Levelt model

Question 1

State the stages, in order, of Levelt’s model

Answer 1

Acoustic phonetic processor
Parser
Conceptualiser
Lexicon
Formulator
Articulator

Question 2

Describe acoustic phonetic processor stage

Answer 2

-Sound received and initially processed by the ear.
-Signals transmitted via nerves to brain for processing.
-Hearing ability supports interpretation.

Question 3

What may phonetic representation be

Answer 3

-Acoustic: pitch, loudness, duration
-Linguistic: manner, place of articulation
-Cognitive: consonant and vowel phonemes

Question 4

Describe the parser stage

Answer 4

Deriving meaning from the speech signal
-Phonological decoding & lexical selection: Recognizing sounds to identify words
-Grammatical decoding
(Syntactic and semantic): Hearing each words makes available its syntactic and semantic properties.

Question 5

Describe conceptualiser stage

Answer 5

Forms initial ideas and intentions, organizing information

Discourse Processing: Structures message logically, ensuring coherence/smooth topic transitions.

Monitoring: Self-assesses speech for errors and clarity, making real-time adjustments as needed.

Message Generation: Converts ideas into language, selecting words and constructing sentences to convey meaning accuratel

Question 6

Describe lexicon stage of levelt’s model

Answer 6

-Contains tens of thousands of items, called “lemmas” (syntactic words).
-Selecting a lemma makes its syntax available for grammatical encoding during expressive language tasks

Question 7

Describe formulator stage

Answer 7

-Translates conceptual idea to linguistic structure
Two stages:
Grammatical Encoding: Activates syntactic properties after lemma selection.
Phonological Encoding: Retrieves phonological form of lexical item and completes phonetic encoding.

Question 8

Describe the articulator stage

Answer 8

Execution of the articulatory plan by the muscles of the respiratory, laryngeal and supra-laryngeal systems.