Block-3 Language
Block-3 Language
Structure
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Objectives
1.2 Language and Cognition
1.3 Linguistics
1.3.1 The Structure of Language
1.3.2 The Buildings Blocks of Language
1.4 Language Acquisition
1.4.1 Stages of Language Acquisition
1.4.2 Language Acquisition and Cognitive Science
1.4.3 Language and Thought
1.5 Theories of Language Acquisition
1.5.1 Behaviouristic Theory
1.5.2 Limitations of Behaviourism Theory
1.5.3 Innateness Theory
1.5.4 Evidence to Support Innateness Theory
1.5.5 Limitations of Chomsky’s Theory
1.5.6 Cognitive Theory
1.5.7 Limitations of Cognitive Theories
1.5.8 Inputs or Integrationist Theories
1.5.9 Limitations of Inputs Theories
1.6 The Biology of Language Acquisition
1.6.1 Maturational Changes in Brain
1.6.2 Dissociations Between Language and General Intelligence
1.6.3 Neural Networks
1.7 Let Us Sum Up
1.8 Unit End Questions
1.9 Suggested Readings and References.
1.0 INTRODUCTION
People talk or use language incessantly. Language, to cognitive psychologists, is
a system of communication in which thoughts are transmitted by means of sounds
(as in speech and music) or symbols (as in written words and gestures). As you
read this text, you are engaging in one of the mind’s most enchanting processes
– the way one mind influences another through language. In this process, some
cell assemblies in your brain are permanently changed, new thoughts are made,
and, in a very real sense, you are changed.
Cognitive psychology concerns both language and thought and has been popular
only since the 1950s. Before that, many psychologists believed that the scientific
method could not be applied towards the study of a process as private as thinking.
From ancient Greek times, only philosophers and metaphysicians studied the
nature of language and thought. The metaphysician René Descartes, for example,
famously argued, “I think, therefore I am.”
5
Language Today, thanks to increasingly sophisticated tools for studying brain activity,
cognitive psychology is a thriving science. Cognitive psychologists explore such
questions as how language affects thought, whether it is possible to create a
“thinking” machine, and why humans are motivated to create art.
1.1 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Define and elucidate the concept of language;
• Describe language and cognition;
• Explain theories of language acquisition and their limitations; and
• Explain biology of language acquisition.
The processing of words, speech, and semantics seem to engage specific cerebral
areas and thus provide a meaningful link between neuro anatomical structures
and language. In addition, the study of pathology of the brain has frequently
shown manifest change in language functions, as in the case of aphasia.
1.3 LINGUISTICS
The study of linguistics is the formal description of the structure of language,
including a description of speech sounds, meanings, and grammar. Language as
6
studied by linguists tends to be competency based (dealing with some ideal Language Acquisition
potential of the speaker-listener), while psychologists generally view language
in terms of performance, or how humans use language. The discipline that
incorporates both approaches to the study of language is called psycholinguistics.
A language uses symbols, which are sounds, gestures, or written characters that
represent objects, actions, events, and ideas. Symbols enable people to refer to
objects that are in another place or events that occurred at a different time.
A language has rules that govern how symbols can be arranged. These rules
allow people to understand messages in that language even if they have never
encountered those messages before.
In the past, debates about the acquisition of language centered on the same theme
as debates about the acquisition of any ability – the nature versus nurture theme.
However, current thinking about the language acquisition has incorporated the
understanding that acquiring language really involves a natural endowment
modified by environment (Bates and Goodman, 1999; Dehaene-Lambertz, Hertz-
Painter & Dubois, 2006; Lightfoot, 2003; Maratos, 2003). For example, the social
environment, in which infants use their social capacities to interact with others,
provides one source of information for language acquisition (Snow, 1999;
Tomasello, 1999). Thus the approach to studying language acquisition now
revolves around discovering what abilities are innate and how the child’s
environment tempers these abilities. This process is aptly termed innately guided
learning (see Elman & associates, 1996; Jusczyk, 1997).
Before examining the various theories of language acquisition, let’s take a look
at a series of stages that seem to be universal in language acquisition.
Within the first few years of life, we humans seem to progress through the
following stages in producing language:
Cooing, which comprises of vowel sounds mostly. Cooing is the infant’s oral
expression that explores the production of vowel sounds. The cooing of infants
around the world, including deaf infants, is indistinguishable across babies and
languages. Infants are actually better than adults at being able to discriminate
sounds that carry no meaning for them (Werker, 1989). They can make phonetic
distinctions that adults have lost. During the cooing stage, hearing infants also
can discriminate among all phones, not just phonemes characteristic of their
own language.
One-word utterances; these utterances are limited in both the vowels and the
consonants they utilise (Ingram, 1999). Eventually, the infant utters his or her
first word. It is followed shortly by one or two more. Soon after, yet a few more
follow. The infant uses these one word utterances — termed holophrases — to
convey intentions, desires, and demands. Usually the words are nouns describing
familiar objects that the child observes (example; car, book, ball, baby, toy, nose)
or wants (e.g. mama, dada, milk, cookie). By 18 months of age, children typically
have vocabulary of 3 to 100 words (Seigler, 1986). The young child’s vocabulary
cannot yet encompass all that the child wishes to describe. As a result, the child
commits overextension error. An overextension error is erroneously extending
the meaning of words in the existing lexicon to cover things and ideas for which
a new word is lacking. For example, the general term for any four legged animal
may be ‘doggie’.
Two-word utterances and telegraphic speech. Gradually, between 1.5 to 2.5 years
of age, children start combining single words to produce two-word utterances.
Thus begin an understanding of syntax. These early syntactical communications
seem more like telegrams than conversation. The articles, prepositions, and other
functional morphemes are usually left out. Hence, linguists refer to these early
utterances with rudimentary syntax as telegraphic speech. e.g. “want juice”,
doggie bite”, “mommy sit”. These simple pairings of words convey a wealth of
information about a child’s intentions and needs.
Basic adult sentence structure (present by about age 4 years), with continuing
vocabulary acquisition. Vocabulary expands rapidly. It more than triples from
300 words at about 2 years of age to about 1000 words at 3 years of age. Almost
incredible, by age of 4, children acquire the foundations of adult syntax and
language structure. By age of 5 years, most children also can understand and
produce quite complex and uncommon sentence constructions. By age of 10
years, children’s language is fundamentally the same as that of adults.
Normal children can differ by a year or more in their rate of language development,
though the stages they pass through are generally the same regardless of how
stretched out or compressed.
Chomsky argued that language acquisition falsified these beliefs in a single stroke:
children learn languages that are governed by highly subtle and abstract principles,
and they do so without explicit instruction or any other environmental clues to
the nature of such principles. Hence language acquisition depends on an innate,
species-specific module that is distinct from general intelligence. Much of the
debate in language acquisition has attempted to test this once-revolutionary, and
still controversial, collection of ideas. The implications extend to the rest of
human cognition.
Language acquisition, then, would be learning to think, not just learning to talk.
This is an intriguing hypothesis, but virtually all modern cognitive scientists
believe it is false (see Pinker, 1994a). Babies can think before they can talk.
Cognitive psychology has shown that people think not just in words but in images
and abstract logical propositions. Language acquisition has a unique contribution
to make to this issue. As we shall see, it is virtually impossible to show how
children could learn a language unless you assume they have a considerable
amount of nonlinguistic cognitive machinery in place before they start.
Over the last fifty years, several theories have been put forward to explain the
process by which children learn to understand and speak a language. They can
be summarised as follows: (Refer to table below)
10
Table 1.1: Theory and the central idea associated with author Language Acquisition
Skinner suggested that a child imitates the language of its parents or carers.
Successful attempts are rewarded because an adult who recognises a word spoken
by a child will praise the child and/or give it what it is asking for. The linguistic
input was key — a model for imitation to be either negatively or positively
reinforced. Successful utterances are therefore reinforced while unsuccessful ones
are forgotten. No essential difference between the way a rat learns to negotiate a
maze and a child learns to speak.
The vast majority of children go through the same stages of language acquisition.
Apart from certain extreme cases, the sequence seems to be largely unaffected
by the treatment the child receives or the type of society in which s/he grows up.
Children are often unable to repeat what an adult says, especially if the adult
utterance contains a structure the child has not yet started to use.
Few children receive much explicit grammatical correction. Parents are more
interested in politeness and truthfulness. According to Brown, Cazden & Bellugi
(1969): “It seems to be truth value rather than well-formed syntax that chiefly
governs explicit verbal reinforcement by parents — which renders mildly
paradoxical the fact that the usual product of such a training schedule is an adult
whose speech is highly grammatical but not notably truthful.” (cited in Lowe
and Graham, 1998)
There is evidence for a critical period for language acquisition. Children who
have not acquired language by the age of about seven will never entirely catch
up. The most famous example is that of Genie, discovered in 1970 at the age of
13. She had been severely neglected, brought up in isolation and deprived of
normal human contact. Of course, she was disturbed and underdeveloped in
many ways. During subsequent attempts at rehabilitation, her caretakers tried to
teach her to speak. Despite some success, mainly in learning vocabulary, she
never became a fluent speaker, failing to acquire the grammatical competence of
the average five-year-old.
Yet no one has been able to explain how quickly and perfectly all children acquire
their native language. Every language is extremely complex, full of subtle
distinctions that speakers are not even aware of. Nevertheless, children master
their native language in 5 or 6 years regardless of their other talents and general
intellectual ability. Acquisition must certainly be more than mere imitation; it
also doesn’t seem to depend on levels of general intelligence, since even a severely
retarded child will acquire a native language without special training. Some
innate feature of the mind must be responsible for the universally rapid and
natural acquisition of language by any young child exposed to speech.
12
Chomsky concluded that children must have an inborn faculty for language Language Acquisition
acquisition. According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the
human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic
information at birth. The child’s natural predisposition to learn language is
triggered by hearing speech and the child’s brain is able to interpret what s/he
hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains.
This natural faculty has become known as the Language Acquisition Device
(LAD).
Chomsky did not suggest that an English child is born knowing anything specific
about English, of course. He stated that all human languages share common
principles. (For example, they all have words for things and actions — nouns
and verbs.) It is the child’s task to establish how the specific language s/he hears
expresses these underlying principles.
For example, the LAD already contains the concept of verb tense. By listening
to such forms as “worked”, “played” and “patted”, the child will form the
hypothesis that the past tense of verbs is formed by adding the sound /d/, /t/ or /
id/ to the base form. This, in turn, will lead to the “virtuous errors” mentioned
above. It hardly needs saying that the process is unconscious. Chomsky does
not envisage the small child lying in its cot working out grammatical rules
consciously!
The result was the restricted form of language known as a pidgin. The adult
speakers were past the critical age at which they could learn a new language
fluently — they had learned Dutch as a foreign language and under unfavourable
conditions. Remarkably, the children of these slaves turned the pidgin into a full
language, known by linguists as a creole. They were presumably unaware of the
process but the outcome was a language variety which follows its own consistent
rules and has a full expressive range. Creoles based on English are also found, in
the Caribbean and elsewhere.
Studies of the sign languages used by the deaf have shown that, far from being
crude gestures replacing spoken words, these are complex, fully grammatical
languages in their own right. A sign language may exist in several dialects.
Children learning to sign as a first language pass through similar stages to hearing
children learning spoken language. Deprived of speech, the urge to communicate
is realised through a manual system which fulfils the same function. There is
even a signing creole, again developed by children, in Nicaragua (Pinker, 1994).
In 1977, Bard and Sachs published a study of a child known as Jim, the hearing
son of deaf parents. Jim’s parents wanted their son to learn speech rather than
the sign language they used between themselves. He watched a lot of television
and listened to the radio, therefore receiving frequent language input. However,
his progress was limited until a speech therapist was enlisted to work with him.
Simply being exposed to language was not enough. Without the associated
interaction, it meant little to him.
Subsequent theories have placed greater emphasis on the ways in which real
children develop language to fulfil their needs and interact with their environment,
including other people.
Piaget suggested that children go through four separate stages in a fixed order
that is universal in all children. Piaget declared that these stages differ not only
in the quantity of information acquired at each, but also in the quality of knowledge
and understanding at that stage. He suggested that movement from one stage to
the next occurred when the child reached an appropriate level of maturation and
was exposed to relevant types of experiences. Without experience, children were
assumed incapable of reaching their highest cognitive ability. Piaget’s four stages
are known as the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal
operational stages.
The sensory motor stage in a child is from birth to approximately two years.
During this stage, a child has relatively little competence in representing the
environment using images, language, or symbols. An infant has no awareness of
objects or people that are not immediately present at a given moment. Piaget
called this a lack of object permanence. Object permanence is the awareness that
objects and people continue to exist even if they are out of sight. In infants, when
a person hides, the infant has no knowledge that they are just out of sight.
According to Piaget, this person or object that has disappeared is gone forever to
the infant.
The preoperational stage is from the age of two to seven years. The most important
development at this time is language. Children develop an internal representation
of the world that allows them to describe people, events, and feelings. Children
at this time use symbols, they can pretend when driving their toy car across the
couch that the couch is actually a bridge. Although the thinking of the child is
more advanced than when it was in the sensory motor stage, it is still qualitatively
inferior to that of an adult. Children in the preoperational stage are characterised
by what Piaget called egocentric thoughts. The world at this stage is viewed
entirely from the child’s own perspective. Thus a child’s explanation to an adult
can be uninformative.
Three-year-olds will generally hide their face when they are in trouble—even
though they are in plain view, three-year-olds believe that their inability to see
others also results in others’ inability to see them. A child in the preoperational
stage also lacks the principle of conservation. This is the knowledge that quantity
is unrelated to the arrangement and physical appearance of objects. Children
who have not passed this stage do not know that the amount, volume or length of
an object does not change length when the shape of the configuration is changed.
If you put two identical pieces of clay in front of a child, one rolled up in the
shape of a ball, the other rolled into a snake, a child at this stage may say the
snake piece is bigger because it is rolled out. Piaget declared that this is not
mastered until the next stage of development.
The concrete operational stage lasts from the age of seven to twelve years of
age. The beginning of this stage is marked by the mastery of the principal of
conservation. Children develop the ability to think in a more logical manner and
they begin to overcome some of the egocentric characteristics of the preoperational
period. One of the major ideas learned in this stage is the idea of reversibility.
This is the idea that some changes can be undone by reversing an earlier action.
15
Language An example is the ball of clay that is rolled out into a snake piece of clay. Children
at this stage understand that you can regain the ball of clay formation by rolling
the piece of clay the other way. Children can even conceptualise the stage in
their heads without having to see the action performed. Children in the concrete
operational stage have a better understanding of time and space. Children at this
stage have limits to their abstract thinking, according to Piaget.
The formal operational stage begins in most people at age twelve and continues
into adulthood. This stage produces a new kind of thinking that is abstract, formal,
and logical. Thinking is no longer tied to events that can be observed. A child at
this stage can think hypothetically and use logic to solve problems. It is thought
that not all individuals reach this level of thinking. Most studies show only forty
to sixty percent of American college students and adults fully achieve it.
Piaget’s suggestion, that cognitive performance cannot be attained unless
cognitive readiness is brought about by maturation and environmental stimuli,
has been instrumental in determining the structure of educational curricula.
Cognitive theory of language acquisition suggests that a child first becomes aware
of a concept, such as relative size, and only afterward do they acquire the words
and patterns to convey that concept. Simple ideas are expressed earlier than more
complex ones even if they are grammatically more complicated— Conditional
mood is one of the last. Conceptual development might affect language
development: if a child has not yet mastered a difficult semantic distinction, he
or she may be unable to master the syntax of the construction dedicated to
expressing it.
The complexity of a grammatical form has a demonstrable role in development:
simpler rules and forms appear in speech before more complex ones, all other
things being equal. For example, the plural marker -s in English (e.g. cats), which
requires knowing only whether the number of referents is singular or plural, is
used consistently before the present tense marker -s (he walks), which requires
knowing whether the subject is singular or plural and whether it is a first, second,
or third person and whether the event is in the present tense (Brown, 1973).
There is a consistent order of mastery of the most common function morphemes
in a language. Here’s an example from English: first— -ing, then in and on, then
the plural -s, last are the forms of the verb to be. Seems to be conditioned by
logical complexity: plural is simple, while forms of the verb to be require
sensitivity to both number and tense.
A good example of this is seriation. There will be a point in a child’s intellectual
development when s/he can compare objects with respect to size. This means
that if you gave the child a number of sticks, s/he could arrange them in order of
size. Piaget suggested that a child who had not yet reached this stage would not
be able to learn and use comparative adjectives like “bigger” or “smaller”.
Object permanence is another phenomenon often cited in relation to the cognitive
theory. During the first year of life, children seem unaware of the existence of
objects they cannot see. An object which moves out of sight ceases to exist. By
the time they reach the age of 18 months, children have realised that objects
have an existence independently of their perception. The cognitive theory draws
attention to the large increase in children’s vocabulary at around this age,
suggesting a link between object permanence and the learning of labels for objects.
16
Clearly there is some link between cognitive development and language Language Acquisition
acquisition; Piaget’s theory helps explain the order in which certain aspects of
language are acquired.
This lack of homology does not, by the way, cast doubt on a gradualist Darwinian
account of language evolution. Humans did not evolve directly from chimpanzees.
Both derived from common ancestor, probably around 6-7 million years ago.
This leaves about 300,000 generations in which language could have evolved
gradually in the lineage leading to humans, after it split off from the lineage
leading to chimpanzees. Presumably language evolved in the human lineage for
two reasons: our ancestors developed technology and knowledge of the local
environment in their lifetimes, and were involved in extensive reciprocal
cooperation. This allowed them to benefit by sharing hard-won knowledge with
their kin and exchanging it with their neighbors (Pinker & Bloom, 1990).
Similarly, one can conjecture that these changes are responsible for the decline
in the ability to learn a language over the lifespan. The language learning circuitry
of the brain is more plastic in childhood; children learn or recover language
when the left hemisphere of the brain is damaged or even surgically removed
(though not quite at normal levels), but comparable damage in an adult usually
leads to permanent aphasia (Curtiss, 1989; Lenneberg, 1967).
Newport and Gleitman (1995) shows how sheer age seems to play an important
role. Successful acquisition of language typically happens by 4 and is guaranteed
for children up to the age of six, is steadily compromised from then until shortly
after puberty, and is rare thereafter. Maturational changes in the brain, such as
the decline in metabolic rate and number of neurons during the early school age
years, and the bottoming out of the number of synapses and metabolic rate around
puberty, are plausible causes. Thus, there may be a neurologically-determined
“critical period” for successful language acquisition, analogous to the critical
periods documented in visual development in mammals and in the acquisition
of songs by some birds.
There are also syndromes showing the opposite dissociation, where intact
language coexists with severe retardation. These cases show that language
development does not depend on fully functioning general intelligence. One
example comes from children with Williams Syndrome, an inherited condition
involving physical abnormalities, significant retardation (the average IQ is about
50), incompetence at simple everyday tasks (tying shoelaces, finding one’s way,
adding two numbers, and retrieving items from a cupboard), social warmth and
gregariousness, and fluent, articulate language abilities (Bellugi, et al., 1990).
19
Language
1.7 LET US SUM UP
The topic of language acquisition implicates the most profound questions about
our understanding of the human mind, and its subject matter, the speech of
children, is endlessly fascinating. But the attempt to understand it scientifically
is guaranteed to bring on a certain degree of frustration. Languages are complex
combinations of elegant principles and historical accidents. We cannot design
new ones with independent properties; we are stuck with the confounded ones
entrenched in communities. Children, too, were not designed for the benefit of
psychologists: their cognitive, social, perceptual, and motor skills are all
developing at the same time as their linguistic systems are maturing and their
knowledge of a particular language is increasing, and none of their behaviour
reflects one of these components acting in isolation.
Learning anything about language acquisition at all, is only because a diverse set
of conceptual and methodological tools has been used to trap the elusive answers
to these questions: neurobiology, ethology, linguistic theory, naturalistic and
experimental child psychology, cognitive psychology, philosophy of induction,
theoretical and applied computer science. Language acquisition, then, is one of
the best examples of the indispensability of the multidisciplinary approach called
cognitive science.
Fletcher, P., & MacWhinney, B. (Eds.) (1995). The Handbook of Child Language.
Oxford: Blackwell.
21
Language
UNIT 2 LANGUAGE PROCESSING
(COMPREHENSION AND
LANGUAGE EXPRESSION)
“Language is a process of free creation; its laws and principles are fixed, but
the manner in which the principles of generation are used is free and infinitely
varied. Even the interpretation and use of words involves a process of free
creation.”
– Noam Chomsky
Structure
2.0 Introduction
2.1 Objectives
2.2 Functions of Language
2.3 Structure of Language
2.3.1 Basic Units of Language: Phonemes and Morphemes
2.3.2 Higher Levels of Linguistic Analysis
2.3.3 Phase Structure of Sentences
2.3.4 Structure and Deep Structure in Sentences
2.4 Processes in Language
2.4.1 Production of Language
2.4.2 Speech Perception and Comprehension
2.5 Language Development
2.6 Comprehensive Model of Language Processing
2.6.1 Kintsch’s Model of Comprehension
2.6.2 Propositional Representation of Text and Reading
2.7 Let Us Sum Up
2.8 Unit End Questions
2.9 Suggested Readings and References
2.0 INTRODUCTION
One form of knowledge shared by all human societies is the knowledge of
language. Language is the principal means by which we acquire and express
knowledge; thus, the study of how language is used is a central concern of
cognitive psychology. In the previous chapter, we studied the modes of language
acquisition; here we will do an overview of the research on the processes of
language involving the comprehension and expression of language.
2.1 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Examine the basic features involved in the language processing;
• Explain the expression and comprehension of language;
• Elucidate the functions of Language;
• Analyse the structure of Language;
• Explain the processes in Language; and
• Describe Walter Kintsch’s model of comprehension.
As should be evident by now, language can be divided into three basic parts,
each with its own structure and rules: phonology, syntax (grammar), and
semantics. The first of these, phonology, concerns the rules for pronunciation of
speech sounds. The second aspect of language, syntax, deals with the way words
combine to form sentences. And semantics focuses on the meaning of words and
sentences.
There are several levels at which these higher-order analyses can be made.
1) First, one could analyse the lexical content of a sentence or of some other
unit of language production. When a lexical analysis is performed, the
question is simply, what words are used, and how many times they are used
in this sample of language? Information gained from lexical analysis of
language, such as that by Thorndike and Lorge, has proved to be very useful
in predicting the ease with which different words can be learned in laboratory
situations.
2) At another level of linguistic analysis, the syntactic content of language text
may be investigated. In the study of syntax, interest is focused on the
arrangement or ordering of words to form phrases and sentences. The
question asked in this type of analysis is, how is this phase (or sentence)
structured? Psychologists and linguists interested in syntactic theory have
attempted to specify rules that account for the productivity of language
(Chomsky, 1985). The set of rules indicating how the elements of the
language may be combined to make intelligible sentences is referred to as a
grammar. Although a large number of different grammars have been
proposed, there is little agreement about the necessary features of an adequate
grammar.
3) Another level of analysis of language is the one that considers the semantic
content or meaning of passage. This perspective on language results in the
asking of questions such as the following: What does the passage
communicate? What is the meaning of this particular sentence?
Word meaning is a function of the interaction between word features and
the extent to which they match those belonging to certain prototypical and
nonprototypical contexts (Lakoff, 1987). Here, both feature theory and
prototype theory are seen as important.
The critical role of semantics is not under question and has been clearly
demonstrated in a number of psychological investigations. In general, current
views of semantics and comprehension view the listener (or reader) as an
active participant who formulates hypotheses about subsequent input based
on context (both verbal and situational), on knowledge of constraints in the
language, and on knowledge of the world. This is in contrast to the more
25
Language passive view of the comprehended as someone who waits for the input before
acting upon it.
Analysis of a sentence into its various phrases describes the phrase structure of
a sentence. A sentence is viewed as composed of two basic phrases, a noun
phrase and a verb phrase, which in turn are composed of subcomponents.
Figure 2.1 shows the phrase structure of a simple sentence, “The boy ate an
apple.” The noun phrase is composed of a determiner and a noun, and the verb
phase is composed of a verb and noun phrase; the latter noun phrase is also
composed of a determiner and a noun. Pause in speech usually reflect underlying
phrase structure. For example, we are most likely to say, “The boy…ate…an
apple,” pausing ever so briefly after boy and ate. We are not likely to say,
“The….boy ate…an apple,” or “The… boy ate an….apple,” grouping boy, ate,
and an. While in normal speech a speaker may search and grope for a particular
word and, thus, alter the pauses, the listener still tends to understand the message.
Sentence
boy ate
The an apple
Fig. 2.1: Phrase structure in a sentence represented by a tree diagram (adapted from Hunt
& Ellis, 2006)
Consider the sentences, “Rohit threw the ball” and “The ball was thrown by
Rohit.” Both sentences convey the same meaning despite the fact that they sound
different. Hence their deep structure is same. But consider the sentence “The
lamb is ready to eat,” which can have two meanings. The lamb may serve as
food to be eaten, or as an animal, the lamb is prepared to eat food. Thus, the deep
structure can vary within the same sentence, depending on what meaning the
speaker wishes to convey. Evaluate the meaning of the following ambiguous
sentences” “Visiting relatives can be a nuisance,” “the corrupt police can’t stop
drinking.”
Sentences with essentially a single deep structure and two or more surface
structures are synonymous. Sentences with different deep structures and the same
surface structure are ambiguous. Thus, important problem remaining concerns
the theoretical rules by which the deep structure of a sentence comes to be realised
in a particular surface structure. Rules for the specification of this linkage process,
called transformational rules, have been developed by Noam Chomsky
(Chomsky, 1965, 1975) and other linguists.
28
Manner: Avoid vague or ambiguous statements.
Failure to follow these maxims often results in a conversational implicature. Language Processing
(Comprehension and
For example, imagine that you are reviewing an applicant’s letter of Language Expression)
recommendation for a highly technical job, and the letter reads as follows:
I am writing a letter on behalf of Gopal Bhatnagar. Gopal dresses very well and
has a charming wife. He also drives a nice automobile and sings in his church’s
choir. Thank you.
Would you hire Gopal based on this letter? Probably not. Clearly, the content of
this letter violates the Relation Maxim. Because of this, the letter writer has
conversationally implied that John is not the person for the job. Speakers (and
letter writers) usually adhere to these Gricean Maxims; but, as this example
demonstrates, it is quite informative when they don’t.
The third phase of speech production deals with constituent plans of the sentence.
Once a sentence is decided on, its components must then be planned. The
appropriate words, phrases, and so forth must be picked out and put in the right
order. These first three phases describe three levels of planning. At the most
general level, planning is directed towards the type of discourse. At the next
level, planning concerns the type of sentence to be uttered. At the third level,
planning deals with specific components of the sentence.
An interesting feature of slips of the tongue is that they point out regularities in
the planning stages of productions. For example, slips are seldom “illegal”
combinations of sounds for the language; morphemes tend to slip as entire units
(Clark & Clark, 1977). Some classics slips are known as “bloopers” in the world
of radio and television. Some bloopers are fairly obvious. For example, an
announcer for the ‘Friendly Homemaker Program’ said, “And now we present
our homely friendmaker. Another example is a remark of the commentator
covering visit of the king and queen of England: “When they arrive, you will
hear a 21 son salute.”
The fourth phase of speech production deals with what is called the articulatory
program. This concerns the plans for the execution of speech, which is a
coordinated sequence of muscular contractions in and about the mouth. And the
final phase of speech production is articulation itself. This is the actual output of
speech. Interested readers are referred to Clark & Clark (1977) and Levelt (1989)
for a detailed discussion of planning and execution of speech.
29
Language
2.4.2 Speech Perception and Comprehension
To understand speech is crucial to human communication. Hence, speech
perception is fundamental to language use in our day to day life. We are able to
perceive speech with amazing rapidity. On the one hand, we can perceive as
many as fifty phonemes per second in a language in which we are fluent (Foulke
& Sticht, 1969). On the other hand, we can perceive only about two thirds of a
single phonemes per second of nonspeech sounds (Warren et al., 1969). This is
why foreign languages are difficult to understand when we hear them. Even if
we can read them, the sounds of their letters and letter combinations may be
different from the sounds corresponding to the same letters and letter combinations
in our native language.
The comprehension of speech begins with the perception of raw speech sounds.
Comprehension starts where speech production ends. Speakers produce a stream
of sounds that arrive at the listener’s ears; then, listeners are able to analyse the
sound patterns and to comprehend them. Speech perception is not, however, the
simple identification of sounds.
It involves the complex processes of encoding and comprehension. In other words,
interpretative processes, meaning, contextual influences, and the like play
important roles in speech perception. Thus, the transformation from raw speech
sounds to propositions in memory is a complex process. The physical signal that
reaches the ear consists of rapid vibrations of air. While the sounds of speech
correlate with particular component frequencies, there is no direct one-to-one
correspondence between the sounds of speech and the perception of listeners.
Recognition of words is very much dependent on context, explanations, and
knowledge. For example, a hungry child can interpret the question “Have you
washed your hands for dinner?” as a call to come directly to dinner (i.e., as
indirect speech act rather than a direct question).
The role of context also can be easily seen in complete sentences in which context
allows words to be inferred quite easily. For example, the sentence “The young
girl was awakened by her frightening d….” allows listeners to infer dream. There
is no need to think about what the word might be; it just seems to pop out
automatically.
A similar context effect was studied in the laboratory of Warren (Warren &
Obusek, 1971) using phonemes. Subjects were read sentences that had a single
speech sound obscured. For example, the sentence “The state governors met
with the respective legislatures convening in the capital city” had the first s in
legislatures masked by a coughing sound. The experimenter then asked the
subjects to identify where the cough had occurred. [The results indicated that
subjects somehow “restored” the missing s sound and were unable to locate the
interjected cough.]
The phenomenon, appropriately called phonemic restoration, has been shown to
be even more likely when more than a single word can result from the restoration
(example: “_egion” can become either “legion” or “region”), indicating an active
word-searching process in speech perception (Samuel, 1987).
Many people have the impression that the words they hear are distinct, separate
combinations of sounds, but this impression in not correct. Cole (1979, 1980)
30
and other speech researchers have demonstrated that words usually run together Language Processing
(Comprehension and
as sound patterns. This is seen by use of a spectrograph, an electronic device for Language Expression)
measuring the variations in energy expended when a person talks. Moreover, it
is often the case that a single word cannot be recognised correctly when it is
taken out of its sentence context. This was shown some years ago by Pollack and
Pickett (1963), who played different segments of a normal conversation for
subjects. When the subjects heard just one word from the conversation, it was
often incomprehensible. Without the context of the meaningful sentence, the
single word could not be understood.
One attribute of these theories have in common is that they all require decision-
making process above and beyond feature detection or template matching. Thus,
the speech we perceive may differ from the speech sounds that actually reach
our ears. The reason is that cognitive and contextual factors influence our
perception of sense signal. For example, the phonemic-restoration effect involves
integrating what we know with what we hear when we perceive speech (Samuel,
1981; Warren, 1970).
Making speech sounds is only the first step in acquiring language. The sounds
must come to represent objects, symbols, and events in the child’s environment
and they must acquire meaning for the child.
Children are familiar with many aspects of their environment before they learn
to speak. Their parents, toys, pets, siblings, and household objects are familiar
31
Language stimuli. At this early stage of language development, their task is one of learning
to associate particular environment stimuli with particular sound symbols and
responses. For example, they must learn to associate the sight of mother with the
sound of Mama.
Only when such associations are acquired, the speech sound come to represent
or symbolise a specific object or event for the child. These associations are only
a part of language development. Thus, the development of meaning begins with
the acquisition of associations between objects/events and speech sounds.
One popular view of the acquisition of word meaning is that children learn
semantic features and then attempt to apply an original word that includes the
features to objects that share those features. For example, a child may learn the
word ball and then overgeneralise it to other round objects such as moon and
orange.
Gradually, the child begins to construct more complex sentences that take on the
characteristics of adult language. This is an enormously challenging task (Brown,
1973). What the child learns are sets of grammatical, semantic, and pragmatic
rules for constructing sentences. Usually, children are unable to verbalise the
rules, but their linguistic performance indicates that they do possess linguistic
competence, the knowledge necessary to produce all and only those situations of
a given language.
Indeed, many adults who speak grammatically acceptable English are unable to
specify the rules they use. But these rules allow us to generate the almost infinite
number of sentences. One of the best pieces of evidence for learning syntactic
rules is the phenomenon of overgeneralisation. For example, children learn to
say went correctly, apparently by rote, then learn the rule of forming the past
tense by adding ed, and then incorrectly as goed. They later learn the exception
to the rule and go back saying went. Similar overgeneralisations occur in deaf
child’s acquisition of sign language.
This brief description only begins to sketch some of the complexities of language
development. What is clear is that young children have an enormously complex
task in learning to speak, read, and use language in a meaningful fashion. The
fact that human beings can acquire and use language emerges as a remarkable
achievement.
One condition is that the person making the commitment actually intends to
carry out the promised action. A second condition is that it is apparent that the
person to whom the promise is directed desires the action to be carried out. In a
recent study, Bernicot & Laval (1996) report that 3-year-olds have difficulty
understanding only the second condition. But, by age 10, children evaluate both
conditions equivalently well in determining the outcome of a scenario (concerning
the occurrence of the promised activity), where these conditions were
manipulated.
32
These findings indicate that the meaning of “I Promise” is quite different, Language Processing
(Comprehension and
depending on the age of the child to whom it is said. Specifically the understanding Language Expression)
of the contextual circumstances underlying the making of a verbal commitment
increments with age. Initially, children are primarily concerned with whether the
promised activity simply occurred; as they grow older, they begin to grasp the
intentions of the speaker in evaluating the likely outcome of that activity
(Astington, 1988).
The Swazi tribe was at war with a neighbouring tribe because of a dispute over
some cattle. Among the warriors were two unmarried men, Kakra and his younger
brother Gum. Kakra was killed in battle.
The first sentence is divided into five groups: the swazi tribe…..was at war
with….a neighbouring tribe…. because….a dispute over some cattle. According
33
Language to coherence analysis of this sentence, only first three of the factors are in working
memory. The predicate “was at war with” is considered the most important part
of this sentence insofar as comprehension of the story is concerned. The other
parts are clustered around it.
A significant feature of the model is that the initial processing of the text is
assumed to take place in Short Term Memory (STM), which we know has limited
capacity. Because of this constraint, only a portion of the propositions is held in
memory. With the reading of the second sentence, some of propositions from the
first sentence are still vital in STM. The reader tries to connect the old and new
propositions but finds no match between them.
Failing to find a match between the propositions in STM, the reader searches
Long Term Memory (LTM) for a possible match. This search in the LTM is
called reinstatement search and is one reason that text material may be hard to
read. In the example, the lack of a match between propositions in the first and
second sentence requires the reader to construct a new network for the ideas and
to attempt to relate the two sentences.
One inference that the reader makes is that the two men were members of the
Swazi tribe, a reasonable conclusion even though that the fact is not stated directly.
With the reading of more sentences, the semantic network begins to get more
complicated and interrelated. The reading of the sentence “Among the warriors
were…., Kakra and…….” Retains in memory the names of the men, which can
easily be related to the information in the last sentence “Kakra was killed in
Battle.”
Subjects were asked to read ten sentences, all of which had about the same number
of words but varied greatly in the number of propositions. Some sentences had
as few as four propositions, and others had as many as nine. For example, read
the following two sentences:
Romulus, the legendary founder of Rome, took the women of Sabine by force.
Cleopatra’s downfall lay in her foolish trust in the fickle political figures of the
Roman world.
Which sentence was more difficult to read? If you are like the subjects in Kintsch’s
and Keenan’s experiment, you had more difficulty with the sentence about
Cleopatra than the sentence about Romulus. Even though the surface complexity
of the two sentences is about the same, they differ markedly in the number of
propositions and the macrostructures that are required to interconnect the
propositions.
34
In the Kintsch’s and Keenan’s experiment, subjects were presented with sentences Language Processing
(Comprehension and
similar to those just discussed above by means of slides. The subjects were asked Language Expression)
to read each sentence and then to write it. They could then advance the slides and
see the next sentence. Time taken in reading each sentence was noted. The authors
found an extraordinarily consistent relationship between the number of
propositions and the time required to read the sentences.
Hunt, R. R., & Ellis, H.C. (2006). Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. New
Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.
Jurafsky, D., & Martin, J.H. (2009). Speech and Language Processing: An
Introduction to Natural Language Processing, Computational Linguistics, and
Speech Recognition. NJ: Prentice Hall.
Just, M.A., & Carpenter, P.A. (1987). The Psychology of Reading and Language
Comprehension. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
36
Language Processing
UNIT 3 MULTILINGUALISM AND (Comprehension and
Language Expression)
COGNITION
Structure
3.0 Introduction
3.1 Objectives
3.2 Multilingualism — Basic Concepts
3.2.1 The Structure of Multilingualism
3.2.2 Multiligualism in India
3.3 Multilingualism and Cognition
3.3.1 Relations Between Languages and Their Users
3.3.2 Rule-governed Language Choice
3.3.3 Mixing is Rule-Governed Too
3.4 Multilingualism and Thinking
3.4.1 Other Benefits
3.5 Acquisition of a Second Language
3.5.1 Single-System Versus Dual-System Hypotheses
3.6 Neural Mechanism of Multilinguals
3.7 Let Us Sum Up
3.8 Unit End Questions
3.9 Suggested Readings and References
3.0 INTRODUCTION
Multilingualism is the natural potential available to every normal human being
rather than an unusual exception; it is only the environmental factors which may
fail to provide the opportunity to learn another language that produce monolingual
speakers: “Given the appropriate environment, two languages are as normal as
two lungs” (Cook, 2002).
Every child is born with a language acquisition device having innate properties
that plays a role in acquiring knowledge of language. This innateness is a
biological endowment that Chomsky refers to as “Principles and Parameters”.
According to this theory, there is a universal grammar – where “Principles” are
general features, while “parameters” are variables left open in the statement of
principles that account for the diversity found in languages. Grammar is a
collection of choices (example, a choice between SOV and SVO patterns of
sentences). They define the limited numbers of grammatically permitted choices
from the universal grammar menu of options. There are also lexical facts. Once
the vocabulary is learnt and grammatical patterns are fixed, the whole system
falls in its place and general principles programmed into general organ, just churns
away to yield all the particulars of the language concerned (Chomsky as quoted
in Jenkins, 2000).
In other words, there are different grammatical systems based on the choice of
different parameters, when the child is exposed to them, his/her innate capacity 37
Language gets activated and he/she acquires knowledge of the rules of the language while
using it for communication. When the child is exposed to more than one such
linguistic system, he/she acquires more than one language and is known as
multilingual.
3.1 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Define basic concepts and structure of multilingualism;
• Explain multilingualism and cognition;
• Define acquisition of language; and
• Explain neural mechanism of multilinguals.
It is known, however, that infants begin babbling at roughly the same age. This
happens regardless of whether they consistently are exposed to one or two
languages (Oller & associates, 1997). In the United States, many people make a
big deal of bilingualism, perhaps because relatively few Americans born in the
United States of nonimmigrant parents learn a second language to a high degree
of fluency.
In other cultures, however, the learning of multiple languages is taken for granted.
For example, in parts of India, people routinely may learn as many as four
languages (Khubchandani, 1997). In Flemish-speaking Belgium, many people
learn at least some French, English, and/or German. Often, they learn one or
more of these other languages to a high degree of fluency.
No society or state has just one language, nor can language be isolated from
culture. Societies are multilingual because of minorities that live within the
dominant language group, and also because the official language itself presides
over numerous dialects. In the Austro-Hungarian Empire, many linguistic and
cultural communities had their own territories in a common state, dominated by
German.
At the end of the 20th century, one or another form of multilingualism affect 60
per cent of the world’s population. In other words, monolingualism is a boundary
case of multilingualism, originated by very specific cultural conditions — and
bilingualism is a particular form of multilingualism.
Other children learn both languages at home, where, for example, the grandparents
speak one language to the child, but the parents and siblings speak another. Still
other children immigrate to this country speaking one language and then learn a
second language in school once they are settled in their new environment. It may
also be acquired later in life, through immigration or learning. Regardless of
how one actually learns his or her languages, the result is an individual who has
a greatly enhanced ability to think and communicate.
Multilinguals would thus choose the appropriate variety taking into account
whether it is a private or public affair, whether the conversation concerns the
professional world or leisure activities, religion or education, etc. Where domains
entwine (e.g. when an adolescent speaks with a minister [religion] about football
[leisure] in the school building [education]), individual factors are isolated and
pondered over. Language choice would be determined by characteristic bundles
41
Language of situational factors (Grosjean 1982). The same applies to heterogeneous
diglossic societies. In all these cases, the value of each language is thoroughly
appreciated. By choosing one or the other variety of his/her repertoire, the
multilingual speaker makes the most rewarding use of his communicative
resources.
In the first case, the language that is not used is ‘switched off’ as far as possible.
In the second case, the speaker’s whole repertoire is activated. Possible criteria
for the choice of the monolingual or bilingual mode are: the interlocutors’
repertoire, the degree of formality of the situation, normative representations of
the interlocutors, etc. In other words, the situation is not ‘automatically’ bilingual
even if both interlocutors are similarly bilingual. Bilingual mode requires a —
locally established — mutual agreement on its appropriateness. This holds true
for balanced as well as for unbalanced bilingualism (e.g. in the case of learners).
Systematic observations of examples like this have led to the hypothesis that
there are rules and norms that overlap single languages and govern the harmonic,
i.e. the ‘grammatical’, mixing of elements from different languages. It may be
assumed that the matrix language chosen for various reasons (level of competence
of the speaker, presumed level of competence of the audience, conformity with
the situation) is activated and provides the cognitive scaffolding for the semiotic
organisation of a representation (Talmy, 1985, 1995).
Searching for the appropriate words for what he wants to say, the speaker then
scans both of his lexica (or both subsets of his global bilingual lexicon). To fill
the gap of words he does not know, that are momentarily not accessible or that
may not even exist in the matrix language — or to achieve a special discourse
effect —, he will switch to the embedded language. But this is only possible if
the lemma of the embedded language word matches the slot provided by the
matrix language.
If this is not the case, the speaker will choose to switch to the embedded language
for a larger stretch and produce an “embedded language island” (Myers Scotton,
1993). Thus, a model of bilingual speech must provide control procedures for
the local matching of both language systems (Myers Scotton, 1993; Jake 1995;
Jake & Myers Scotton 1997).
Vice versa, each lexical — and language — theory will have to be judged by its
capacity to account for bilingual speech.
Does multilingualism make thinking in any one language more difficult, or does
it enhance thought processes? The data are somewhat self-contradictory (Hakuta,
1986). Different participant populations, different methodologies, different
language groups, and different experimenter biases may have contributed to the
inconsistency in the literature. Consider what happens when bilinguals are
balanced bilinguals, who are roughly equally fluent in both languages, and when
they come from middle-class backgrounds. In these instances, positive effects of
bilingualism tend to be found but negative effects may result under other
circumstances.
It appears that the additive form results in increased thinking ability. In contrast,
the subtractive form results in decreased thinking ability (Cummins, 1976). In
particular, there may be something of a threshold effect. Individuals may need to
be at a certain relatively high level of competence in both languages for a positive
effect of bilingualism to be found.
One way to address this question is through the study the multilinguals who
have experienced brain damage. Suppose a multilingual person has brain damage
in a particular part of the brain. An inference consistent with the dual-system
hypothesis would be that the individual would show different degrees of
impairment in the different languages. The single-system view would suggest
roughly equal impairment in all the languages. The logic of this kind of
investigation is compelling. But the results were not. When recovery of language
after trauma is studied, sometimes the first language recovers first, sometimes
the second/latter acquired language recovers first. And sometimes recovery is
46
about equal for all the languages .
In a related situation, an early bilingual aphasic was trained in his native language Multiligualism and
Cognition
but was given no training in his second language (Meinzer & associates, 2006).
The researchers found significant recovery of the first language but no change in
the individual’s ability to use the second language.
The conclusions that can be drawn from all this research are equivocal.
Nevertheless, the results seem to suggest at least some duality of structure. A
different method of study has led to an alternative perspective on multilingualism.
Two investigators mapped the region of cerebral cortex relevant to language use
in two of their bilingual patients being treated for epilepsy (Ojemann & Whitaker,
1978). Mild electrical stimulation was applied to the cortex of each patient.
Electrical stimulation tends to inhibit activity where it is applied. It leads to a
reduced activity to name the objects for which the memories are stored at the
location being stimulated. The results for both patients were the same.
The results of this study suggest some aspects of the two languages may be
represented singly. Other aspects may be represented separately.
Moreover, for beneficial effects to appear, the second language must be learned
well. In the approach usually taken in schools, students may receive as little as 2
47
Language or 3 years of second-language instruction spread out over a few class periods a
week. This approach probably will not be sufficient for the beneficial effects of
bilingualism to appear. However, schooling does seem to yield beneficial effects
on acquisition of syntax.
DISORDERS
Structure
4.0 Introduction
4.1 Objectives
4.2 Defining Language and Speech Disorders
4.3 Language Disorders
4.3.1 Aphasia
4.3.2 Autism
4.3.3 Learning Disability
4.3.4 Alzheimer’s Disease
4.3.5 Specific Language Impairment
4.3.6 Developmental Phonological Disorders
4.3.7 Dyspraxia
4.4 Speech Disorders
4.4.1 Voice Disorders
4.4.2 Speech Sound Disorder
4.4.3 Fluency Disorders
4.4.4 Apraxia of Speech
4.4.5 Dysprosody
4.4.6 Dysarthria
4.5 Let Us Sum Up
4.6 Unit End Questions
4.7 Suggested Readings and References
4.0 INTRODUCTION
Communication is so pervasive in any community in its day-to-day activities
that it is often taken for granted (Sternberg, 2001). Normal language develops
over a period and it is sequential or ordered (Crystal, 1992). A child acquires
vocalisation, speech sounds (vowels and consonants) and then prosodies. This
acquisition is in recognisable stages that entail acquisition of form, content, and
use (Seymour & Nober, 1997). The form is the system of symbols that convey
meaning and it is made up of the phonology, morphology, and syntax of a
language. The content includes the individual words and combinations of words
to produce meaning in the language. Content is made up of the semantics of a
language. Use involves how we use words in contexts and is made up of the
pragmatics of a language.
Many things could go wrong with the natural order of language acquisition and
development. In every community, we encounter individuals with language and/
or a speech disorders. One in 10 people in the United States is affected by a
communication disorder (speech, language, or hearing disorders). Unfortunately,
49
Language there is much ignorance as far as identifying these disorders is concerned. The
ignorance more often than not leads to mishandling of the persons with language
and speech disorders.
4.1 OBJECTIVES
After reading this unit, you will be able to:
• Define language and speech disorders;
• Explain speech disorders;
• List the causes for speech disorders;
• Enumerate the language disorders; and
• Explain treatment for the speech and language disorders.
The unique nature of the language and speech disorders is that they are not visible
since mostly they are not physically manifested, except defects that affect
articulation. Most disorders are not evident until a person opens her/his mouth
to speak. The disorders, for the same reason, are often not considered a disability,
even by the persons who have them.
Language and speech disorders may be due to factors such as physical, mental,
or socialisation defects (Crystal, 1988). Though language and speech disorders
are classified together they are slightly different from each other. Let’s take them
one by one:
Note that these are distinct from speech disorders, which involve difficulty with
the act of speech production, but not with language. Language disorders, therefore,
refer to the following:
The use of speech sounds in combinations and patterns that fail to follow the
arbitrary rules of a particular language is a language disorder. For instance, the
lack of communication etiquette is considered a language disorder. Talking out
of turn, not talking when it is your turn, or not responding when you are expected
to could be disorders if frequently observed in one’s language behaviour.
The delay in the use of speech sounds relative to normal development in the
physical, cognitive, and social areas is another language disorder. Most language
disorders are often diagnosed in conjunction with other developmental delays
— for instance, health, sensory, motor, mental, emotional, and behavioural
development.
4.3.1 Aphasia
Aphasia is an impairment of language functioning caused by damage to the left
hemisphere of the brain (Garrett, 2003; Hillis & Caramazza, 2003). There are
different type of aphasias, example; Broca’s aphasia and Wernicke’s aphasia.
Wernicke’s aphasia is caused by damage to the left temporal lobe of the brain. It
is characterised by notable impairment in the understanding of spoken words
and sentences. People with Wernicke’s aphasia have generally fluent phonetic
and syntactic but semantically coherent speech.
This coherence is exhibited through the creation of nonsense words for real-
world concepts and improper substitutions of function words for content words
(e.g., nouns, verbs). It also typically involves the production of sentences that
have the basic structure of the language spoken but that make no sense. They are
sentences without any meaning, e.g. ‘Yeah, that was the pumpkin furthest from
my thoughts’ and ‘the scroolish prastimer ate my spanstakes’ (Hillis & Caramazza,
2003).
In the first case, the words make sense, but not in the context they are presented.
In the second case, the words themselves are neologisms, or newly created words.
Treatment for patients with this type of aphasia frequently involves supporting
and encouraging nonlanguage communication (Altschuler et al., 2006).
Broca’s aphasia is caused by damage to the brain’s premotor area, responsible,
in part, for controlling motor commands used in speech production. A person
suffering from Broca’s aphasia exhibits speech containing excess pauses and
51
Language slips of tongue, and s/he has trouble finding words when talking. The person
also fails to make use of function words such as a, the, and of. For this reason,
Broca’s aphasics also produce ungrammatical sentences (Tartter, 1987).
Furthermore they have problem using syntactic information when understanding
sentences (Just & Carpenter, 1987). For example, while a Broca’s aphasic has no
trouble understanding a sentence such as “The bicycle that the man is holding is
blue”, but s/he has trouble comprehending a sentence such as “the dog that the
woman is biting is grey.”
This difference is due to the fact that while the first sentence can be understood
using real-world knowledge (e.g. bicycle, not people, are blue), the second
sentence cannot (because it is unlikely that a woman would bite a dog). Because
understanding the second sentence requires correctly using syntactic information,
which Broca’s aphasics have difficulty doing, the sentence poses problem for
them (Berndt & Caramazza, 1980).
Broca’s aphasia differs from Wernicke’s aphasia in two key aspects. First is that
speech is agrammatical rather than grammatical, as in Wernicke’s. Second is
that verbal comprehension is largely preserved.
Diseases like Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia, while tragic, tell us much about
the critical functions of certain regions of the brain. Notably, their symptoms
suggest that (at least certain) phonological, syntactic, and semantic, language
information is stored and processed separately in the brain.
Global aphasia is the combination of highly impaired comprehension and
production of speech. It is caused by lesions to both Broca’s and Wernicke’s
areas. Aphasia following a stroke frequently involves damage to both Broca’s
and Wernicke’s areas. In one study, researchers found 32 % of aphasias
immediately following a stroke in Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas (Pedersen, Vinter,
& Olsen, 2004).
Anomic aphasia involves difficulties in naming objects in retrieving words. The
patient may look at an object and simply be unable to receive the word that
corresponds to the object. Sometimes, specific categories of things cannot be
recalled, such as names of living things (Warrington & Shallice, 1984).
4.3.2 Autism
Autism is a developmental disorder characterised by abnormalities in social
behaviour, language, and cognition (Jarrold & Happe’, 2003). It is biological in
its origins, although the genes responsible for it have not been conclusively
identified (Lamb et al., 2000). Children with autism are identified by around 14
months of age, when they fail to show expected normal patterns of interaction
with others. They display repetitive movements and stereotyped patterns of
interests and activities. When they interact with someone, they are more likely to
view their lips than their eyes. About half of children with autism fail to develop
functional speech. The speech they tend to develop is characterised by echolalia,
meaning they repeat, over and over again, speech they have heard. Sometimes
the repetition occurs several hours after the original use of the words by someone
else.
Children with autism show abnormalities in many areas of the brain, including
the frontal and parietal lobes, as well as the cerebellum, brainstem, corpus
52
callosum, basal ganglia, amygdala, and hippocampus. The disease was first Language and Speech
Disorders
identified in the middle of the twentieth century (Kanner, 1943). It is five times
more common in males than females. The incidence of diagnosed autism has
increased rapidly over recent years (Chen et al., 2007). Autism is diagnosed
today in approximately 60 out of every 10,000 children (Fombonne, 2003). The
increase in recent times may be a result of a number of causes, including changes
in diagnosing strategies or environmental pollution (Jick & Kaye, 2003; Windham
et al., 2006).
Dyslexia — Dyslexia has been around for a long time and has been defined in
different ways. For example, in 1968, the World Federation of Neurologists
defined dyslexia as “a disorder in children who, despite conventional classroom
experience, fail to attain the language skills of reading, writing, and spelling
commensurate with their intellectual abilities.” Dyslexia is not due to mental
retardation, brain damage, or a lack of intelligence. It is caused by an impairment
in the brain’s ability to translate images received from the eyes or ears into
understandable language. The severity of dyslexia can vary from mild to severe.
It is found more often in boys than in girls. The sooner dyslexia is treated, the
more favorable the outcome; however, it is never too late for people with dyslexia
to learn to improve their language skills (Schulte-Körne, Warnke, & Remschmidt,
2006).
Letter and number reversals are the most common warning sign of dyslexia (Birsh,
2005). Difficulty in copying from the board or a book can also suggest problems.
The child may appear to be uncoordinated and have difficulty with organised
sports or games. Difficulty with left and right is common, and often dominance
for either hand has not been established. Auditory problems in dyslexia encompass
a variety of functions. Commonly, a child may have difficulty remembering or
understanding what he hears. Parts of words or parts of whole sentences may be
missed, and words can come out sounding funny. Children struggling with this
problem may know what they want to say but have trouble finding the actual
words to express their thoughts (Sperling et al., 2006).
There are several types of dyslexia that can affect the child’s ability to spell as
well as read (Heim, Tschierse, & Amunts, 2008). Primary dyslexia is a dysfunction
of, rather than damage to, the left side of the brain (cerebral cortex) and does not
change with age. Individuals with this type are rarely able to read above a fourth-
grade level and may struggle with reading, spelling, and writing as adults. Primary
dyslexia is passed in family lines through their genes (hereditary). Secondary or
developmental dyslexia and is felt to be caused by hormonal development during
the early stages of fetal development. Developmental dyslexia diminishes as the
child matures (Galaburda & Cestnick, 2003).
53
Language Dyslexia may affect several different functions. Visual dyslexia is characterised
by number and letter reversals and the inability to write symbols in the correct
sequence. Auditory dyslexia involves difficulty with sounds of letters or groups
of letters. The sounds are perceived as jumbled or not heard correctly. Dysgraphia
refers to the child’s difficulty holding and controlling a pencil so that the correct
markings can be made on the paper (Facoetti et al., 2003).
Many subtle signs can be observed in children with dyslexia. Due to the frustration
arising from the difficulty in reading, children may become withdrawn and may
show signs of depression and low self-esteem. Peer and sibling interactions can
become strained. The child may become unmotivated and develop a dislike for
school. The child’s success in school may be jeopardised if the problem remains
untreated.
One of the hallmarks of SLI is a delay or deficit in the use of function morphemes
(e.g., the, a, is) and other grammatical morphology (e.g., plural -s, past tense -
ed). Individuals with SLI exhibit problems in combining and selecting speech
sounds of language into meaningful units (phonological awareness).
These problems are different to speech impairments that arise from difficulties
in coordination of oral-motor musculature (Cohen, 2002). Symptoms include
54
the use of short sentences, and problems producing and understanding Language and Speech
Disorders
syntactically complex sentences. SLI is also associated with an impoverished
vocabulary, word finding problems, and difficulty learning new words, whereas
the basic tasks for development of phonology and syntax are completed in
childhood, vocabulary continues to grow in adulthood (Bishop, 1997).
These children have a deficit in processing brief and/or rapidly changing auditory
information, and/or in remembering the temporal order of auditory information
(Tallal, et al., 1985). Children with SLI have poor short-term memory for speech
sounds (example, Gathercole, 1998). In a number of recent studies short-term
memory for speech sounds has been shown to correlate highly with vocabulary
acquisition and speech production. This has led to the hypothesis that a primary
function of this memory is to facilitate language learning.
4.3.7 Dyspraxia
Developmental dyspraxia is a disorder characterised by impairment in the ability
to plan and carry out sensory and motor tasks (Dewey, 1995). Generally,
individuals with the disorder appear “out of sync” with their environment.
55
Language Symptoms vary and may include poor balance and coordination, clumsiness,
vision problems, perception difficulties, emotional and behavioural problems,
difficulty with reading, writing, and speaking, poor social skills, poor posture,
and poor short-term memory. Although individuals with the disorder may be of
average or above average intelligence, they may behave immaturely (Henderson
& Henderson, 2003).
Paralanguage issues, such as use of pitch, volume, and intonation, are diverse
for they are culturally determined. Every sound of voice has a possible range of
meanings that could be conveyed simply through the voice rather than the words
we use. The features that should be considered in determining a voice disorder
are:
Volume: how loudly or softly we speak
Pitch: how pleasant or unpleasant
Quality: the highness or lowness of one’s voice
Rate: the speed at which one speaks
Voice disorders are interpreted variously in different cultures. For instance, in
many African cultures masculinity and femininity are determined by paralinguistic
features. A man who speaks in a low volume, a high pitch, or a smooth and slow
voice, would be frowned upon and called upon to “speak like a man.”
56
4.4.2 Speech Sound Disorders Language and Speech
Disorders
These involve difficulty in producing specific speech sounds (most often certain
consonants, such as /s/ or /r/), and are subdivided into articulation disorders
(also called phonetic disorders) and phonemic disorders. Articulation disorders
are characterised by difficulty learning to physically produce sounds.
Fluency disorders are more prevalent in children and they are due to a combination
of familial, psychological, neurological, and motoric factors.
The social nature of communication is affected when one has disfluent speech.
Human beings are social and they spend much of their time together. They first
learn how to communicate in a social set up — for instance, with parents, siblings,
relations, or friends. Socialisation is adversely affected if one has a fluency speech
disorder. A person with disfluency is often mishandled at home, in school, or in
public place. Often the individual becomes withdrawn.
57
Language
4.4.4 Apraxia of Speech
Apraxia of speech, also known as verbal apraxia or dyspraxia, is a speech disorder
in which a person has trouble saying what he or she wants to say correctly and
consistently. The severity of apraxia of speech can range from mild to severe.
There are two main types of speech apraxia: acquired apraxia of speech and
developmental apraxia of speech. Acquired apraxia of speech can affect a person
at any age, although it most typically occurs in adults. It is caused by damage to
the parts of the brain that are involved in speaking, and involves the loss or
impairment of existing speech abilities. The disorder may result from a stroke,
head injury, tumor, or other illness affecting the brain. Acquired apraxia of speech
may occur together with muscle weakness affecting speech production (dysarthria)
or language difficulties caused by damage to the nervous system (aphasia)
(Epstein, Perkin, Cookson, & de Bono, 2003).
Others believe it is a neurological disorder that affects the brain’s ability to send
the proper signals to move the muscles involved in speech. However, brain
imaging and other studies have not found evidence of specific brain lesions or
differences in brain structure in children with DAS. Children with DAS often
have family members who have a history of communication disorders or learning
disabilities. This observation and recent research findings suggest that genetic
factors may play a role in the disorder (Kasper et al., 2005).
People with either form of apraxia of speech may have difficulty putting sounds
and syllables together in the correct order to form words. They also tend to make
inconsistent mistakes when speaking. For example, they may say a difficult word
correctly but then have trouble repeating it, or they may be able to say a particular
sound one day and have trouble with the same sound the next day. They often
appear to be groping for the right sound or word, and may try saying a word
several times before they say it correctly. Another common characteristic of
apraxia of speech is the incorrect use of “prosody” — that is, the varying rhythms,
stresses, and inflections of speech that are used to help express meaning. The
severity of both acquired and developmental apraxia of speech varies from person
to person. It can range from so mild having trouble with very few speech sounds
to the severe cases of being not able to communicate effectively.
4.4.5 Dysprosody
Dysprosody is the rarest neurological speech disorder. It is characterised by
alterations in intensity, in the timing of utterance segments, and in rhythm,
cadence, and intonation of words. The changes to the duration, the fundamental
frequency, and the intensity of tonic and atonic syllables of the sentences spoken,
deprive an individual’s particular speech of its characteristics. The cause of
58
dysprosody is usually associated with neurological pathologies such as brain Language and Speech
Disorders
vascular accidents, cranioencephalic traumatisms, and brain tumors (Pinto, Corso,
Guilherme, Pinho, & Nobrega, 2004).
4.4.6 Dysarthria
Dysarthria is a motor speech disorder. It is a weakness or paralysis of speech
muscles caused by damage to the nerves and/or brain. The type and severity of
dysarthria depend on which area of the nervous system is affected. Dysarthria is
often caused by strokes, Parkinson’s disease, Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS),
head or neck injuries, surgical accident, or cerebral palsy.
Children with isolated speech disorders are often helped by articulation therapy,
in which they practice repeating specific sounds, words, phrases, and sentences.
For stuttering and other fluency disorders, a popular treatment method is fluency
training, which develops coordination between speech and breathing, slows down
the rate of speech, and develops the ability to prolong syllables. Delayed auditory
feedback (DAF), in which stutterers hear an echo of their own speech sounds,
has also been effective in treating stuttering.
Note that these are distinct from speech disorders, which involve difficulty with
the act of speech production, but not with language. Language disorders, therefore,
refer to the following:
The use of speech sounds in combinations and patterns that fail to follow the
arbitrary rules of a particular language is a language disorder. For instance, the
lack of communication etiquette is considered a language disorder. Talking out
of turn, not talking when it is your turn, or not responding when you are expected
to could be disorders if frequently observed in one’s language behaviour.
References
Damico, J.S., Miller, N., & Ball, M.J. (2010). The Handbook of Language and
Speech Disorders. Singapore: Blackwell.
Disability Info: Speech and Language Disorders Fact Sheet (FS11). National
Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities.
Hunt, R. R., & Ellis, H.C. (2006). Fundamentals of Cognitive Psychology. New
Delhi: Tata McGraw Hill.
Leonard, L.B. (2000). Children with Specific Language Impairment. NY: MIT
Press.
62