1. What is Psycolinguistic?

Psycholinguistic is combination of two variable that are linguistic and psychology. Is also
call conses to two factors, internal factor (linguistic) speech, word, lexical, phonology, and so
on. And external factor (psychology), human behavior. Therefore in micro it discuss about the
language, and the macro aspect talk about language and the connection with external factor
like psychology, sociology and so on.
 Psycholinguistic is language activities
 an utterance or written depend on context. The meaning will be different in different
context
 In complete sentence is not a problem. Ambiguity meaning: It need a context to
understand a certain utterance. Ex. Red zone district means danger zone or postulate
place / has some meaning depend on the circumstance.

How if a person have bilingual language. In human brain has a certain place (cortex) to
place a language, a cortex a language. If in human brain has a stimulus (certain
perception/ comprehension) toward a language, it will make them understand what other
speak because he / she has conception in their mind. Therefore it need as much as
stimulus first before he / she understand what other said. If what he / she hear is to much
something new it causes difficulties to understand the language / utterance.

2. What other subjects includes in the discussion of psycolinguistics? Explain the relationship of
these subjects with psycolinguistics!

Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes that make it possible to generate a

grammatical and meaningful sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures, as well
as the processes that make it possible to understand utterances, words, text, etc.
Developmental psycholinguistics studies infants' and children's ability to learn language,
usually with experimental or at least quantitative methods (as opposed to naturalistic
observation like Darwin and Piaget emphasized when studying their own children).

Psycholinguistics is interdisciplinary in nature and is studied by people in a variety of

fields, such as psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics. There are several subdivisions
within psycholinguistics that are based on the components that make up human language.

 Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the study of speech sounds.
Within psycholinguistics, research focuses on how the brain processes and
understands these sounds.
 Syntax
 Semantics
 Pragmatics

Theories

One of the most famous psycholinguists is Noam Chomsky. Chomsky believed that
humans have an innate Universal Grammar, an abstract concept containing the underpinnings
for grammatical rules in all languages. This view emphasizes the point that children acquiring
a language have a vast search space to explore among possible human grammars, yet
somehow settle on the language(s) spoken or signed in the community of speakers. This view
remains controversial. Psychology pioneer Sigmund Freud wrote much on the influence
between psychological and emotional states, particularly from the unconscious and language.
Among his theories is that which developed into the notion of the Freudian slip. Much of his
exploration of the topic can be found in his work. How are infants able to learn language?
 Almost all healthy human infants acquire language readily in the first few years of life. This is
true across cultures and societies. In addition, it is much more difficult for adults to acquire
second languages than it is for infants to learn their first language (bilingual infants are able to
learn both of their native languages easily). Thus, sensitive periods exists during which
language is able to be learned readily. A great deal of research in psycholinguistics focuses on
how this ability develops and diminishes over time. It also seems to be the case that the more
languages one knows, the easier it is to learn more.

3. How does brain work to perceive and produce language?

The brain is key to our existence, but there’s a long way to go before neuroscience
can truly capture its staggering capacity. For now, though, our Brain Control series explores
what we do know about the brain’s command of six central functions: language, mood,
memory, vision, personality and motor skills – and what happens when things go wrong.
When you read something, you first need to detect the words and then to interpret
them by determining context and meaning. This complex process involves many brain
regions. Detecting text usually involves the optic nerve and other nerve bundles delivering
signals from the eyes to the visual cortex at the back of the brain. If you are reading in Braille,
you use the sensory cortex towards the top of the brain. If you listen to someone else reading,
then you use the auditory cortex not far from your ears.
A system of regions towards the back and middle of your brain help you interpret the
text. These include the angular gyrus in the parietal lobe, Wernicke’s area (comprising mainly
the top rear portion of the temporal lobe), insular cortex, basal ganglia and cerebellum. These
regions work together as a network to process words and word sequences to determine
context and meaning. This enables our receptive language abilities, which means the ability to
understand language. Complementary to this is expressive language, which is the ability to
produce language. To speak sensibly, you must think of words to convey an idea or message,
formulate them into a sentence according to grammatical rules and then use your lungs, vocal
cords and mouth to create sounds. Regions in your frontal, temporal and parietal lobes
formulate what you want to say and the motor cortex, in your frontal lobe, enables you to
speak the words.
Most of this language-related brain activity is likely occurring in the left side of your
brain. But some people use an even mix of both sides and, rarely, some have right dominance
for language. There is an evolutionary view that specialisation of certain functions to one side
or the other may be an advantage, as many animals, especially vertebrates, exhibit brain
function with prominence on one side.
Why the left side is favoured for language isn’t known. But we do know that injury or
conditions such as epilepsy, if it affects the left side of the brain early in a child’s
development, can increase the chances language will develop on the right side. The chance of
the person being left-handed is also increased. This makes sense, because the left side of the
body is controlled by the motor cortex on the right side of the brain.

How do we know all this?

Before advanced medical imaging, most of our knowledge came from observing
unfortunate patients with injuries to particular brain parts. One could relate the approximate
region of damage to their specific symptoms. Broca’s and Wernicke’s observations are well-
known examples. Other knowledge was inferred from brain-stimulation studies. Weak
electrical stimulation of the brain while a patient is awake is sometimes performed in patients
undergoing surgery to remove a lesion such as a tumour. The stimulation causes that part of
the brain to stop working for a few seconds, which can enable the surgeon to identify areas of
critically important function to avoid damaging during surgery.
 In the mid-20th century, this helped neurosurgeons discover more about the
localisation of language function in the brain. It was clearly demonstrated that while most
people have language originating on the left side of their brain, some could have language
originating on the right.

Towards the later part of the 20th century, if a surgeon needed to find out which side
of your brain was responsible for language – so he didn’t do any damage – he would put to
sleep one side of your brain with an anaesthetic. The doctor would then ask you a series of
questions, determining your language side from your ability or inability to answer them. This
invasive test (which is less often used today due to the availability of functional brain
imaging) is known as the Wada test, named after Juhn Wada, who first described it just after
the second world war.

4. What is language disorder? Explain the types and the examples of each type!

Putting it simply, a language disorder is an impairment that makes it harder for

someone to communicate when speaking. It also can be a difficulty in understanding what
others are trying to communicate as well. Some people can have both where they have trouble
talking and understanding.

Language disorders can make it very challenging for children to understand what
other people are saying to them. This can affect how the child learns and socializes in school
and with other children. This is a huge concern for a lot of parents. Language disorders are a
very common childhood conditions and there are many ways they can be treated.

The first step is to learn more about language disorders, start reading on key
indicators of language disorders and look for suggestions on how you can get help. Some
common indications that your child might have a language disorder are:

 Your child’s vocabulary is very basic and short, grammatically incorrect and
incomplete
 If you notice that when his peers chat and tell jokes and your child is having
trouble following the conversation or misses the joke
 Your child may also only speak in two-word sentences and have trouble
answering even the simplest questions.

It’s important that you distinguish the difference between a language disorder and a
hearing issue or speech disorder and miss diagnose your child. Children with language
disorder usually don’t have trouble hearing or pronouncing the words, instead their struggle is
applying the rules of language, like grammar. To understand how to treat your child, you need
to know what type of language disorder he has.

Types of Language disorders

 Receptive language issues: Child has difficulty understanding what other

people are saying. Example Student struggles with:
 Phonology, or speech sounds and patterns
 Morphology, or how words are formed
 Syntax, or the formation of phrases and clauses
  Expressive language issues: Child has difficulty communicating his/her
thoughts or ideas. Student struggles with: Semantics, or the meaning of words
 Mixed receptive-expressive language issues: Child has difficulty both
understanding and using spoken language. Student struggles with:
Pragmatics, or how language is used in different contexts

A language disorder can be either developed or acquired. An acquired language

disorder typically shows up after a person has had some kind of neurological illness or injury,
could be a stroke or head trauma. A developed language disorder is what parents are most
concerned about because they’re more common in children. These children tend to start
speaking later than their peers. This has nothing to do with their intelligence, in fact, children
with a language disorder typically have a above average IQ. The problem is with receiving
and expressing language, and usually begins before the age of 4.

If you are a concerned parent that might be possibly dealing with a child who has a
language disorder the best thing you can do is to help and understand what language disorder
your child has so your child can learn to manage it and make the most of his strengths and
talents.

5. What is the advantage of learning psycolinguistics for you as a student of the program os
master degree in English Education?
Psycholinguistics gets to the heart of what we do with language. It provides insight
into how we connect our own speech and writing; how we understand that of others; into how
we store and use vocabulary; into how we manage to reach language in the first place; and
into how language can make us fail. Then we can conclude that psycholinguistics is the study
of psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, use, comprehend,
and produce language.
Psycholinguistics is cross-disciplinary study in nature with an overlapping area that
includes phonetics, discourse analysis, language pathology, neuroscience, computer
modeling, and language teaching pedagogy (Field 2004: ix).

The Advantages Studying Psycholinguistics

No English Learner English Future Teacher

1. Knowing better to achieve language
acquisition.
2. We have our strategies that different
one to another for achieving
language acquisition.
3. Giving the right input and output to
be successful in learning language.
4. Making the good environment for
supporting in learning language
Developing and improving some task
for student based on student language
acquisition.
Using some technique in teaching
English as foreign language for our
future student.
Giving some stimulates in language
learning that are different one student
to another.
Creating the good environment that
supports in language learning for
student during teaching.