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INTRODUCTION
The psychology of language ‘psycholinguistics’ as its known today was invented by the 19th
century linguists.This was after idealism and logic couldn’t be relied fully to address the issues
on language and consciousness.Linguists at this time viewed language as a spontaneous product
of nature.Language is a natural product of consciousness this was according to the 19th century
scientists such as Herder,Steinthall and Lazarus.
The romantic,evolutionary perspective shifted the weight of explanation in linguistics to
psychology.”Fortunate advances in linguistics presuppose a developed psychology”wrote
Heymann Steinthall in 1855.Knoblauch 1988 in his thorough account of this early history notes
that this “developed” psychology didn’t exist in Steinthall’s time.What was available was
Herbert’s atomistic individual psychology and the occasional self-proclaimed psychologist of his
time wasn’t interested in this kind of challenge.In other words,’the psychology of language’ was
invented by linguists pour besoin de la cause-it was little else than linguistic folk psychology.
Matters changed when Wundt did take up the challenge in the 1800’s and eventually resulting in
his two volume Die Spra-Che of 1900.For Wundt,his main aim was to expain language as a
spontaneous product of consciousness.As an expression of the mind.
The original perspective of psycholinguistics was a genetic one.Where does language come
from,phylogenetically,microgenetically,ontogenetically,and-only occassionaly discussed by
Wundt but a lot by his contemporaries such as Wernickes-neurogenetic view on language and the
brain.
PHILOSOPHICAL PERSPECTIVE
The first to write anything on the brain and language were the ancient Egyptians.A catalogue of
effects of head injury exists in what is reffered to as Edwin Smith’s Surgical Papyrus written
about 1700 B.C.The writer reffered to what is believed to be the first recorded case of aphasialanguage breakdown following brain trauma.
The Egyptians however didn’t pay any attention to the brain,they believed that the heart was the
soul and the the repository for memory.This was a view shared by Aristotle who was a greek
philosopher(384-322 B.C) a somewhatsurprising position to take given that he as student at
Plato’s academy and that Plato(427-347 B.C)believed the brain to be the best seat of intelligence.
Plato was probably the earliest to write at length on language where others may have just spoken
but not written.Certainly his writings were the most influential with respect to the philosophy of
language and the question ‘what does a word mean?’Plato studied prisoners who had been
chained all their lives in a cave.In this allegory all the prisoners saw were the shsdows of objects
cast upon a wall by the flames of a fire.Plato came to realize that the prisoners described what
they saw in the shadows using words which refer to objects in the real world all this uknown to
them since they had been imprisoned all their lives.
Thus for Plato and a host of more contemporary philosophers such as Frege and Puttnam,-the
true meaning of a word-its reference-is external to the person who by using the word is
attributing meaning to it.
Wittgenstein in his philosophical investigations proposed that the meaning of a word is
knowledge of its use in a language here being knowledge of the contexts in which it would be
appropriate to utter that word,where such knowledge is shaped by experiences.
The pre-history of psycholinguistics up until the 19th century was dominated by philosophical
conjecture.The term ‘dominated’ is used loosely here since there was no systematicand on going
questioning of the relationship between the mind and language-there was no community of
researchers asking the questions.
PSYCHOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVE
Psychology plays an integral part in language comprehension and production.In this section we
will look at various psychologists,their theories and their effect on language.
SCHOOLS OF THOUGHT;
BEHAVIOURISM
In the early 1900s, after inception of structuralism and functionalism another school of
thought;behaviourism was introduced.Behaviourists tried to establish psychology as an
empirical science with all the requisite tools of scientific but devoid of mental constructs like
mind,thought and imagery.
J.B Watson and B.F Skinner wanted a psychology based on observable behavior,and not mental
constructs.In the 1950s classical conditioning was used to account for how words acquired
emotional meaning.Behaviourism for a period helped change the way experts viewed language
however this would change at the beginning of the cognitive revolution.
STRUCTURALISM
Structuralism emerged as the first school of thought.It focused on breaking down the mental
processes into the most basic parts.Structuralists used introspection to understand the basic
elements of consciousness.One of the pre-eminent structuralists Ferdinand de Saussure in his
book Course in General linguistics analyses not the use of language but the underlying system of
language.Saussure claimed that linguistic signs were made up of two parts;
i)the signifier;which is the action when someone says or thinks a word.
ii)the signified;which is the meaning or the cocept of a word.Edward Tichener coined the term
structuralism and also described some tenets.
FUNCTIONALISM
Functionalism followed structuralism.It was started by an American psychologist William
James,the functionalist school of thought was based around studying what people do with
language and thoughts rather than the structure of the mind.Functionalists such as James were
pragmatic thinkers as they believed that the value of knowledge depended on its
usefulness.However the flaw with was that for some people it was not enough of a rigorous
science,and some changes would be made to include more scientific aspects.
COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
In the past 20-30 years, a new point of view has emerged.The cognitive science school of
thought is a multi disciplinary effort that integrates research from
linguistics,psychobiology,neuroscienceperspectives to better understand how humans think and
communicate.Cognitive neuroscience is a field of research that links the brain and the nervous
system to cognitive processing.Ultimately cognitive science became the study of how people
perceive,organize,remember and use information.
The works on the brain and language led to the cognitive revolution.The work by Chomsky main
propagator and other influencial experts such as George Miller at Harvard University led to a
revolution in psychology in which a transition began to occur from behaviourism to the
cognitive perspective.This transition came to be known as the cognitive revolution.The
cognitive revolution was crucial to the birth of psycholinguistics,it turned away from from
behaviourism towards language and mental processes.Cognitive psychology thus became the
study of how people perceive,organice,remember and use information.
THE MODERN ERA
Chomsky’s influence on modern psycholinguistics cannot be overstated.He draws an important
distinction between ‘competence’,or the knowledge we have about a language and ‘performance’
the use of that language.(a distinction reminiscent of Sassures earlier distinction between langue
and parole)Both competence and performance arise through the workings of the human mind a
mind which is innately enabled to learn the structures of human language.L.A.D language
acquisition device.
Traditional theories in ciognition suppose that the jop of the perceptual system is to deliver to the
cognitive system a representation of the external world.The job of the cognitive system is then to
reconstruct mentally the external world.This reconstruction subsequently forms the basis for
‘commands’ sent to for example the motor system.Cognition thus mediates between perception
and action.
Cognition is thusgrounded in the same neuralsubstrates that support sensory-motor interaction
with the external world.
The computer falls under the modern era.It had a significant impact on psychology as well as
language.Computer programs worked by breaking down complex behaviours into sequences of
simpler,more manageable behaviours.They relied on symbol manipulaition and the control of
information flow.
Influences of the digital computing revolution were felt in different ways.Some were direct with
researchers building computer simulations of mental behavior(in the growing field of artificial
intelligence).Several language ‘understanding’ programs were written in the early 60s and are
still relevant 35 yrs on.e.g Terry Winograd’s SHRDLU programwritten in 1968-1970.
Immernse resources,time and personnel have been directed towards this area of artificial
intelligence which heavily borrows from the human cognitive system.These machines were
essentially built to ease our day to to day lives and language is no exception.
THE FUTURE OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Psycholinguistics as a discipline is a field that taken a while to research,understand and
explain.The postulations put forward from the ancient Egyptians as seen from Edwin Smith to
Wundit’s structuralism,Skinner’s behaviourism,Chomsky’s cognitive approach to artifitial
intelligence have all led to a profound understanding of psycholinguistics.This has laid a good
foundation for future inventions and researches in the field.
The encouraging of students in institutions of higher learning to pursue degrees and the political
goodwill by the governments to support research social sciences in our case psycholinguistics
and incorporate it with technology is a sure stategy for the future.
The future of the science of language couldn’t be much brighter.Unlike the behahaviourists
skinner and functionalist who died long we are fortunate enough to have Noam Chomsky who is
a huge resource in the psycholinguistic field.
CONCLUSION
Overall, many important people contributed to the history of psycholinguistics. Many important
theories were put forth, and much progress was made regarding the understanding we have about
language and how we think about it. The different schools of thought provided a framework for
how thinkers shaped their thoughts and ideas. While the thinkers did not always agree with each
other, there was always stimulating discussions and we furthered our knowledge of the subject as
a result of these debates. Brilliant men such as Wundt, Piaget, Chomsky and many others have
changed the way we think about language in a psychological context. The cognitive revolution
was a time of the breakthrough of many fresh ideas that enlightened us even more. In the future,
there will surely be many more breakthroughs that we have not even pondered yet.
REFERENCES
Altmann G T M (1997)The assent of Babel:An exploration of language,mind,and
understanding.Oxford University Press.
Altmann G T M (2001).The language machine:’Psycholinguistics in review.’British journal of
Psychology 92,129-170.
Blumenthal A L (1970).Language and psychology:Historical aspects of psycholinguistics.New
York:John Wiley and Sons.
Chomsky N (1957).Syntactic structures.Mouton.
Chomsky N (1959) ‘Review of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour.’Language 35,26-58.
UNIVERSITY OF NAIROBI
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION AND EXTERNAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF LINGUISTICS
COURSE TITLE:PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
COURSE CODE:TLE 403
TASK:HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
LECTURER:MR.ATOH.
PRESENTED BY:STEPHEN KAGUAMBA MUTUMA
REG.NO:E35/39670/2011
SIGNATURE:
DATE OF SUBMISSION: 30th /OCTOBER/2014.