ujian akhir semester tahun 2011

8/6/2019 Ujian Akhir Semester Tahun 2011

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UJIAN AKHIR SEMESTER TAHUN 2011

PROGRAM PASCA SARJANA UNIVERSITAS SEBELAS MARET

PROGRAM S2 PENDIDIKAN BAHASA INGGRIS

MATA UJIAN: PSIKOLINGUISTIK

TAKE HOME EXAMINATION

A. TheoryAnswer the question exhaustively.

1. Explain the following cases in language development:a. Mention the similarities and differences of child language acquisition as he

develops to become a simultaneous bilingual and a sequential bilingual

respectively.

State also the environmental situation.

Answer:

According to Tabors (1997), simultaneous bilingualism occurs when

children are exposed to two languages from a very early age; while sequential

bilingualism occurs when a child begins learning a second language after the

first language is at least partially established. With respect to simultaneous

bilingualism, we can see that infants are exposed to two languages in various

patterns of exposure. One of the most common is a "one-person, one-language"

situation where each parent speaks their own native language, or they experience

a situation where both parents speak both languages.

Simultaneous bilingualism arises during primary language

development, which commentators regard variously as occurring during the first

three or the first five years of life. Exposed to two languages, infants initially mix

vocabulary and syntax from both.(Field, 2004; 32)

In simultaneous bilingual acquisition, children are exposed to and

acquire two languages from birth. There are various possible ways for a child in

acquiring them; however, they can be simplified into two kinds of input: separate

or mixed input.

In separate input, one person in the childs environment speaks to the

child using one language, while another person speaks the other. In mixed input,


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there is no provision in allocating input from the two languages to particular

individuals.

There is a question in simultaneous bilingualism, whether these two

language systems are separated in the childs mind or not. To answer this, the

linguists proposed two distinctive hypotheses: The Unitary System Hypothesis(Volterra & Taeschner, 1978; et al) and the Dual System Hypothesis (De

Houwer, 1990; and Meisel, 2006, among others).

The Unitary System Hypothesis argues that bilingual children went

through three stages in separating the different language systems. However,

subsequent research findings showed that this three-stage model is defective.


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The Dual System Hypothesis, on the other hand, argues that children have

already separated both lexical and grammatical systems since they were two, even before.

Therefore, their universal grammar can distinguish between the two systems and processes it

differently

In successive bilingualism, there is much greater variation between individuals. The

time of acquisition of the second language (during the primary period/before puberty/in

adulthood) may be a factor; while mastery of the later language may be limited to certain

domains. (Field, 2004; 33)

The age of 5 years is significant in language development, because in this age the

language system of the child is well established. In sequential childhood bilingualism and

adult SLA, bilinguals are not always two monolinguals in one brain (Grosjean, 1989).

When children acquire language after the age of 5 but before puberty, they have a condition

between the simultaneous bilingual acquisition and adult second language acquisition

Young children begin their time in a second language setting by simply using their

first language. Many of them then enter the silent period after realizing that other people

speak different language. The silent period is then followed by the production of single-word

utterances and, eventually, genuine creative language.

b. What the differences between the above case in a and adult languagelearning?

The acquisition of a language system for a second language is the result of

interaction between the language learners experience with the second language

and the capacity for language acquisition of the second language learner.


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The stages of acquisitions are mostly shared across monolinguals,

simultaneous bilinguals, and second language learners, in the area of implicit

knowledge and use of major structures. However, there are a number of crucial

differences shown by second language learners from the simultaneous bilingual,

including:

1) Some form of their well-established first language will be their initiallanguage system in the sequence that makes up the process of SLA,

accounting fortransferof features.

2) Because the learner is more mature than a simultaneous bilingual, his/hercapacity for acquisition may affect the learners ultimate attainmentof the

second language.

3) The second language learner is older and may therefore be learning thelanguage in a set of circumstances quite different from that of a

monolingual or simultaneous bilingual learner.

Second language learners usually pass through the stages of acquisition

faster than monolinguals and simultaneous bilinguals. But in the long run, older

learners may face many difficulties due to the ultimate attainment.

Like monolinguals, learners between 5 years of age and puberty are not

very receptive to corrections. However, the older they are, the better the learners

in mastering abstract rules, to regulate their own behavior. Then, the learners can

internalize rules that are consequences of correction, although these rules are not

part of the implicit language system but, rather, elements in a self-monitor or

self-editor.

2. Explain the relation between the functioning of the brain and the memorysystem in speech production. Support with the relevant theory

Researchers have discovered that Broca's area in the brain--best known as

the region that evolved to manage speech production--is a major "executive" center in

the brain for organizing hierarchies of behaviors. Such planning ability, from cooking

a meal to organizing a space mission, is considered one of the hallmarks of human

intelligence. The researchers found that Broca's area--which lies on the left side of the

brain about in the temple region--and its counterpart on the right side activate when


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people are asked to organize plans of action. They said their finding of the general

executive function of Broca's area could explain its key role in language production.

Importantly, the researchers found that this executive function of these cortical

regions was distinct from the organization of temporal sequences of actions. The

researchers, Etienne Koechlin and Thomas Jubault of Universit Pierre et Marie Curie

and Ecole Normale Suprieure, described their experiments in the June 15, 2006,

issue of Neuron.

In their experiments, the researchers asked volunteers to execute a sequence

of button presses when they saw colored squares or letters on a screen. Koechlin and

Jubault designed their experiment so that they could precisely distinguish hierarchical

planning of tasks from the temporal organization of tasks. The subjects were asked to

perform both simple sequences of button presses in response to a stimulus, "simple

action chunks," and "superordinate action chunks." Simple action chucks were single

motor acts that required sequential action. Superordinate action chunks included "a

sequence of categorization tasks, like sorting a deck of playing cards first by color,

then by suit, then by rank." While they performed the tasks, the subjects were scanned

using functional magnetic resonance imaging. This scanning technique involves using

harmless magnetic fields and radio waves to measure blood flow in brain regions,

which reflects brain activity. Koechlin and Jubault found that Broca's area and its

right-brain counterpart were clearly responsible for hierarchical processing. "Our

results provide evidence that Broca's area and its right homolog implement a

specialized executive system controlling the selection and nesting of action segments

comprising the hierarchical structure of behavioral plans, regardless of their temporal

structure," wrote the researchers. "This finding suggests a basic segregation between

prefrontal executive systems involved in the hierarchical and temporal organization of

goal-directed behaviors, highlighting the specific contribution of Broca's area and its

right homolog to executive control. "Interestingly, Broca's area is mostly known to be

critically involved in human language, especially in processing hierarchical structures

of human language and in organizing linguistic segments that compose speech," they

wrote. They concluded that "our results support the view that Broca's area implements

an executive function specialized for processing hierarchical structures in multiple


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domains of human cognition. We speculate that the modular executive system of

hierarchical control we describe possibly captures key functional components that

may explain the critical contribution of Broca's area to human language.

In the following picture of the left hemisphere of the human brain the grey

areas indicate the parts of brain responsible for language recognition and production:

The part marked as (1) is known as Brocas area or anterior speech cortex

and as it has been discovered it is responsible for speech production. Interestingly,

damage made to the same spot on the right hemisphere of the brain does not cause

any language-related problems, therefore only the part of the left hemisphere is

connected with linguistic abilities.

Posterior speech cortex, or as it is usually described Wernickes area, in the

picture marked (2) is responsible for speech comprehension. This fact has been stated

after the examination of a group of subject who had enormous difficulties with the

understanding of speech.


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The largest part of the brain marked in the picture is the motor cortex (3)

and it is responsible for the muscular movements. The part of motor cortex that is

close to the Brocas area is responsible for the articulatory muscles of jaw, face, as

well as tongue and larynx. Part (4) in the picture shows arcuate fasciculus which is

the bundle of nerve fibers connecting Wernickes and Brocas areas.

When all the above mentioned parts were described it was proposed that

brain activity connected with the perception and production of language would

follow certain patterns. Thus, it is claimed that speech is perceived by the Wernickes

area, then the signal is transferred through arcuate fasciculus to Brocas area.

Afterwards, the signal goes to the motor cortex to articulate the word.

However, such a sophisticated system sometimes fails us in everyday

conversations when it is difficult to remember a well known word. In situations like

that speakers often claim that they have the word at the tip of the tongue. Studies

show that in fact speakers can often tell how many syllables the word has, or what

sound it begins with, and in some tests they produce similar words which led

neurolinguists to believe that the word-storage may be organized on the basis of

phonological information.

There are some other similar phenomena analyzed by neurolinguists, such

as the slip of the tongue for example. The slip of the tongue is an unconsciously

made error in which the (usually) initial sounds of a few words are interchanged. One

other type of mistakes often made in conversations is the slip of the ear which can

be described as hearing a words as a different word which might not have been said.

It is said that such mistakes are in fact slips of the brain which is trying to process

and organize the linguistic information.

Moreover, neurolinguistics deals with various language disorders known as

aphasia which is impairment of language functions because of some brain damage

leading to difficulties in either producing or understanding linguistic forms. There are

different aphasias depending on the language impairment and the damaged part of


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brain. Thus Brocas aphasia is characterized by a reduced amount of speech, slow

pace of speaking and distorted articulation. Wernickes aphasia is characterized by

quite fluent, yet incomprehensible speech and difficulties in finding appropriate

words. Conduction aphasia is connected with damage to arcuate fasciculus and it is

connected with mispronouncing words, disrupted rhythm, large number of

hesitations and pauses .Yule G.1996 ( http//www.tlumaczenia_angielski.)

1. Explain nature and nurture have to complement one another in first languageacquisition? Provide the theoretical support and a sample case.

NATURE VS. NURTURE

The nature versus nurture issue has been around for ages, and scholars havestill not concluded which of the two has a greater effect on a person.Nature, referring

to heredity, and the nurture, referring to the environment, are two very reasonable

explanations to why we are the people we are today. This debate over whethernature

ornurture has a bigger effect on us has been argued and supported very well for both

sides. Each side stresses very important details and good explanations for why nature,

or nurture, controls how we develop. Experimentation and research has been

conducted on these two sides, and each is supported with good theories as to why

nature or nurture is the important influence on us. Nature is believed to be what

determines our personalities, looks, and other things because it's all genetically passed

down. Any matter concerning traits relies upon the concept of inborn biology. Many

American parents believe that any bad trait that their child has obtained is because of

bad parenting, but it may be more a matter of biology, and genes that run through the

family. It has been concluded that a newborn doesnt have a blank slate of

personality, but does have a set of inherited traits. Tests have been done at the

University of Wisconsin to show that temperaments of an infant are influenced more

by biology than experiences with their siblings.

In a way, ournature is our genetic gift, which gives us physical traits such

as hair color, eye color, and form of the body. It does also determine the kinds of

emotions and motivations we will experience, which can be endless. Any new


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emotion is not possible to experience unless there is change to our genetic material.

So in a way, genes give us certain traits or behavior characteristics; but its all a

matter of whether or not we carry out our certain inherited qualities. And our

environment (nurture) can sometimes make that choice for us.

The other side of the debate claims that nurture is the cause to our behavior

as well as characteristics. Even though genes are what give us that certain spunk to

our personality, the environment has the power to alter it and make us into the exact

opposite, as some say. Even the way that certain children are brought up can change

how they turn out.

One comparison of how much the environment affects a child's development

was done on tomatoes. Tomato seeds have certain genes in them, but what they grow

into will be the same no matter what, and because of those genes in each seed, one

may be destined to grow better than others. But if random seeds with different genes

were split up into two groups, with different environments, it is likely that the quality

of the tomato would differ. One group would have all the benefits to help them grow

better, such as water, sunlight, good soil, and extra care. Whereas group two would be

given bad soil, not enough sunlight and water, and no extra care. These differences in

their environment would definitely change the outcome of the tomatoes because

group one would turn out a lot better than those in group two. It's a matter of what

kind of influence they receive to turn out a certain way. "Bad soil" can alter how

something may develop, such as humans.

Different ethnicities have different expectations of how their child is to

perform in school. We are perfect examples of the tomatoes because we all arent in

bad soil, but some of us have higher expectations and environments, so we turn out

differently than others. Asian families have higher expectations of their children when

it comes to schoolwork. They are automatically expected to do well and excel

academically at everything. This higher rate of expectations, and their environment

with their parents, ultimately may lead to higher success for them in the near future.

The way that Asian kids can be more successful, or even less because of all the

pushing that they receive, is different from how other children turn out due to lower

standards expected.


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Along with having standards set for us in our environment, family

surroundings can also affect a child. The family a child comes from is crucial to their

development, thus, giving the nurture argument another reason why environment is

important. Some authors know this, such as one who wrote this statement: "Children

who grow up in a household with only one biological parent are worse off, on

average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological

parents, regardless of the parents' race or educational background, regardless of

whether the parents are married when the child is born, and regardless of whether the

resident parent remarries."

As ournature is a type of genetic endowment, nurture is the experience we

have during our lifetime. But it's a little different from a regular experience because it

resonates with our motivations and emotions, and acts like our inner eye. This draws

us to certain experiences and ignores others that occur. Society is the influence in our

environment that may tell us to act a certain way, but if our inner eye does not

motivate us to act that way, we most likely will not. It can control and motivate us to

act how society wants us to.

Nature and nurture are tied in together in ways that many of us do not see,

and it's an ongoing confusion as to which one creates a person's personality, looks,

etc. I have an eclectic view and say that nature and nurture are both important

influences to a person as they are developing their traits. Our genes are important

because what we have inherited is essentially the basis of what kind of person we are,

but the environment can alter and develop a person even more.

Twin studies have been made to determine whether hereditary is the leading

factor, or if its the environment. The results have shown that it's basically an even

amount of influence on a person. The twins shared common interest in spicy food,

struggled in math, while playing sports, and have similarities in temperament, tempo,

and ways of doing things. The differences that they showed were in their working

habits, and thoughts; whereas one brother was liberal, the other was very traditional.

They had similarities due to heredity, but they did have differences because they grew

up in two very different environments. They had their share of common things, as

well as differences.


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Nature and nurture are both important to acquiring or altering traits in a

person. One or the other doesn't work dominate; there needs to be both heredity and

environment to answer this long debate.

It seems that this battle between nature and nurture will go on forever

because both sides can be easily backed up with supporting information as to which is

more important. Some psychologists agree that nature and nurture are both major

influences to the development of behavior. Psychologist Robert Plomin said, ". But

the genetic influence on traits and behaviors is only partial: Genetics account, on

average, for half of the variance of most traits. That means the environment accounts

for the rest." We receive genes from our family, but our environment and nurturing

can alter that if strong enough, as an influence. Whether we notice it or not, nature

and nurture are mixed in with each other, influencing traits of everyone.

Society is made up of genetic beings, and it formed because people have a

genetic impulse to group together. If you were to be away from a group, and feel

loneliness, that is a genetic behavior, as are all emotions. Culture is also an expression

of our common trend as individuals. So it is safe to say that society, at a certain level,

is a complex genetic creature, which sends messages to the other individuals, which

are also in part genetic. It shows that nature can influence nurture, and vice versa,

because an inherited behavior can change as time progresses. " it is a fallacy to

believe that any behavior that is genetically inherited cannot be modified over a

lifetime."

Nurture has a larger effect on us than does nature. Nurture is the

characteristic builder that we gain as we grow up. It is what defines ournature and

makes us who we are. Nurture cultivates ournature, and it is the main regulator of

our being.

Guirguis. Shady,April 26, 2004 (http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/courses/classes/NE-

24%20Olander/Equalitarinism_vs_Hereditarinism.htm)


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2. Find journal article in the internet representing a psycholinguistic study anddiscuss its advantages and disadvantages ( if there is any).

Psycholinguistics

By Kamil Winiewski, Aug. 12th, 2007

Psycholinguistics is a branch of study which combines the disciplines of

psychology and linguistics. It is concerned with the relationship between the human

mind and the language as it examines the processes that occur in brain while

producing and perceiving both written and spoken discourse. What is more, it is

interested in the ways of storing lexical items and syntactic rules in mind, as well as

the processes of memory involved in perception and interpretation of texts. Also, theprocesses of speaking and listening are analyzed, along with language acquisition and

language disorders.

Psycholinguistics as a separate branch of study emerged in the late 1950s

and 1960s as a result of Chomskyan revolution. The ideas presented by Chomsky

became so important that they quickly gained a lot of publicity and had a big impact

on a large number of contemporary views on language. Consequently also

psycholinguists started investigating such matters as the processing of deep and

surface structure ofsentences. In the early years of development of psycholinguistics

special experiments were designed in order to examine if the focus of processing is

the deep syntactic structure. On the basis of transformation of sentences it was

initially discovered that the ease of processing was connected with syntactic

complexity. However, later on it became clear that not only syntactic complexity adds

to the difficulty of processing, but also semantic factors have a strong influence on it.

All the same, certain principles of sentence processing that were formulated

at that time are still valid. One of them, namely the principle of minimal attachment

means that when processing a sentence which could have multiple meanings people

most frequently tend to choose the simplest meaning, or the meaning that in syntactic

analysis would present the simplest parse tree with fewest nodes. Thus, a sentence

Mary watched the man with the binoculars by most language users would be


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interpreted that it was Mary, and not the man, who was using binoculars. One other

principle worth noting is the principle of late closure which states that there is a

tendency to join the new information to the current phrase, or clause, which explains

why in a sentence such as John said he will leave this morning the phrase this

morning would be understood as relating to the verb leave and not to said.

Other psycholinguistic investigations into how processing of texts occurs

led to conclusions that complex sentences with multiple clauses are interpreted faster

and with less mental effort when the clauses are not reduced. When it comes to

speech the experiments show that the interpretation of sentences can vary depending

on the placing of pauses, or disfluencies. Additionally, is has been proven that visual

contact between speakers also has a strong influence on the ease, or difficulty of

processing texts. During experiments subjects were listening to some sentences and

those who saw the speaker could understand what the speech was about better, while

those who did not see him often had difficulties with it.

The recent tendencies in psycholinguistics show increasing interest in

discourse processing, and in particular in the ways readers create a mental

representation of the narrative world. The focus of interest is on the role of readers

schemata and the problem of inferences about the read subject matter. It has been

proved that certain inferences are made in the very process of reading, while others

are made later in order to resolve some problems or inconsistencies. The issues of

background knowledge and automaticity of drawing inferences are still being

investigated.

Finch G. 1998. How to study linguistics. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown K. (Editor) 2005. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 2nd Edition.

Oxford: Elsevier. Wilson R. A. (Editor) 1999. The MIT encyclopedia of cognitive

sciences. London: The MIT Press.

(http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/psycholinguistics.htm)

B. Application


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Answer the questions beneath with relevance to the data:

Data:

Child : Ma Ma, Da Da,..Nobody dont like me.

Mother : No, say: Nobody likes me.

Child : Nobody dont likes me. Ma Ma

( eight successive repetition of this part)

Mother : No, now listen carefully, say nobody likes me.

Child : Oh! Got it! Ma Ma! Nobody dont likes me.

Question:

1. In which stage of development is the child? What is appropriate age?According to Dardjowidjojo ( 2008: 246-256) Children sometimes use double

negative sentence. Children begin to place negative sentence by using no in the

first utterance. These happen in semantic acquisition stage at about 4;0 5;0

years.

2. Show the roles of mother and child based on the data.According to the data, the child wants to express negative sentence and the mother

wants to correct the childs utterance.

In the semantic level of language, the child attends to a greater extent to that

meaningful semantic level deep structure of language. He engages in deep

structure in deep-structure imitation. We can imagine the frustration of both

mother and child, for mother was attending to a rather technical, surface

grammatical distinction, and yet the child sought to derive some meaning value.

The child was expressing a deep feeling, while the mother was concerned about

grammar McNeill in Brown (2000: 39)

3. What is the function of the successive repetition of the child?The child was expressing a deep feeling

4. Do you think the mothers effort to revise the child speech is effective? Why? No, because The child was expressing a deep feeling, while the mother was

concerned about grammar.


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Reference:

Dardjowidjojo, Soenjono. 2008. Psikolinguistik. Jakarta: Yayasan Obor Indonesia

Guirguis. Shady,April 26, 2004 (http://www.nuc.berkeley.edu/courses/classes/NE-

24%20Olander/Equalitarinism_vs_Hereditarinism.htm)

Finch G. 1998. How to study linguistics. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Brown K. (Editor) 2005. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 2nd Edition. Oxford:

Elsevier. Wilson R. A. (Editor) 1999. The MIT encyclopedia of cognitive sciences. London: The

MIT Press.

(http://www.tlumaczenia-angielski.info/linguistics/psycholinguistics.htm)

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