Master1 Essay

Psycholinguistics merges the fields of psychology and linguistics to mull how people process style and how language use is related to underlying mental processes. Studies of childrens language acquisition and of second-language acquisition atomic number 18 psycholinguistic in nature. Psycholinguists work to arise models for how language is processed and understood, using evidence from studies of what happens when these processes go awry.They also occupy language disorders such as aphasia impairment of the ability to se or comprehend account books and dyslexia impairment of the ability to make out written language. It is the carry of interrelationship of psychological and linguistic behaviour. Its most important area of investigation has been language acquisition. It has raised and has partly answered questions such as how do children acquire their overprotect tongue? How do they grow up linguistically and learn to handle the registral and stylistic varieties of their bugge r off tongue effectively?How much of the linguistic system that they razetually command, are they born with and how much do they iscover on the basis of their exposure to that system? John D. Carroll states that this branch uses Some aspects of psychology and some aspects of linguistics. It is confined to the weigh of how people use a language system and how they learnt it By language acquisition is meant the process whereby children achieve a fluent control of their native tongue.By 1950, people thought that children imitated their elders and got language but now various theories have been presented. Some argue that it is the environmental impact and product of our experience and others discuss the nnateness of language or Empiricist (Behaviorists) and Rationalists (Mentalists). The theoretical questions have focused on the issue of how we can account for the phenomenon of language development in children at all. Normal children have get the hang most of the structures of their language by the age of five or six.The earlier behaviorist assumptions were that it was possible to explain language development largely in basis of imitation and reinforcement. Psycholinguistics therefore argue that imitation is non enough it is not merely by mechanical repetition that children acquire language. They also acquire it by natural exposure. Both nature and nurture influence the acquisition of language in children. Both schools of thought have said significant things but neither is perfect.Language Acquisition is a process of analogy and application, nature and nurture. Experience and innateness. Imitation is there but the child forms his own grammar of rules. Children learn first not items but systems. In other words, what is being claimed is that the childs brain contains certain innate characteristics which pre-structure it in the direction of language encyclopedism. To enable these innate features to develop into adult competence, the child must be exposed to hu man language, i. e. it must be stimulated in proper to respond but the basis. David Crystal asserts On which it develops its linguistic abilities is not describable in behaviourist terms Psycholinguistics nas researched and exposed that there is a critical period in first language acquisition. If the child, in the first thirteen years, is not exposed to language, he loses his critical period and then he can never master a language even his native tongue. Genie and Chelsea ho lost their critical period, are the examples in this proof.If he is exposed to language in his childhood, he goes certain stages to learn his mother tongue. The development of a childs language starts from babbling merely saying /b/, p/ and / m/ and so forth and then he goes on to word level. His One-Word Stage is between the ages of 12 months, children are able to produce one word utterances. And the child can use one word to mean the total thing as dada to mean I see daddy or daddy is coming etc. or Juice to means prove me Juice etc. In Two-Word Stage such as baby chair eaning the baby is sitting in the chair or babys chair etc.Hit Doggie meaning I hit the doggy etc. In Telegraphic Stage, children begin to produce longer and multiplex sentences such are chair broken, Car make noise, I good boy, man ride bus today etc. Language development from age 2 is quick and fast. The telegraphic stage is a very important period which is characterized by the emergence of powerful grammatical devices. In short, Psycholinguistics deals with relationship between language and forefront focusing mainly on how language is learnt, stored and occasionally lost.Mind and language have two functions Acquisition and Performance and the two are linked. For empiricists, language learning is the result of conditioned behavior while Chomsky maintains that every human being has an innate capacity to learn his language. Language behavior is a very complex phenomenon. Language behavior is subject to different soci al and psychological factors. There is strong evidence to prove that language learning is a biologically controlled process. Psycholinguistics seeks to study all these issues and more.