Mental Lexicon and Language Processes
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Transcript of Mental Lexicon and Language Processes
R115604D
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
AREA OF INVESTIGATION
OBJECTIVES
JUSTIFICATION
METHODOLOGY
LITERATURE REVIEW
DATA PRESANTATION
DATA ANALYSIS
CONCLUSION
1. INTRODUCTION
The issue that is going t be addressed by this project is aboutspeech errors and how they afford us a glimpse of how words arestored and processed in the mental lexicon. These speech errorsare a deviation from a speaker’s current phonological grammaticalintent. Language processing in the human mind is complicated andit cannot be objectively observed. Access into its working isvery limited to an extent that both Psychologists and Linguistknow relatively little than they would like to know. The onlypossible window through which we can see this is by analyzing
speech errors. In figuring how the brain works, one standard lineof inquiry is o see how it fails. This was first taken up bySigmund Freud (1901). However most of his theories have beenrejected because his hypothesis only accounted for a few errorsand left the rest unaccounted for. Using the speech errors itwould be argued that the retrieval of words in the mind is donestarting from the phonological level. Speech errors would supportthe view that words are not retrieved as chunks but as individualentities. They show also het word retrieval in speech productionis modular. The research is going to be done at my home inDzivarasekwa. The research would also be done in Alexandra Parkwhere there are university students living together and it wouldfocus on errors that occurs in English language. The researchwould focus these students and family members since I spend moretime with them conversing in English. These speech errors wouldbe taken from people without speech disorders. They would alsosupport the view that words are stored in two forms that ismeaning and form and for a better speech production these fieldswould have o be united. They would also show the issue ofperformance and competence. In competence the speaker would havea correct grammar in his head but in performance he wouldretrieve these words wrongly or fail to pronounce them in thecorrect way.
2. AREA OFINVESTIGATION
I have decided to use these two places Dzivarasekwa and Alexandrabecause of their diversity. In the first place I choseDzivarasekwa because of its multi faceted linguistic structure.Dzivarasekwa is an area in the high density suburbs that can besaid to one of the melting pots in the city. It is home to people
of various nationalities. There are people from the SouthernAfrica including Zambia, Mozambique, and Malawi. So for thesepeople to commutate effectively they have to chose a neutrallanguage and in most case the educated ones use English becauseof its neutrality and also for prestigious reasons. This willmake it possible for one to analysed speech errors in such anarea with rich linguistic evidence. The second pace I used isAlexandra Park because here one would find students from theUniversity of Zimbabwe living in overcrowded rooms where heatedacademic arguments and debates in English would be conducedwithout cease. This would results in speech errors that areinsightful in showing how the lexicon stores language and howthat language is accessed during speech production. This areaalso eliminated the possibility of speech errors in English beingmade because one was incompetent in English. The students weresome of the brightest and promising individual who spoke Englishso flawless.
3. OBJECTIVES
To look at how speech errors are caused.
To look at different speech errors
To look at speech errors made by students in Alexandra Park
and ordinary citizens in Dzivarasekwa
To use speech errors to come up with a suitable model that
shows how language is stored in the mental lexicon
To use models to see how these speech errors provide
insight into some of the proposed speech production and
mental lexicon
3. JUSTIFICATION
The research would tries to show that speech errors is another
window through which we can gain access to the processes that
are involved in language storage and processing. The goal will
to pursue that speech errors are a reach source of data that
can be analysed to support r reject models of language
processing. It would also try to show how the realization of
certain words in a wrong way does not mean that the words in
the mental lexicon are jumbled. On the other way, some errors
like semantic errors would show that words may be stored in
classes and the super-ordinates may be quickly retrieved than
other members. These speech errors studied shows also that
words and their meanings are stored differently and they would
be linked during production. The area of study were selected
because they tried to address the problem of illiteracy are
controversial as people in Dzivarasekwa were controversial as
their English left a lot to desire. This area was unique in
that it included people from various nationalities. Alexandra
Park was selected because most of the students used English in
an almost day to day basis. I was also able to assess them
without bias as some of them were open and did not get worked
up when we noticed and repeated a speech error. They were more
cooperative and they were the best candidates available for
one to study.
(4) METHODOLOGY
(4, 1) Data Gathering.
The method that I used to gather data was gathered in Alexandra
Park and Dzivarasekwa. The method that was used was observation.
I collected naturally occurring data and put it down in a
notebook at the time of occurrence. I tried to be as accurate as
possible when it came to recording what had already been said in
case of a speech error that involved errors at sentence level.
The method was not expensive and it could not strain me
financially. It also gave me room to work in a flexible way.
However it had some shortcomings that not all errors were written
down. Sometimes those errors occurred at a place where it was
awkward to write. People were more likely to be hostile when they
saw me writing their errors. Some were eager to manhandle me as
they viewed this process of me recording their speech errors as
rude and intrusive. I would write the speech errors later but in
most case I would forget about them. Family members were more
likely to point me as a sell-out when I recorded their speech
errors for my research. The methodology was data driven in the
sense that I used the data that I gathered to understand how
language was stored in the mental lexicon. The data supported or
refuted theories of lexical storage.
(4, 2) LITERATURE REVIEW
A speech error has been defined by Laver and Boomer (1973) as an
involuntary deviation fro the speaker’s current grammatical
phonological or lexical intent. The fact that it is involuntary
makes it an error of performance rather than about competence.
The speaker might have a correct grammatical representation in
his mind but fail to produce it. It can be said that speech
errors are performance errors. Some scholars like Meringer and
Meyer (1895) realized their Linguistic importance and did an
extensive collection of them. They can be done by normal people
and they have proved useful in studies of lexical storage. They
may be caused by various reasons that include drunkenness,
tiredness, stress, excitement or nervousness.
Speech errors fall under two broad categories that are assemblage
errors and selection errors. Assemblage errors are those errors
that occur when the words are retrieved correctly from the mental
lexicon but produced in the wrong way. These assemblage errors
are anticipation, transposition and perseveration.
Anticipation errors are those errors are errors that occurs when
a speaker prematurely anticipates and get material before it is
needed. It is saying a letter that should have been realized
later, sooner. This can be shown when a student at University of
Zimbabwe said ‘can you give me that leading list’. The sound ‘l’
in list was anticipated sooner before the ‘r’ sound was realised.
There phenomenon may have been caused by the act that ‘l’ and ‘r’
share the same phonological features and both are articulated at
the same area. They are also laterals. Smith (2010) says that
anticipation errors are more common than other errors. This error
shows that word in the lexicon can be arranged on their
phonological classes.
The second assemblage error is transposition. These are errors
that occurs when speakers swaps two sounds of words. This can be
shown when a man in Dzivarasekwa who was involved in a heated
argument with his workmate said ‘don’t fake your shinger at me’.
Fromkin (1973) say that transposition errors are both errors of
anticipation and perseveration. What happens is the switch in the
linear ordering of the sound intended. The third error is
perseveration. This is when a sound that was produced earlier in
an utterance persisted and got used again. This can be shown by
the error ‘that was our pre-phone flan’. This error was made
because the fricative sound in phone remained longer that it was
used in plan.
The second category of speech errors is selection errors.
Selection errors occur when the word was wrongly retrieved in the
lexicon. It is different from assemblage errors inn the sense
that in assemblage errors the words are retrieved correctly but
realized in the wrong way whilst under selection error the error
begins in the word or sound retrieval itself. There three major
types of selection errors. The first selection error is blend.
Blends occur when two words are compounded. This may be because
the speaker was thinking of both words at the same time. They
occur when two words are fighting for selection in the lexicon.
These competitors succeed together and hence are realized at the
same time as blends. This may be shown when my father was trying
to defend himself from my mother and said, ‘listen woman, you
misunderestimated me’.
The second types of selection error are substitutions. The
substituted words are mostly linked to each other by similarity
of form or meaning. The third type is semantic error. These
semantically mediated lexical slip occurs when one word replaces
another one that is related in meaning. The Bowling Green State
University website cites that this is more common in parents
where they may exchange the names of their children.
These kinds of mistakes show us how we arrange speech in our
heads. If we want to retrieve a word the letters have to be
arranged in the right order. The letters that are needed to form
a word are activated in the brain. Some of the activated letters
remain activated and that makes it possible for one to have a
perseveration error. Some of them may be activated too early
making anticipation errors or their positions may be switched.
All the words that a speaker knows are stored in the mental
lexicon. These words constitute the speaker’s tacit knowledge of
his or her knowledge. Handke (1995) says that the mental lexicon
is the central module of a language processing system,
interacting with other components of the language processor and
containing detailed information concerning the words to be
produced and comprehended. The objectives of the research are to
try o see how words are stored I the mental lexicon. There are
several models that try to show how the mental lexicon sores its
entries. There are the list models and the network models. The
list model tries to liken the mental lexicon as a word list where
words are arranged like in a dictionary. However the way we make
speech errors shows that some words are not even related. It
would also mean that lexical assess would run down a list of
words for one to be picked. This would slow down communication
but the fast way that words are assessed in the lexicon shows
that words are not in a list but likely a network.
Collins and Quillian (1969) came up with Hierarchical model that
postulated that concepts are organized into a hierarchy where
taxonomic and attributive relations are represented. In this
organization words are given ranks and those words that are super
ordinates are easier to retrieve that lesser members of the
class. This is supported by the fact that people sometimes make
speech errors when they refer quickly can retrieve the word meat
to mean pork or chicken. Words in the mental lexicon can be said
to be stored according to frequency of use. A teacher is likely
to replace a box of cookies with a box of chalk. In his mental
lexicon he words that he uses frequently are easily accessible
than those hat he does not frequently use. The mind consists of
the working memory or temporary memory and the subconscious where
words that are not active are put. The words that are in the
working memory are retrieved from the subconscious and names that
are frequently used are activated quicker.
Some speech errors shows hat words are stored by semantic
similarity. Words that are similar like banana, apple, and orange
can be exchanged in speech and result in semantic errors. These
semantic errors show that words that share the same meaning are
closely related. Yet this becomes problematic in errors where the
relationship is not that close. It can be said that in
circumstances where one swaps oranges for bananas it must because
bananas would be a better example of a fruits than oranges.
Two other models of lexical access which also help in showing the
storage of language in the mental lexicon are the serial model
and the parallel model. The serial model postulates that when we
want to access word we go through a list of the available words.
Words that are regularly used are easier o retrieve than those
that are rarely used. What would be apparent in the mode is that
words are not stored semantically but because of frequency. An
example of such models is Forster’s (1979) where words are
arranged in bins according to form and modality. Those words that
are higher in the bin are the most frequent. There are
circumstances called girlfriend slips where you can address your
girlfriend with the name of her predecessor. Sigmund (1901) say
this is caused by suppressed thoughts that you are not yet over
that girl. But sometimes it is not so. It may be because their
names may be common names like Martha and Mary.
The other model is the spreading activation model (Collins and
Loftus 1975) and it supports the idea that the mental lexicon is
a network but the organization is not hierarchical but rather is
a web of interconnected nodes which, depending on the target word
become activated during retrieval. Distance between nodes is
determined by structural characteristics for instance taxonomic
relations and typicality.
DATA PRESENTATION
1 Error: Cable of contents
Target: Table of contents
2 Error: Wide walk
Target: Sidewalk
3 Error: A stitch in nine saves nine
Target: A stitch in time saves nine
4 Error: A leading list
Target: A reading list
5 Error: Leave no stone unstorned
Target: Leave no stone unturned
6 Error: Glean and pright
Target: Clean and bright
7 Error: Lunder and thightining
Target: Thunder and lightning
8 Error: I went to baby’s Betsy shower today
Target: I went to Betsy’s baby shower today
9 Error: Fewtable
Target: Few notable
10 Error: Misundestimated me
Target: Misunderstood and underestimated me
11 Error: Soap studs
Target: soap suds
12 Error: Alshoshare
Target: Also share
13 Error: I picked up some gutter pups
Target: I picked some butter cups
14 Error: I am ravished
Target: I am ravished and famished
15 Error: The Pamire pampaign
Target: The Pamire campaign
16 Error: That was our pre-phone flan
Target: That was our pre-phone plan
17 Error: Don’t fake your shinger at me
Target: Don’t shake your finger at me
18 Error: Honey, did you put the milk back in the oven
Target: Honey, did you put the milk back in the fridge
DATA ANALYSIS
Speech errors show us how language is arranged in the mental
lexicon. They act as a window in the processes that are
involved in the mind. Using the assemblage errors and
selection errors I am going to deduce how speech is stored in
the human mind. The Ohio website aptly puts it when it says
that the best way to look at how the mind works is to look at
how it fails. Some of these errors are a roadmap in the
storage of the words in the mental lexicon. The data of
English speakers in Harare would be the basis for me to deduce
the workings of the human mind.
Errors (1), (2), (3) show that words are arranged inn a
network form I the mind. This means that words are linked and
once they are activated the connection spreads outwards
activating other words. The error ‘cable of contents’ resulted
when both the initial ‘t’ in table and the initial ‘c’ in
content were activated at the same time. The anticipated
letter become active and was realized before its time. The
network model makes it sensible as‘t’ and ‘c’ are quite
distinct from each other save the fact that they are dental
sounds. This may also show that words may also be stored
according to their phonological properties.
Sounds (5), (6) and (7) are perseveration and they are caused
by the fact that they remain activated even when they have
been used. This shows that the words that have been
activated are interconnected with each other. If they were
serial, they would not have perseveration as the words would
be dropped quickly after they are used. Using this data from
speech errors, it can be said hat words are stored in the
mental lexicon according to their phonological structure and
are activated in a network process that spreads to other
words with similar phonological properties.
Sounds (9) and (10) are blends. Blends are also a subcategory of
lexical selection errors. In blends more than one word is
considered during speech production but the two intended items
fuse together. Since blend errors involves two words fighting for
selection, the spread activation model also helps in showing how
language is stored in the sense that words of the same category
are activated at the same time as in the example (9) and (10)
where the first part of the first word attaches to the last part
of the other word were combined to come up with one word. Hence
this shows that words of the same initials are all activated as
depicted in example (9) and (10). This feature also shows the
creative side of language as it can be able to come up with new
compounded words like brunch, consisting of breakfast and lunch
or smog, a combination between smoke and fog. This shows that
there are no strict boundaries between words in the mental
lexicon. Words can freely fraternize with each other and hence be
incorporated into one word like the error made by my father
whilst addressing his wife (10). Sounds (13) and (14) are called
malapropisms. These are semantic errors that occur when a word is
wrongly picked in the lexicon instead of the other one. The
speaker may do it with the belief that everything is alright and
may even fail to notice the slip. It is only after fierce
arguments that some students in Alexandra Park finally agreed
that they had made those errors. The others in Dzivarasekwa
became aggressive when the slip was indicated. Therefore when we
fail to pinpoint the right word we end up saying the wrong word
because these words might have been stored n the same area.
Aitchison (1998) observes that semantically this suggests that
similar meaning words are linked together in the mind. The
spreading activation model would activate them because they are
in the same environment. This error is also shown by the way
parents swap names of their children. Opposites are also expected
substitutes when it comes to speech errors. Freud says that when
such a slip is made, it shows the repressed thoughts in the
subconscious. These slips have been called the Freudian slips but
their occurrence is limited to a feel circumstances and this has
resulted in his points being rejected.
Example (15), (16) and (17) are further examples of the
phonological arrangement in the mental lexicon. There are also
substitution errors and they suggest that in the mental lexicon
the words that are similar in sounds which have the same outline
shape or characteristics are stored next to each other or closely
linked. Example (13) and (18) suggests that people look for words
with certain characteristics and in this example fridge and oven
share the same characteristics in that they are kitchen gadgets
but the oven is much more used than the fridge. Thus, the search
model also show how language is stored in the mental lexicon in
the sense that words are arranged in bins according to form and
accordance so words that are higher in the bin are the frequently
used ones hence one may select the best prototype than the other.
The oven is more associated with the kitchen than the fridge.
CONCLUSION
The research tried to show how speech errors helped one to see
the way words were stored in the mental lexicon from the
phonological level to the semantic level. Though some of speech
errors were not analysed extensively due to lack of clears data,
those that were highlighted supported the models put forward by
linguists that tried to show how words were arranged in the
mental lexicon. The data was assessed as objective as possible
but there research was bound to have some subjective views.
Although the research did not account for all the things that
encompass speech errors, it managed to bring insight into some
mechanisms behind speech production.
REFERENCE LIST
1. Aitchison, Jean (1987). Words in the Mind: An Introduction
to the Mental Lexicon. Oxford: Blackwell.
2. Chomsky, Noam (1986). Knowledge of Language. Its Nature,
Origin, and Use. New York: Praeger.
3. Chomsky, Noam (1988). Language and Problems of Knowledge.
The Managua Lectures. Cambridge, Mass: MIT.
4. Emmorey, Karen D. / Fromkin, Victoria A. (1988). The mental
lexicon. In Newmeyer, F.
5. Fromkin, Victoria (ed.) (1973). Speech Errors as Linguistic
Evidence. The Hague: Mouton.
6. www.ling.ohio-state.edu . 03/04/14
7. www.academia.edu . 03/04/14