not linear strings of words
Language Comprehension *We cannot account for creativity of language
-is an important aspect of day to day -Poverty of stimulus argument
functioning in adulthood.
*Grammar independent of meaning
-involves a variety of capacities, skills,
processes, knowledge and dispositions that are “Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.”
used to derive meaning from spoken, written *Language is not learned by imitation and
and signed language. reinforcement
Language Production *Strong nativist belief
-is the production of spoken or written
language.

-is describes all of the stages between having a

concept, and translating that concept into
linguistic form.

Language Acquisition

-is the process by which humas acquire the

capacity to perceive and comprehend language,
as well as to produce and use words and
sentences to communicate.

Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

*Two aspects of Language

- outer phenomena (production)

- inner phenomena (comprehension)

*Language begins with an idea/purpose you

want to transmit.

B.F Skinner (1957)

 Stimulus response