Chapter 9 - Language Production Flashcards
What are the similarities between speaking & writing?
Both involve deciding on the overall message to be considered.
- At this stage, the actual words to be spoken or written aren’t considered.
- This is followed by the production of language, which often proceeds on a clause-by-clause basis.
Both are goal-directed activities having communication as their main goal.
Is there any evidence to show that reading and writing are quite similar?
Harvey et al (2003)
Studied an individual who dictated word-processed academic letters using a voice-recognition system or simply word processed them.
- He had much less experience of dictating word-processed letters.
- In spite of that, the letters he produced by speaking didn’t differ in readability or in typographical and grammatical errors from those that were word-processed.
What are the differences between speaking and writing?
1) Speakers generally have much less time than writers to plan their language production
- Speaking is more spontaneous than writing
- Explains why spoken language is generally shorter and less complex than written language
2) Speakers generally know precisely who is receiving their messages. Writers do not.
3) Speakers have that advantage over writers that they generally receive moment-by-moment feedback from the listeners.
- Allows then to adapt what they say to suit the listener’s needs.
- The fact that writers don’t receive immediate feedback means they must write clearly, and this slows down the communication rate
4) Writers usually have direct access to what they have produced so far, whereas speakers do not. However no difference was found in the quality of texts produced by writers having or not having access to visual feedback of what they had written.
What results from these differences between speaking and writing?
Spoken language is often informal and simple in structure, with information being communicated rapidly
Written language is more formal, and has more complex structure.
- Writers don’t receive immediate feedback so they need to write clearly and this slows down the rate at which they write.
Why is there less research on productive aspects of language?
More difficult to carry out as compared to research on comprehensive aspects of language.
- Can control the material to be comprehended but it is harder to constrain an individual’s production of language and
What are some traits of speech production?
1) Seems relatively effortless
2) We can speak without much preparation or planning
3) Can speak at speeds of 200 words/minute
What entails simplification of speech production and what are some ways you can simplify speech production?
Involves reducing processing costs by producing phrases used frequently before. About 70% of our speech consists of word combinations we use repeatedly.
1) Preformulation
2) Underspecification
3) Syntactic priming
What is preformulation?
What phrases do you frequently repeat in your speech?
- Especially common among people who need to speak very rapidly
What is undersimplification?
Simplified expressions.
Eg: Instead of “Wash and core 6 apples. Put the 6 apples in the oven”, you use “Wash and core 6 apples. Put them in the oven”.
What is syntactic priming and how does it occur?
People just repeat the types of sentences they’ve just heard.
Eg:
Q: At what time do you close?
A: At 9pm.
Occurs even when you are talking about a different topic, and often occurs in the absence of conscious awareness of copying a previous syntactic structure
Describe some evidence that shows people do use syntactic priming.
A confederate of the experimenter described a picture to participants using an adjective noun-order (eg “the red sheep”) or a noun-relative order (eg the sheep that’s red).
Participants used the syntactic structure they had heard even when the 2 words in the 2 sentences were very different.
Why are these speech simplifications so commonly utilised in speech production?
By copying a heard syntactic structure, it reduces processing demands on speech production.
When you repeat the types of sentences you’ve heard from the person you’re speaking to before you speak, it is a conscious process.
True or False?
False.
Speech production can take the form of _________ or ___________.
think of what late night hosts do at the start of their show , and what are interviews?
monolog, dialog which is more common.
How is an interactive dialog more difficult than an interactive monolog?
Dialog: Speakers have to adjust what they say to fit what the previous speaker just said.
How is an interactive dialog easier than an interactive monolog?
Speakers often copy phrases or even sentences they hear when the other person was speaking, which serves as a prime. However, speakers, when making monologs, have to come up with their own ideas.
What does the cooperative principle propose?
Speech typically occurs as a conversation in a social context.
In order for communication to be (reasonably) successful, they have to cooperate with one another. Cooperation meaning smooth switches.
What is one common way a conversation moves from one speaker to the next?
An adjacency pair: What the first speaker says provides strong imitaiton to the listener to take up the conversation.
Eg: A question, followed by an answer. If the 1st speaker completes what he/she intended to say without producing the first part of the adjacency pair, then the next turn goes to the listener who speaks first.
Is there any observation in everyday life that confirms that people do cooperate with each other in conversations?
(usually for normal people, not for MALE CHAUVINIST PIGS!!!!!!!!)
2 people talking at once occurs less than 5% of the time, and there is typically a gap under 500ms between the end of one speaker’s turn and the start of the next speaker’s turn.
Why are the swithces between speakers so smooth?
Those involved in a conversation follow certain rules.
Eg When the speaker gazes at the listener, this is often an invitation to the listener to become the speaker.
If the speaker wishes to continue speaking, he/she can indicate this by hand gestures, or filling pauses with “erm, ah”.
What are some maxims related to the cooperative principle?
1) Maxim of Quantity
2) Maxim of Quality
3) Maxim of Relation
4) Maxim of Manner
What does the Maxim of Quantity propose?
Be as informative as necessary, but not more so.
- What needs to be said depends on what the speaker wishes to describe to the referrent.
- Also necessary to know the object(s) from which the referrent is distinguished.
Eg: If a soccer field has many men and one boy, apt to say “the boy is good at soccer”.
However, if the field has only boys, it doesn’t make sense to only say that sentence, perhaps you should add in more details “the boy in the red shirt is good at soccer”.
Speakers are very good at adhering to the maxim of quantity. True or false?
FALSE. THINK OF THE PROFS AND TEACHERS WE HAD THAT LIKE TO BEAT AROUND THE BUSH.
We are only MODERATELY successful, sadly.
- If there is only one apple, if follows from the maxim of quantity that speakers should say something like “Put the apple in the box”
- However, speakers produced an unncessarily detailed sentence “Put the apple on the towel in the box”.
- Speakers often find it cognitively demandint to work out that listeners don’t need to additional information and then to delete it while preparing their utterance.
What is the maxim of quality?
Is sarcasm/irony a maxim of quality?
To be truthful.
Yes.