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In addition to PET and fMRI, which show which areas of the brain are activated by certain tasks, researchers also use diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which shows the neural pathways that connect different brain areas, thus providing insight into how different areas interact. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS...
Neurolinguists employ a variety of experimental techniques in order to use brain imaging to draw conclusions about how language is represented and processed in the brain. These techniques include the "subtraction" paradigm, "mismatch design", "violation-based" studies, various forms of "priming", and "direct stimulatio...
Many language studies, particularly in fMRI, use the subtraction paradigm, in which brain activation in a task thought to involve some aspect of language processing is compared against activation in a baseline task thought to involve similar non-linguistic processes but not to involve the linguistic process. For exampl...
In psycholinguistics and neurolinguistics, "priming" refers to the phenomenon whereby a subject can recognize a word more quickly if he or she has recently been presented with a word that is similar in meaning or morphological makeup (i.e., composed of similar parts). If a subject is presented with a "prime" word such ...
In many neurolinguistics experiments, subjects do not simply sit and listen to or watch stimuli, but also are instructed to perform some sort of task in response to the stimuli. Subjects perform these tasks while recordings (electrophysiological or hemodynamic) are being taken, usually in order to ensure that they are ...
The lexical decision task involves subjects seeing or hearing an isolated word and answering whether or not it is a real word. It is frequently used in priming studies, since subjects are known to make a lexical decision more quickly if a word has been primed by a related word (as in "doctor" priming "nurse").
Many studies, especially violation-based studies, have subjects make a decision about the "acceptability" (usually grammatical acceptability or semantic acceptability) of stimuli. Such a task is often used to "ensure that subjects [are] reading the sentences attentively and that they [distinguish] acceptable from unacc...
Experimental evidence has shown that the instructions given to subjects in an acceptability judgment task can influence the subjects' brain responses to stimuli. One experiment showed that when subjects were instructed to judge the "acceptability" of sentences they did not show an N400 brain response (a response common...
Some studies use a "probe verification" task rather than an overt acceptability judgment; in this paradigm, each experimental sentence is followed by a "probe word", and subjects must answer whether or not the probe word had appeared in the sentence. This task, like the acceptability judgment task, ensures that subject...
Subjects may be instructed not to judge whether or not the sentence is grammatically acceptable or logical, but whether the proposition expressed by the sentence is true or false. This task is commonly used in psycholinguistic studies of child language.
Another related form of experiment is the double-task experiment, in which a subject must perform an extra task (such as sequential finger-tapping or articulating nonsense syllables) while responding to linguistic stimuli; this kind of experiment has been used to investigate the use of working memory in language proces...
Some relevant journals include the "Journal of Neurolinguistics" and "Brain and Language". Both are subscription access journals, though some abstracts may be generally available.
Clinical linguistics is a sub-discipline of applied linguistics involved in the description, analysis, and treatment of language disabilities, especially the application of linguistic theory to the field of Speech-Language Pathology. The study of the linguistic aspect of communication disorders is of relevance to a bro...
The International Clinical Phonetics and Linguistics Association is the unofficial organization of the field and was formed in 1991. The Journal of Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics is the major research journal of the field and was founded by Martin J. Ball.
Practitioners of clinical linguistics typically work in Speech-Language Pathology departments or linguistics departments. They conduct research with the aims of improving the assessment, treatment, and analysis of disordered speech and language, and offering insights to formal linguistic theories. While the majority of...
The study of communication disorders has a history that can be traced all the way back to the ancient Greeks. Modern clinical linguistics, however, largely has its roots in the twentieth century, with the term ‘clinical linguistics’ gaining wider currency in the 1970s, with it being used as the title of a book by promi...
These are the main disciplines of clinical linguistics:
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies the sounds of human speech. Clinical phonetics involve applications of phonetics to describe speech differences and disorders, including information about speech sounds and the perceptual skills used in clinical settings.
Phonology is one of the branches of linguistics that is concerned with the systematic organization of sounds in spoken languages and signs in sign languages. Unlike clinical phonetics, clinical phonology focuses on the application of phonology on interpretations of speech sounds in a particular language and how it deal...
In linguistics, prosody is concerned with elements of speech that are not individual phonetic segments (vowels and consonants) but are properties of syllables and larger units of speech. Prosody is essential in communicative functions such as expressing emotions or affective states.
Morphology is the study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language. It analyses the structure of words and part of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes.
Syntax is the set of rules, principles and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, usually including word order. Every language has a different set of syntactic rules, but all languages have some form of syntax.
Semantics is the study of the interpretation of signs or symbols used in agents or communities within particular circumstances and contexts .
Pragmatics is a subfield of linguistics and semiotics that studies the ways in which context contributes to meaning. It refers to the description and classification of pragmatic impairments, their elucidation in terms of various pragmatic, linguistics, cognitive and neurological theories, and their assessment and treat...
In corpus linguistics, discourse refers to the study of language expressed in corpora (samples) of “real world” text, the codified language of a field of enquiry, or a statement that determines the connections among language and structure and agency.
Linguistic concepts and theories are applied to assess, diagnose and administer language disorders. These theories and concepts commonly involve psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics. Clinical linguists adopt the understanding of language and the linguistic disciplines, as mentioned above, to explain language disorder...
Some broad linguistics methods that are commonly used in the treatment of patients mentioned by Cummings (2017) include:
The past works of linguists such as Crystal were applicable to a wide range of communication disorders at every linguistic level. However, with the influx of new insights from disciplines such as genetics, cognitive neuroscience and neurobiology (among others), it is no longer sufficient to just focus on the linguistic...
In today's context, one of the challenges in clinical linguistics includes identifying methods to bridge the knowledge of different fields to build a more holistic understanding. The translation of general research that has been done into effective tools for clinical practice is another aspect that requires future work...
The N400 is a component of time-locked EEG signals known as event-related potentials (ERP). It is a negative-going deflection that peaks around 400 milliseconds post-stimulus onset, although it can extend from 250-500 ms, and is typically maximal over centro-parietal electrode sites. The N400 is part of the normal brai...
An example of an experimental task used to study the N400 is a priming paradigm. Subjects are shown a list of words in which a prime word is either associatively related to a target word (e.g. bee and honey), semantically related (e.g. sugar and honey) or a direct repetition (e.g. honey and honey). The N400 amplitude s...
Another widely used experimental task used to study the N400 is sentence reading. In this kind of study, sentences are presented to subjects centrally, one word at a time, until the sentence is completed. Alternatively, subjects could listen to a sentence as natural auditory speech. Again, subjects may be asked to resp...
As previously mentioned, the N400 response is seen to all meaningful, or potentially meaningful, stimuli. As such, a wide range of paradigms can be used to study it. Experiments involving the presentation of spoken words, acronyms, pictures embedded at the end of sentences, music, words related to current context or or...
Extensive research has been carried out to better understand what kinds of experimental manipulations do and do not affect the N400. General findings are discussed below.
The frequency of a word's usage is known to affect the amplitude of the N400. With all else being constant, highly frequent words elicit reduced N400s relative to infrequent words. As previously mentioned, N400 amplitude is also reduced by repetition, such that a word's second presentation exhibits a more positive resp...
N400 amplitude is also sensitive to a word's orthographic neighborhood size, or how many other words differ from it by only one letter (e.g. "boot" and "boat"). Words with large neighborhoods (that have many other physically similar items) elicit larger N400 amplitudes than do words with small neighborhoods. This findi...
The N400 is sensitive to priming: in other words, its amplitude is reduced when a target word is preceded by a word that is semantically, morphologically, or orthographically related to it.
Factors that do not affect N400 amplitude.
Additionally, grammatical violations do not elicit a large N400 response. Rather, these types of violations show a large positivity from about 500-1000 ms after stimulus onset, known as the P600.
A striking feature of the N400 is the general invariance of its peak latency. Although many different experimental manipulations affect the amplitude of the N400, few factors (aging and disease states and language proficiency being rare examples) alter the time it takes for the N400 component to reach a peak amplitude.
Although localization of the neural generators of an ERP signal is difficult due to the spreading of current from the source to the sensors, multiple techniques can be used to provide converging evidence about possible neural sources. Using methods such as recordings directly off the surface of the brain or from electr...
There is still much debate as to exactly what kind of neural and comprehension processes the N400 indexes. Some researchers believe that the underlying processes reflected in the N400 occur after a stimulus has been recognized. For example, Brown and Hagoort (1993) believe that the N400 occurs late in the processing st...
More recent accounts posit that the N400 represents a broader range of processes indexing access to semantic memory. According to this account, it represents the binding of information obtained from stimulus input with representations from short- and long-term memory (such as recent context, and accessing a word's mean...
Another account is that the N400 reflects prediction error or surprisal. Word-based surprisal was a strong predictor of N400 amplitude in an ERP corpus. In addition, connectionist models make use of prediction error for learning and linguistic adaptation, and these models can explain several N400/P600 results in terms ...
As research in the field of electrophysiology continues to progress, these theories will likely be refined to include a complete account of just what the N400 represents.
The notion of a dedicated language module in the human brain originated with Noam Chomsky's theory of Universal Grammar (UG). The debate on the issue of modularity in language is underpinned, in part, by different understandings of this concept. There is, however, some consensus in the literature that a module is consi...
The available evidence points towards no one anatomical area solely devoted to processing language. The Wada test, where sodium amobarbital is used to anaesthetise one hemisphere, shows that the left-hemisphere appears to be crucial in language processing. Yet, neuroimaging does not implicate any single area but rather...
No double dissociation – acquired or developmental.
A common way to demonstrate modularity is to find a double dissociation. That is two groups: First, people for whom language is severely damaged and yet have normal cognitive abilities and, second, persons for whom normal cognitive abilities are grossly impaired and yet language remains intact. Whilst extensive lesions...
Thus, the evidence from double dissociations does not support modularity, although lack of dissociation is not evidence against a module; this inference cannot be logically made.
Indeed, if language were a module it would be informationally encapsulated. Yet, there is evidence to suggest that this is not the case. For instance, in the McGurk effect, watching lips say one phoneme whilst another is played creates the percept of a blended phoneme. Further, Tanenhaus, Spivey-Knowlton, Eberhard and ...
The alternative, as it is framed, is that language occurs within a more general cognitive system. The counterargument is that there appears to be something ‘special’ about human language. This is usually supported by evidence such as all attempts to teach animals human languages to any great success have failed (Hauser...
Multilingualism is the use of more than one language, either by an individual speaker or by a group of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue; but ma...
Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is usually acquired without formal education, by mechanisms about which scholars disagree. Children acquiring two languages n...
People who speak more than one language have been reported to be more adept at language learning compared to monolinguals.
Multilingualism in computing can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and localization. Due to the status of English in computing, software development nearly always uses it (but not in the case of non-English-based programming languages). Some commercial software is initially available in an ...
The definition of multilingualism is a subject of debate in the same way as that of language fluency. At one end of a sort of linguistic continuum, one may define multilingualism as complete competence in and mastery of more than one language. The speaker would presumably have complete knowledge and control over the la...
In addition, there is no consistent definition of what constitutes a distinct language. For instance, scholars often disagree whether Scots is a language in its own right or merely a dialect of English. Furthermore, what is considered a language can change, often for purely political reasons. One example is the creatio...
Many small independent nations' schoolchildren are today compelled to learn multiple languages because of international interactions. For example, in Finland, all children are required to learn at least three languages: the two national languages (Finnish and Swedish) and one foreign language (usually English). Many Fi...
In some large nations with multiple languages, such as India, schoolchildren may routinely learn multiple languages based on where they reside in the country.
In many countries, bilingualism occurs through international relations, which, with English being the global lingua franca, sometimes results in majority bilingualism even when the countries have just one domestic official language. This is occurring especially in Germanic regions such as Scandinavia, the Benelux and a...
Many myths and much prejudice have grown around the notions of bi- and multilingualism in some Western countries where monolingualism is the norm. Researchers from the UK and Poland have listed the most common misconceptions:
These are all harmful convictions that have long been debunked, yet persist among many parents. In reality, bilingual children have lower scores than their monolingual peers when they are assessed in only one of the languages they are acquiring, but have substantially greater total lingual resources.
One view is that of the linguist Noam Chomsky in what he calls the human language acquisition device—a mechanism which enables a learner to recreate correctly the rules and certain other characteristics of language used by surrounding speakers. This device, according to Chomsky, wears out over time, and is not normally...
If language learning is a cognitive process, rather than a language acquisition device, as the school led by Stephen Krashen suggests, there would only be relative, not categorical, differences between the two types of language learning.
Rod Ellis quotes research finding that the earlier children learn a second language, the better off they are, in terms of pronunciation. European schools generally offer secondary language classes for their students early on, due to the interconnectedness with neighbor countries with different languages. Most European ...
Based on the research in Ann Fathman's "The Relationship between age and second language productive ability," there is a difference in the rate of learning of English morphology, syntax and phonology based upon differences in age, but that the order of acquisition in second language learning does not change with age.
People who learn multiple languages may also experience positive transfer – the process by which it becomes easier to learn additional languages if the grammar or vocabulary of the new language is similar to those of languages already spoken. On the other hand, students may also experience negative transfer – interfere...
In sequential bilingualism, learners receive literacy instruction in their native language until they acquire a "threshold" literacy proficiency. Some researchers use age 3 as the age when a child has basic communicative competence in their first language (Kessler, 1984). Children may go through a process of sequential...
In simultaneous bilingualism, the native language and the community language are simultaneously taught. The advantage is literacy in two languages as the outcome. However, the teacher must be well-versed in both languages and also in techniques for teaching a second language.
The phases children go through during sequential acquisition are less linear than for simultaneous acquisition and can vary greatly among children. Sequential acquisition is a more complex and lengthier process, although there is no indication that non-language-delayed children end up less proficient than simultaneous ...
A coordinate model posits that equal time should be spent in separate instruction of the native language and the community language. The native language class, however, focuses on basic literacy while the community language class focuses on listening and speaking skills. Being bilingual does not necessarily mean that o...
Research has found that the development of competence in the native language serves as a foundation of proficiency that can be transposed to the second language — the common underlying proficiency hypothesis. Cummins' work sought to overcome the perception propagated in the 1960s that learning two languages made for tw...
Another new development that has influenced the linguistic argument for bilingual literacy is the length of time necessary to acquire the second language. While previously children were believed to have the ability to learn a language within a year, today researchers believe that within and across academic settings, th...
An interesting outcome of studies during the early 1990s, however, confirmed that students who do complete bilingual instruction perform better academically. These students exhibit more cognitive elasticity including a better ability to analyze abstract visual patterns. Students who receive bidirectional bilingual inst...
A multilingual person is someone who can communicate in more than one language actively (through speaking, writing, or signing). Multilingual people can speak any language they write in, but cannot necessarily write in any language they speak. More specifically, bilingual and trilingual people are those in comparable s...
Multilingual speakers have acquired and maintained at least one language during childhood, the so-called first language (L1). The first language (sometimes also referred to as the mother tongue) is acquired without formal education, by mechanisms heavily disputed. Children acquiring two languages in this way are called...
The reverse phenomenon, where people who know more than one language end up losing command of some or all of their additional languages, is called language attrition. It has been documented that, under certain conditions, individuals may lose their L1 language proficiency completely, after switching to the exclusive us...
This is most commonly seen among immigrant communities and has been the subject of substantial academic study. The most important factor in spontaneous, total L1 loss appears to be age; in the absence of neurological dysfunction or injury, only young children typically are at risk of forgetting their native language an...
There are differences between those who learn a language in a class environment and those who learn through total immersion, usually living in a country where the target language is widely spoken. Without the possibility to actively translate in a classroom setting, due to a lack of first language communication opportu...
Bilinguals might have important labor market advantages over monolingual individuals as bilingual people can carry out duties that monolinguals cannot, such as interacting with customers who only speak a minority language. A study in Switzerland has found that multilingualism is positively correlated with an individual...
While many polyglots know up to six languages, the number drops off sharply past this point. People who speak many more than this—Michael Erard suggests eleven or more—are sometimes classed as "hyperpolyglots". Giuseppe Caspar Mezzofanti, for example, was an Italian priest reputed to have spoken anywhere from 30 to 72 ...
It is important to note that terms past trilingual are rarely used. People who speak four or more languages are generally just referred to as multilingual.
Widespread multilingualism is one form of language contact. Multilingualism was common in the past: in early times, when most people were members of small language communities, it was necessary to know two or more languages for trade or any other dealings outside one's town or village, and this holds good today in plac...
In multilingual societies, not all speakers need to be multilingual. Some states can have multilingual policies and recognize several official languages, such as Canada (English and French). In some states, particular languages may be associated with particular regions in the state (e.g., Canada) or with particular eth...
N.B. the terms given above all refer to situations describing only two languages. In cases of an unspecified number of languages, the terms polyglossia, omnilingualism, and multipart-lingualism are more appropriate.
Whenever two people meet, negotiations take place. If they want to express solidarity and sympathy, they tend to seek common features in their behavior. If speakers wish to express distance towards or even dislike of the person they are speaking to, the reverse is true, and differences are sought. This mechanism also e...
Some multilinguals use code-switching, which involves swapping between languages. In many cases, code-switching is motivated by the wish to express loyalty to more than one cultural group, as holds for many immigrant communities in the New World. Code-switching may also function as a strategy where proficiency is lacki...
This code-switching appears in many forms. If a speaker has a positive attitude towards both languages and towards code-switching, many switches can be found, even within the same sentence. If however, the speaker is reluctant to use code-switching, as in the case of a lack of proficiency, he might knowingly or unknowi...
With emerging markets and expanding international cooperation, business users expect to be able to use software and applications in their own language. Multilingualisation (or "m17n", where "17" stands for 17 omitted letters) of computer systems can be considered part of a continuum between internationalization and loc...
Translating the user interface is usually part of the software localization process, which also includes adaptations such as units and date conversion. Many software applications are available in several languages, ranging from a handful (the most spoken languages) to dozens for the most popular applications (such as o...
According to Hewitt (2008) entrepreneurs in London from Poland, China or Turkey use English mainly for communication with customers, suppliers, and banks, but their native languages for work tasks and social purposes.
Even in English-speaking countries immigrants are still able to use their mother tongue in the workplace thanks to other immigrants from the same place. Kovacs (2004) describes this phenomenon in Australia with Finnish immigrants in the construction industry who spoke Finnish during working hours.
But even though foreign languages may be used in the workplace, English is still a must-know working skill. Mainstream society justifies the divided job market, arguing that getting a low-paying job is the best newcomers can achieve considering their limited language skills.
With companies going international they are now focusing more and more on the English level of their employees. Especially in South Korea since the 1990s, companies are using different English language testing to evaluate job applicants, and the criteria in those tests are constantly upgrading the level for good Englis...
Meanwhile, Japan ranks 53rd out of 100 countries in 2019 EF English Proficiency Index, amid calls for this to improve in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
Within multiracial countries such as Malaysia and Singapore, it is not unusual for one to speak two or more languages, albeit with varying degrees of fluency. Some are proficient in several Chinese dialects, given the linguistic diversity of the ethnic Chinese community in both countries.
Not only in multinational companies is English an important skill, but also in the engineering industry, in the chemical, electrical and aeronautical fields. A study directed by Hill and van Zyl (2002) shows that in South Africa young black engineers used English most often for communication and documentation. However,...
In Europe, as the domestic market is generally quite restricted, international trade is a norm. Languages, that are used in multiple countries, include:
English is a commonly taught second language at schools, so it is also the most common choice for two speakers, whose native languages are different. However, some languages are so close to each other that it is generally more common when meeting to use their mother tongue rather than English. These language groups inc...