PSY 369: Psycholinguistics

1
PSY 369 Psycholinguistics

• Language Production
• Experimentally elicited speech errors

2
Your speech error collections

• How did it go?
• What interesting things did you notice?
• What difficulties did you encounter?
• Etc.

3
Problems with speech errors

• Not an on-line technique.
• We only remember (or notice) certain types of
  errors.
• People often dont (notice or) write down errors
  which are corrected part way through the word,
  e.g. wo..wring one.

4
Problems with speech errors

• Even very carefully verified corpora of speech
  errors tend to list the error and then the
  target.
• However, there may be several possible targets.
• Saying there is one definitive target may limit
  conclusions about what type of error has actually
  occurred.
• Evidence that we are not very good at perceiving
  speech errors.

5
Problems with speech errors

• How well do we perceive speech errors?
• Ferber (1991)
• Method
• Transcripts of TV and radio were studied very
  carefully to pick out all the speech errors.

• The errors spotted by the subjects were compared
  with those that actually occurred.

6
Problems with speech errors

• How well do we perceive speech errors?
• Ferber (1991)

• Results
• Subjects missed 50 of all the errors
• And of the half they identified
• 50 were incorrectly recorded (i.e. only 25 of
  speech errors were correctly recorded).
• Conclusion We are bad at perceiving errors.

7
Experimental speech errors

• Can we examine speech errors in under more
  controlled conditions?
• SLIP technique speech error elicitation
  technique
• Motley and Baars (1976)

8
Say the words silently as quickly as you can Say
them aloud if you hear a ring
9
dog bone
10
dust ball
11
dead bug
12
doll bed
13
darn bore
barn door
14
Experimental speech errors

• Some basic findings

• This technique has been found to elicit 30 of
  predicted speech errors.
• Lexical Bias effect error frequency affected by
  whether the error results in real words or
  non-words

More likely
wrong loot FOR long root rawn loof
FOR lawn roof
15
Experimental speech errors

• Some basic findings

• Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980)

• Hypothesis
• If preceded by phonologically and semantically
  biasing material (PS)
• If preceded by only phonologically biasing
  material (P).

Predicted to be more likely
16
Experimental speech errors

• Some basic findings

• Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980)

• Method 2 matched lists
• 20 word pairs as targets for errors
• e.g. bad mug ? mad bug
• Each preceded by 4 - 7 neutral filler word pairs

red cars
rainy days
small cats
mashed buns
mangy bears
angry insect
angled inset

• Then 4 interference word pairs
• 2 phonological PLUS

ornery fly
older flu
bad mug

• 2 semantic (SP)

• or
• semantically neutral controls (P)

17
Experimental speech errors

• Some basic findings

• Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980)

• Results More errors in the Semantic and
  Phonological (SP) condition than in the
  Phonological (P) condition.
• Conclusion
• Semantic interference may contribute to a
  distortion of the sound of a speakers intended
  utterance

18
Freudian slips

• The psycholinguistic approach
• Assume that the mechanics of slips can be
  studied linguistically without reference to their
  motivation. (Boomer and Laver, 1968)
• Freudian approach
• Held that speech errors arise from the
  concurrent action - or perhaps rather, the
  opposing action - of two different intentions
• Intended meaning disturbing intention ? speech
  error

19
Freudian slips

• In the case of female genitals, in spite of many
  versuchungen temptations - I beg your pardon,
  versuche experiments
• From a politician I like Heath. Hes tough -
  like Hitler - (shocked silence from reporters) -
  Did I say Hitler? I meant Churchill.

• Are these cases of disturbing intentions or
  merely cases of lexical substitution
  (phonologically or semantically related words)?

20
Freudian slips

• Ellis, (1980)

• Of the 94 errors listed in Psychopathology of
  Everyday Life 85 were made in normal speech.

• 51 (60) involved lexical substitution in which
  the substituting word was either similar in
  phonological form (27) to the intended word or
  related in meaning (22).

21
Freudian slips

• Ellis, (1980)

• Of the 94 errors listed in Psychopathology of
  Everyday Life 85 were made in normal speech.

• Only 10/94 of the errors reported by Freud were
  spoonerisms, and 4 were from Meringer and Mayer,
  1895 (an early, linguistically oriented study).
• E.g. Eiwess-scheibchen (small slices of egg
  white) ? Eischeissweibchen (lit.
  egg-shit-female)
• Alabasterbüchse (alabaster box) ?
  Alabüsterbachse (büste breast)

22
Freudian slips

• Ellis, (1980)

• Hence, it appears that Freuds theory can be
  translated into the language of modern
  psycholinguistic production models without
  excessive difficulty.

23
Experimental Freudian slips?

• Motley Baars (1979)
• Hypothesis Spoonerisms more likely when the
  resulting content is congruous with the
  situational context.
• Method 90 males, same procedure previously used
  by Motley, 1980 (SLIP).
• 3 Conditions
• Electricity - expecting to get shocked
• Sex - researcher provocatively attired female
• Neutral

24
Experimental Freudian slips?

• Same word pairs in all conditions
• spoonerism targets were non-words (e.g. goxi furl
  ? foxy girl), targets preceded by 3
  phonologically biasing word pairs not
  semantically related to target words
• Some resulting errors were sexually related (S),
  some were electrically related (E)
• Bine foddy -gt fine body
• Had bock -gt bad shock

25
(No Transcript)
26
car tires
27
cat toys
28
can tops
29
cup trays
30
cool tits
tool kits
31
Experimental Freudian slips?

• Results (number of errors, by type)
• Electricity set 69 E, 31 S
• Sex set 36 E, 76 S
• Neutral set 44 E, 41 S
• Hence errors were in the expected direction.
• Conclusion subjects speech encoding systems are
  sensitive to semantic influences from their
  situational cognitive set.

32
Experimental Freudian slips?

• Hypothesis subjects with high levels of sex
  anxiety will make more sex spoonerisms than
  those with low sex anxiety.
• Method
• 36 males selected on the basis of high, medium,
  low sex anxiety (Mosher Sex-Guilt Inventory).
• SLIP task same as previous experiment but with 2
  additional Sex targets and 9 Neutral targets.

33
Experimental Freudian slips?

• Results looked at difference scores (Sex -
  Neutral)
• High sex anxiety gt medium gt low.
• Overall Sex spoonerisms gt Neutral spoonerisms.
• Conclusion appears to support Freuds view of
  sexual anxiety being revealed in Slips of the
  Tongue
• BUT the experimenters (Baars and Motley) went on
  to show that any type of anxiety, not just sexual
  produced similar results.
• SO anxiety was at play but it was more general,
  so the priming was more global.

34
From thought to speech
Jane threw the ball to Bill

• What do speech errors suggest?
• Productivity Units
• Advanced planning

35
Conclusions

• Speech errors have provided data about the units
  of speech production.

• Phonology - consonants, vowels, and consonant
  clusters (/fl/) can be disordered as units. Also,
  phonetic features.
• Syllables which have morphemic status can be
  involved in errors. Separation of stem morphemes
  from affixes (inflectional and derivational).
• Stress? Stress errors could be examples of blends.

36
Conclusions

• Speech errors have provided data about the units
  of speech production.

• Syntax -grammatical rules may be applied to the
  wrong unit, but produce the correct pronunciation
  (e.g. plural takes the correct form /s/, /z/, or
  /iz/.
• Indicates that these parts of words are marked as
  grammatical morphemes.
• Phrases (e.g. NP) and clauses can be exchanged or
  reversed.
• Words - can exchange, move, or be mis-selected.

37
From thought to speech
Message level

• Propositions to be communicated

• Selection and organization of lexical items

• Morphologically complex words are constructed

• Sound structure of each word is built

38
From thought to speech
Message level

• Propositions to be communicated

• Not a lot known about this step
• Typically thought to be shared with comprehension
  processes, semantic networks, situational models,
  etc.

Syntactic level
Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
39
From thought to speech
Message level

• Grammatical class constraint
• Most substitutions, exchanges, and blends involve
  words of the same grammatical class
• Slots and frames
• A syntactic framework is constructed, and then
  lexical items are inserted into the slots

Syntactic level
Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
40
From thought to speech
Ross
Emily
Rachel
It was such a happy moment when Ross kissed
Rachel
41
From thought to speech
Ross
Emily
Rachel
Oops! I mean kissed Emily.
42
From thought to speech

• LEXICON
• ROSS
• KISS
• EMILY
• RACHEL

Spreading activation
43
From thought to speech

• LEXICON
• ROSS
• KISS
• EMILY
• RACHEL

If the word isnt the right grammatical class, it
wont fit into the slot.

• Grammatical class constraint

44
From thought to speech
Message level

• Grammatical class constraint
• Most substitutions, exchanges, and blends involve
  words of the same grammatical class
• Slots and frames
• Other evidence
• Syntactic priming

Syntactic level
Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
45
Syntactic priming

• Bock (1986) syntactic persistance tested by
  picture naming

Hear and repeat a sentence
Describe the picture
46
Syntactic priming

• a The ghost sold the werewolf a flower

• Bock (1986) syntactic persistance tested by
  picture naming

• b The ghost sold a flower to the werewolf

• a The girl gave the teacher the flowers

• b The girl gave the flowers to the teacher

47
Syntactic priming

• In real life, syntactic priming seems to occur as
  well
• Branigan, Pickering, Cleland (2000)
• Speakers tend to reuse syntactic constructions of
  other speakers
• Potter Lombardi (1998)
• Speakers tend to reuse syntactic constructions of
  just read materials

48
From thought to speech
Message level

• Stranding errors
• I liked he would hope you
• I hoped he would like you

Syntactic level

• The inflection stayed in the same location, the
  stems moved
• Inflections tend to stay in their proper place
• Do not typically see errors like
• The beeing are buzzes
• The bees are buzzing

Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
49
From thought to speech
Message level

• Stranding errors

• Closed class items very rare in exchanges or
  substitutions
• Two possibilities
• Part of syntactic frame
• High frequency, so lots of practice, easily
  selected, etc.

Syntactic level
Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
50
From thought to speech
Message level

• Consonant vowel regularity
• Consonants slip with other consonants, vowels
  with vowels, but rarely do consonants slip with
  vowels
• The implication is that vowels and consonants
  represent different kinds of units in
  phonological planning

Syntactic level
Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
51
From thought to speech
Message level

• Consonant vowel regularity
• Frame and slots in syllables
• Similar to the slots and frames we discussed with
  syntax

Syntactic level
Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
52
From thought to speech
PHONOLOGICAL FRAME

• LEXICON
• /d/, C
• /g/, C
• , V

Word
Syllable
Onset
Rhyme
V
C
C
53
From thought to speech
Message level

• Consonant vowel regularity
• Frame and slots in syllables
• Evidence for the separation of meaning and sound

Syntactic level

• Tip of the tongue
• Picture-word interference

Morphemic level
Phonemic level
Articulation
54
Tip-of-the-tongue
Uhh It is a.. You know.. A.. Arggg. I can
almost see it, it has two Syllables, I think it
starts with A ..

• TOT
• Meaning access
• No (little) phonological access
• What about syntax?

55
Tip-of-the-tongue

• The rhythm of the lost word may be there without
  the sound to clothe it or the evanescent sense
  of something which is the initial vowel or
  consonant may mock us fitfully, without growing
  more distinct. (James, 1890, p. 251)

56
Tip-of-the-tongue

• Brown McNeill (1966)

• Low-frequency words (e.g., apse, nepotism,
  sampan), prompted by brief definitions.
• On 8.5 of trials, tip-of-the-tongue state
  ensued
• Had to guess
• word's first or last letters
• the number of syllables it contained
• which syllable was stressed

57
Tip-of-the-tongue

• Brown McNeill (1966)

• Total of 360 TOT states
• 233 "positive TOTs" (subject was thinking of
  target word, and produced scorable data
• 127 "negative TOTs" (subject was thinking of
  other word, but could not recall it)
• 224 similar-sound TOTs (e.g., Saipan for sampan)
• 48 had the same number of syllables as the
  target
• 95 similar-meaning TOTs (e.g., houseboat for
  sampan).
• 20 had same number of syllables as target. 

58
Tip-of-the-tongue

• Similar words come to mind about half the time
• but how much is just guessing?
• First letter correct 50-71 of time (vs. 10 by
  chance)
• First sound 36 of time (vs. 6 by chance)

59
Tip-of-the-tongue

• Results suggest a basic split between
  semantics/syntax and phonology
• People can access meaning and grammar but not
  pronunciation

60
Tip-of-the-tongue

• Semantics
• Syntax
• grammatical category (part of speech)
• e.g. noun, verb, adjective
• Gender
• e.g. le chien, la vache le camion, la voiture
• Number
• e.g. dog vs. dogs trousers vs. shirt
• Count/mass status
• e.g. oats vs. flour

61
Tip-of-the-tongue

• Vigliocco et al. (1997)
• Subjects presented with word definitions
• Gender was always arbitrary
• If unable to retrieve word, they answered
• How well do you think you know the word?
• Guess the gender
• Guess the number of syllables
• Guess as many letters and positions as possible
• Report any word that comes to mind
• Then presented with target word
• Do you know this word?
• Is this the word you were thinking of?

62
Vigliocco et al (1997)

• Vigliocco et al. (1997)

• Scoring
• TOT
• Both reported some correct information in
  questionnaire
• And said yes to recognition question
• - TOT
• Otherwise

63
Vigliocco et al (1997)

• Vigliocco et al. (1997)

• Results
• TOT 84 correct gender guess
• - TOT 53 correct gender guess
• chance level
• Conclusion
• Subjects often know grammatical gender
  information even when they have no phonological
  information
• Supports split between syntax and phonology in
  production

64
MODELS OF PRODUCTION

• As in comprehension, there are serial (modular)
  and interactive models
• Serial models - Garrett, Levelt et al.
• Interactive models - Stemberger, Dell
• Levelts monitoring stage (originally proposed by
  Baars) can explain much of the data that is said
  to favour interaction between earlier levels

65
Doing it in time

• Strongest constraint may be fluency
• Have to get form right under time pressure.
• Incrementality
• Work with what youve got
• Flexibility allows speaker to say something
  quickly, also respond to changing environment.
• Modularity
• Work only with what youve got
• Regulate flow of information.

66
Comparing models

• Central questions
• Are the stages discrete or cascading?
• Discrete must complete before moving on
• Cascade can get started as soon as some
  information is available
• Is there feedback?
• Top-down only
• Bottom up too
• How many levels are there?

67
From thought to speech

• How does a mental concept get turned into a
  spoken utterance?
• Levelt, 1989, 4 stages of production
• Conceptualising we conceptualise what we wish to
  communicate (mentalese).
• Formulating we formulate what we want to say
  into a linguistic plan.
• Lexicalisation
• Lemma Selection
• Lexeme (or Phonological Form) Selection
• Syntactic Planning
• Articulating we execute the plan through muscles
  in the vocal tract.
• Self-monitoring we monitor our speech to assess
  whether it is what we intended to say, and how we
  intended to say it.

68
A model of sentence production

• Three broad stages
• Conceptualisation
• deciding on the message ( meaning to express)
• Formulation
• turning the message into linguistic
  representations
• Grammatical encoding (finding words and putting
  them together)
• Phonological encoding (finding sounds and putting
  them together)
• Articulation
• speaking (or writing or signing)

69
Levelts model

• Four broad stages
• Conceptualisation
• deciding on the message ( meaning to express)
• Formulation
• turning the message into linguistic
  representations
• Grammatical encoding (finding words and putting
  them together)
• Phonological encoding (finding sounds and putting
  them together)
• Articulation
• speaking (or writing or signing)
• Monitoring (via the comprehension system)

70
Levelts model

• Network has three strata
• conceptual stratum
• lemma stratum
• word-form stratum

71
Levelts model

• Tip of tongue state when lemma is retrieved
  without word-form being retrieved

• Formulation involves lexical retrieval
• Semantic/syntactic content (lemma)
• Phonological content (word-form)

72
Levelts model
has stripes
is dangerous
Lexical concepts
TIGER (X)
Lexicon
Noun
countable
tigre
Lemmas
Fem.
Lexemes
/tigre/
/t/
/I/
/g/
Phonemes
73
Conceptual stratum

• Conceptual stratum is not decomposed
• one lexical concept node for tiger
• instead, conceptual links from tiger to
  stripes, etc.

has stripes
is dangerous
TIGER (X)
74
Lexical selection

• First, lemma activation occurs
• This involves activating a lemma or lemmas
  corresponding to the concept
• thus, concept TIGER activates lemma tiger

TIGER (X)
Noun
countable
tiger
Fem.
75
Lexical selection

• First, lemma activation occurs
• This involves activating a lemma or lemmas
  corresponding to the concept
• thus, concept TIGER activates lemma tiger

TIGER (X)
LION (X)
tiger
lion

• But also involves activating other lemmas
• TIGER also activates LION (etc.) to some extent
• and LION activates lemma lion

76
Lemma selection

• Selection is different from activation
• Only one lemma is selected
• Probability of selecting the target lemma
  (tiger)
• ratio of that lemmas activation to the total
  activation of all lemmas (tiger, lion, etc.)
• Hence competition between semantically related
  lemmas

TIGER (X)
LION (X)
tiger
lion
77
Morpho-phonological encoding (and beyond)

• The lemma is now converted into a phonological
  representation
• called word-form (or lexeme)
• If tiger lemma plus plural (and noun) are
  activated
• Leads to activation of morphemes tigre and s
• Other processes too
• Stress, phonological segments, phonetics, and
  finally articulation

/tigre/
/t/
/I/
/g/
78
Models assumptions

• Modularity
• Later processes cannot affect earlier processes
• No feedback between the word-form (lexemes) layer
  and the grammatical (lemmas) layer
• Also, only one lemma activates a word form
• If tiger and lion lemmas are activated, they
  compete to produce a winner at the lemma stratum
• Only the winner activates a word form
• The word-forms for the losers arent accessed

79
Experimental tests

• Picture-word interference task
• Participants name basic objects as quickly as
  possible
• Distractor words are embedded in the object
• participants are instructed to ignore these words

tiger
80
Basic findings

• Semantically related words can interfere with
  naming
• e.g., the word TIGER in a picture of a LION

tiger
81
Basic findings

• However, form-related words can speed up
  processing
• e.g., the word liar in a picture of a LION

liar
82
time

• Experiments manipulate timing
• picture and word can be presented simultaneously

83
liar
liar
time

• Experiments manipulate timing
• picture and word can be presented simultaneously

• or one can slightly precede the other

• We draw inferences about time-course of processing

84
Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)

• Auditory presentation of distractors
• DOT phonologically related
• CAT semantically related
• SHIP unrelated word

• SOA (Stimulus onset asynchrony) manipulation
• -150 ms (word 150 ms picture)
• 0 ms (i.e., synchronous presentation)
• 150 ms (picture 150ms word)

85
Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)

• Auditory presentation of distractors
• DOT phonologically related
• CAT semantically related
• SHIP unrelated word

Early Only Semantic effects
86
Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)

• Auditory presentation of distractors
• DOT phonologically related
• CAT semantically related
• SHIP unrelated word

Late Only Phonological effects
87
Interpretation

• Early semantic inhibition
• Late phonological facilitation
• Fits with the assumption that semantic processing
  precedes phonological processing
• No overlap
• suggests two discrete stages in production
• an interactive account might find semantic and
  phonological effects at the same time

88
Dells interactive account

• Dell (1986) presented the best-known interactive
  account
• other similar accounts exist
• Network organization with
• 3 levels of representation
• Semantics (decomposed into features)
• Words and morphemes
• phonemes (sounds)
• These get selected and inserted into frames

89

• Dell (1986)
• A moment in the production of
• Some swimmers sink

90
Dell (1986)
information

• as well as downwards

91
Dell (1986)

• e.g., the semantic features mammal, barks,
  four-legs activate the word dog

FURRY
BARKS
MAMMAL

• this activates the sounds /d/, /o/, /g/

• these send activation back to the word level,
  activating words containing these sounds (e.g.,
  log, dot) to some extent

dog
log
dot
/a/
/g/
/d/
/l/
/t/
this activation is upwards (phonology to syntax)
and wouldnt occur in Levelts account
92
Evidence for Dells model

• Mixed errors
• Both semantic and phonological relationship to
  target word
• Target cat
• semantic error dog
• phonological error hat
• mixed error rat
• Occur more often than predicted by modular models
  
• if you can go wrong at either stage, it would
  only be by chance that an error would be mixed

93
Dells explanation

• The process of making an error
• The semantic features of dog activate cat
• Some features (e.g., animate, mammalian) activate
  rat as well
• cat then activates the sounds /k/, /ae/, /t/
• /ae/ and /t/ activate rat by feedback
• This confluence of activation leads to increased
  tendency for rat to be uttered
• Also explains the tendency for phonological
  errors to be real words
• Sounds can only feed back to words (non-words not
  represented) so only words can feedback to sound
  level

94
Why might interaction occur?

• Cant exist just to produce errors!
• So what is feedback for?
• Perhaps because the same network is used in
  comprehension
• So feedback would be the normal comprehension
  route
• Alternatively, it simply serves to increase
  fluency in lemma selection
• advantageous to select a lemma whose phonological
  form is easy to find

95
Evidence against interactivity

• Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)
• DOT phonologically related
• CAT semantically related
• SHIP unrelated word

Early Only Semantic effects
Late Only Phonological effects
96
Evidence against interactivity

• Schriefers, Meyer, and Levelt (1990)
• Also looked for any evidence of a mediated
  priming effect

DOG (X)
CAT (X)
dog
cat
hat
/cat/
/hat/

• Found no evidence for it

/t/
/a/
/k/
/h/
97
Evidence for interactivity

• A number of recent experimental findings appear
  to support interaction under some circumstances
  (or at least cascading models)
• Damian Martin (1999)
• Cutting Ferreira (1999)
• Peterson Savoy (1998)

98
Evidence for interactivity

• Damian and Martin (1999)
• Picture-Word interference
• The critical difference
• the addition of a semantic and phonological
  condition
• Picture of Apple
• peach (semantically related)
• apathy (phonologically related)
• apricot (sem phono related)
• couch (unrelated)
• (also no-word control, always fast)

peach
99
Results

• Damian Martin (1999)

• early semantic inhibition

100
Results

• Damian Martin (1999)

• early semantic inhibition

• late phonological facilitation (0 and 150 ms)

101
Results

• Damian Martin (1999)

• early semantic inhibition

• late phonological facilitation (0 and 150 ms)
• Shows overlap, unlike Schriefers et al.

102
Evidence for interactivity

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)
• Picture-Word interference
• The critical difference
• Used homophone pictures
• Related distractors could be to the depicted
  meaning or alternative meaning
• game
• dance
• hammer (unrelated)
• Only tested -150 SOA

103
Evidence against interactivity

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

BALL (X)
BALL (X)
DANCE (X)
GAME (X)
ball
ball
dance
game
/ball/
Cascading Prediction
dance
ball
/ball/
104
Results

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

• Early semantic inhibition

105
Results

• Cutting and Ferreira (1999)

• Early semantic inhibition

• Early Facilitation from a phonologically mediated
  distractor

• Evidence of cascading information flow (both
  semantic and phonological information at early
  SOA)

106
Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Slightly different task
• Prepare to name the picture
• If ? comes up name it

?
107
Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Slightly different task
• Prepare to name the picture
• If ? comes up name it
• If a word comes up instead, name the word

liar

• Manipulate
• Word/picture relationship
• SOA

108
Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Used pictures with two synonymous names

Dominant
subordinate

• Used words that were phonologically related to
  the non dominant name of the picture

sofa
couch
109
Evidence for interactivity

• Peterson Savoy
• Found evidence for phonological activation of
  near synonyms
• Participants slower to say distractor soda than
  unrelated distractor when naming couch
• Soda is related to non-selected sofa
• Remember that Levelt et al. assume that only one
  lemma can be selected and hence activate a
  phonological form
• Levelt et als explanation Could be erroneous
  selection of two lemmas?

110
Evidence for interactivity

• Summary
• These the findings appears to contradict the
  discrete two-step account of Levelt et al.

111
Can the two-stage account be saved?

• Evidence for interaction is hard to reconcile
  with the Levelt account
• However, most attempts are likely to revolve
  around the monitor
• Basically, people sometimes notice a problem and
  screen it out
• Levelt argues that evidence for interaction
  really involves special cases, not directly
  related to normal processing

112
Overall summary

• Levelt et al.s theory of word production
• Strictly modular lexical access
• Syntactic processing precedes phonological
  processing
• Dells interactive account
• Interaction between syntactic and phonological
  processing
• Experimental evidence is equivocal, but
  increasing evidence that more than one lemma may
  activate associated word-form

113
Summary

• Levelt et al.s theory of word production
• Strictly modular lexical access
• Syntactic processing precedes phonological
  processing
• Dells interactive account
• Interaction between syntactic and phonological
  processing
• Experimental evidence is equivocal, but
  increasing evidence that more than one lemma may
  activate associated wordform

114
Caramazzas alternative

• Caramazza and colleagues argue against the
  existence of the lemma node
• instead they propose a direct link between
  semantic level and lexeme
• syntactic information is associated with the
  lexeme
• Also assumes separate lexemes for written and
  spoken production
• This is really a different issue

115

• Much evidence comes from patient data
• But also evidence from the independence of
  syntactic and phonological information in TOT
  states
• see discussion of Vigliocco et al.
• also Caramazza and Miozzo (Cognition, 1997 see
  also replies by Roelofs et al.)

116
From thought to speech

• How does a mental concept get turned into a
  spoken utterance?
• Levelt, 1989, 4 stages of production
• Conceptualising we conceptualise what we wish to
  communicate (mentalese).
• Formulating we formulate what we want to say
  into a linguistic plan.
• Lexicalisation
• Lemma Selection
• Lexeme (or Phonological Form) Selection
• Syntactic Planning
• Articulating we execute the plan through muscles
  in the vocal tract.
• Self-monitoring we monitor our speech to assess
  whether it is what we intended to say, and how we
  intended to say it.

117
Models of production

• As in comprehension, there are serial (modular)
  and interactive models
• Serial models - Garrett, Levelt et al.
• Interactive models - Stemberger, Dell
• Levelts monitoring stage (originally proposed by
  Baars) can explain much of the data that is said
  to favour interaction between earlier levels

118
An model of sentence production

• Three broad stages
• Conceptualisation
• deciding on the message ( meaning to express)
• Formulation
• turning the message into linguistic
  representations
• Grammatical encoding (finding words and putting
  them together)
• Phonological encoding (finding sounds and putting
  them together)
• Articulation
• speaking (or writing or signing)

119
An model of sentence production

• Experimental investigations of some of these
  issues
• Time course - cascading vs serial
• Picture word interference
• Separation of syntax and semantics
• Subject verb agreement
• Abstract syntax vs surface form
• Syntactic priming

120
Conversational interaction
the horse raced past the barn
the kids swam across the river
Conversation is more than just two side-by-side
monologues.
121
Conversational interaction
The horse raced past the barn
Really? Why would it do that?
Conversation is a specialized form of social
interaction, with rules and organization.
122
Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)
• Joint action
• People acting in coordination with one another
• doing the tango
• driving a car with a pedestrian crossing the
  street
• The participants dont always do similar things
• Autonomous actions
• Things that you do by yourself
• Participatory actions
• Individual acts only done as parts of joint
  actions

123
Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)

• Speaking and listening
• Traditionally treated as autonomous actions
• Contributing to the tradition of studying
  language comprehension and production separately
• Clark proposed that they should be treated as
  participatory actions

124
Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)

• Speaking and listening
• Component actions in production and comprehension
  come in pairs

Speaking
Listening

• A vocalizes sounds for B

• B attends to As vocalizations

• A formalizes utterances for B

• B identifies As utterances

• A means something for B

• B understands As meaning

• The actions of one participant depend on the
  actions of the other

125
Conversation

• Herb Clark (1996)

• Face-to-face conversation - the basic setting
• Features

Immediacy
Medium
Control

• Co-presence
• Visibility
• Audibility
• Instantaneity

• Evanescence
• Recordlessness
• Simultaneity

• Extemporaneity
• Self-determination
• Self-expression

• Other settings may lack some of these features
• e.g., telephone conversations take away
  co-presence and visibility, which may change
  language use

126
Meaning and understanding

• ABBOTT Super Duper computer store. Can I help
  you?
• COSTELLO Thanks. I'm setting up an office in my
  den, and I'm thinking about buying a computer.
• ABBOTT Mac?
• COSTELLO No, the name is Lou.
• ABBOTT Your computer?
• COSTELLO I don't own a computer. I want to buy
  one.
• ABBOTT Mac?
• COSTELLO I told you, my name is Lou.
• ABBOTT What about Windows?
• COSTELLO Why? Will it get stuffy in here?
• ABBOTT Do you want a computer with windows?
• COSTELLO I don't know. What will I see when I
  look in the windows?
• ABBOTT Wallpaper.
• COSTELLO Never mind the windows. I need a
  computer and software.
• ABBOTT Software for windows?
• COSTELLO No. On the computer! I need something I
  can use to write proposals, track expenses and
  run my business. What have you got?
• ABBOTT Office.

127
Meaning and understanding

• COSTELLO Yeah, for my office. Can you recommend
  anything?
• ABBOTT I just did.
• COSTELLO You just did what?
• ABBOTT Recommend something.
• COSTELLO You recommended something?
• ABBOTT Yes.
• COSTELLO For my office?
• ABBOTT Yes.
• COSTELLO OK, what did you recommend for my
  office?
• ABBOTT Office.
• COSTELLO Yes, for my office!
• ABBOTT I recommend office with windows.
• COSTELLO I already have an office and it has
  windows!OK, lets just say, I'm sitting at my
  computer and I want to type a proposal. What do I
  need?
• ABBOTT Word.
• COSTELLO What word?
• ABBOTT Word in Office.
• COSTELLO The only word in office is office.
• ABBOTT The Word in Office for Windows.

128
Meaning and understanding

• COSTELLO Which word in office for windows?
• ABBOTT The Word you get when you click the blue
  "W.
• COSTELLO I'm going to click your blue "w" if you
  don't start with some straight answers. OK,
  forget that. Can I watch movies on the Internet?
• ABBOTT Yes, you want Real One.
• COSTELLO Maybe a real one, maybe a cartoon.
  What I watch is none of your business. Just tell
  me what I need!
• ABBOTT Real One.
• COSTELLO If it?s a long movie I also want to see
  reel 2, 3 and 4. Can I watch them?
• ABBOTT Of course.
• COSTELLO Great, with what?
• ABBOTT Real One.
• COSTELLO OK, I'm at my computer and I want to
  watch a movie.What do I do?
• ABBOTT You click the blue "1.
• COSTELLO I click the blue one what?
• ABBOTT The blue "1.
• COSTELLO Is that different from the blue "W"?
• ABBOTT The blue 1 is Real One and the blue W is
  Word.
• COSTELLO What word?

129
Meaning and understanding

• ABBOTT The Word in Office for Windows.
• COSTELLO But there are three words in "office
  for windows"!
• ABBOTT No, just one. But it?s the most popular
  Word in the world.
• COSTELLO It is?
• ABBOTT Yes, but to be fair, there aren't many
  other Words left. It pretty much wiped out all
  the other Words.
• COSTELLO And that word is real one?
• ABBOTT Real One has nothing to do with Word.
  Real One isn't even Part of Office.
• COSTELLO Stop! Don't start that again. What
  about financial bookkeeping you have anything I
  can track my money with?
• ABBOTT Money.
• COSTELLO That's right. What do you have?
• ABBOTT Money.
• COSTELLO I need money to track my money?
• ABBOTT It comes bundled with your computer.
• COSTELLO What's bundled to my computer?
• ABBOTT Money.

130
Meaning and understanding

• COSTELLO Money comes with my computer?
• ABBOTT Yes. No extra charge.
• COSTELLO I get a bundle of money with my
  computer? How much?
• ABBOTT One copy.
• COSTELLO Isn't it illegal to copy money?
• ABBOTT Microsoft gave us a license to copy
  money.
• COSTELLO They can give you a license to copy
  money?
• ABBOTT Why not? THEY OWN IT!
• (LATER)
• COSTELLO How do I turn my computer off??
• ABBOTT Click on "START".

131
Meaning and understanding

• Common ground
• Knowledge, beliefs and suppositions that the
  participants believe that they share
• Members of cultural communities
• Shared experiences
• What has taken place already in the conversation
• Common ground is necessary to coordinate
  speakers meaning with listeners understanding

132
Structure of a conversation

• Conversations are purposive and unplanned
• Typically you cant plan exactly what youre
  going to say because it depends on another
  participant
• Conversations look planned only in retrospect
• Conversations have a fairly stable structure

133
Structure of a conversation

• Joe (places a phone call)
• Kevin Miss Pinks office - hello
• Joe hello, is Miss Pink in
• Kevin well, shes in, but shes engaged at the
  moment, who is it?
• Joe Oh its Professors Worths secretary, from
  Pan-American college
• Kevin m,
• Joe Could you give her a message for me
• Kevin certainly
• Joe um Professor Worth said that, if Miss Pink
  runs into difficulties, .. On Monday afternoon,
  .. With the standing subcommittee, .. Over the
  item on Miss Panoff,

• Kevin Miss Panoff?
• Joe Yes, that Professor Worth would be with Mr
  Miles all afternoon, .. So she only had to go
  round and collect him if she needed him,
• Kevin ah, thank you very much indeed,
• Joe right
• Kevin Panoff, right you are
• Joe right
• Kevin Ill tell her,
• Joe thank you
• Kevin bye bye
• Joe bye

134
Structure of a conversation

• Action sequences smaller joint projects to
  fulfill a goal
• Adjacency pairs
• Opening the conversation
• Kevin Miss Pinks office - hello
• Joe hello, ..
• Exchanging information about Pink
• Joe.., is Miss Pink in
• Kevin well, shes in, but shes engaged at the
  moment

135
Structure of a conversation

• Action sequences smaller joint projects to
  fulfill a goal
• Adjacency pairs

• Exchanging the message from Worth
• Joe um Professor Worth said that, if Miss Pink
  runs into difficulties, .. On Monday afternoon,
  .. With the standing subcommittee, .. Over the
  item on Miss Panoff,
• Closing the conversation
• Kevin Ill tell her,
• Joe thank you
• Kevin bye bye
• Joe bye

136
Opening conversations

• Need to pick who starts
• Turn taking is typically not decided upon in
  advance
• Potentially a lot of ways to open, but we
  typically restrict our openings to a few ways
• Address another
• Request information
• Offer information
• Use a stereotyped expression or topic

137
Opening conversations

• Has to resolve
• The entry time
• Is now the time to converse?
• The participants
• Who is talking to whom?
• Their roles
• What is level of participation in the
  conversation?
• The official business
• What is the conversation about?

138
Identifying participants

• Conversation often takes place in situations that
  involve various types of participants and
  non-participants

139
Taking turns

• Typically conversations dont involve two (or
  more) people talking at the same time

• Individual styles of turn-taking vary widely
• Length of a turn is a fairly stable
  characteristic within a given individuals
  conversational interactions
• Standard signals indicate a change in turn a
  head nod, a glance, a questioning tone

140
Taking turns

• Typically conversations dont involve two (or
  more) people talking at the same time
• Three implicit rules (Sacks et al, 1974)
• Rule 1 Current speakers selects next speaker
• Rule 2 Self-selection if rule 1 isnt used,
  then next speaker can select themselves
• Rule 3 current speaker may continue (or not)

• These principles are ordered in terms of priority
• The first is the most important, and the last is
  the least important
• Just try violating them in an actual conversation
  (but debrief later!)

141
Taking turns

• Typically conversations dont involve two (or
  more) people talking at the same time

• Use of non-verbal cues
• Drop of pitch
• Drawl on final syllable
• Termination of hand signals
• Drop in loudness
• Completion of a grammatical clause
• Use of stereotyped phrase
• you know

142
Negotiating topics

• Keep the discourse relevant to the topic
  (remember Grices maxims)
• Coherence again
• Earlier we looked at coherence within a speaker,
  now we consider it across multiple speakers
• Must use statements to signal topic shifts

143
Closing conversations

• Closing statements
• Must exit from the last topic, mutually agree to
  close the conversation, and coordinate the
  disengagement
• signal the end of conversation (or topic)
• okay
• Justifying why conversation should end
• I gotta go
• Reference to potential future conversation
• later dude

144
Summary

• People use language for doing things with each
  other, and their use of language is itself a
  joint action. Clark (1996, pg387)
• Conversation is structured
• But, that structure depends on more than one
  individual
• Models of language use (production and
  comprehension) need to be developed within this
  perspective