Psycholinguistics Theoretical Background .1 Language and Brain

11 neurology, etc. From this combination of studies some new inter-discipliners are appeared, such as sociolinguistics; studies the relation between language and society i.e. how social factors influence the structure and use of language, Neuroliguistics is the study of language processing and language representation in the brain, and psycholinguistics, or the psychology of language. It is a branch of linguistics which concerns with discovering the psychology process by which human acquire and use language. Psycholinguists focus on three aspects of language competence; acquisition, comprehension, and production. Language acquisition is the process by which human acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use words and sentences to communicate. The term language acquisition also refers to language learning, in the babyhood or later. Language comprehension is the ability to extract intended meanings from language. Language production is the ability to speak or write fluently. Scovel 1998: 4 defined psycholinguistics as the study of the normal and abnormal use of language and speech to gain a better understanding of how human mind functions. In his book psycholinguistics 1998 he examined research questions on psycholinguistics in four sub-fields: 1 how are language and speech acquired? 2 How are language and speech produced? 3 How are language and speech comprehended? And finally, 4 how are language and speech lost? Chaer 2009: 6 said that practically psycholinguistics tries to applied linguistics and psychology science into the problems such as language acquisition 12 and language learning, early reading and advance reading learning, bilingual and multilingual, language and speech disorder such as aphasia, stuttering, etc; as well as other social problems which related to language, such as language and education and developing nations. From some definitions above, it can be concluded that psycholinguistics is a relatively new subject of linguistics due to the fact that it involves not only language study but pscychological aspects as well. Study of the mental processes involved in the comprehension, production, and acquisition of language. Traditional areas of research include language production, language comprehension, language acquisition, and language disorders.

2.2 Description and Classification of Language Disorders

Simanjuntak 2009: 248 stated that the term language disorder used as a large and common term to name certain abnormal verbal behavior, and other behavior deficits acquired by a child which is abnormal or different from another child in the same age with himher. He then said that observed behaviors which is considered as abnormal behavior are various, including less speak or cannot speak at all, cannot understand the topic or given instruction, the use of vague words and phrases, grammatical errors which may interrupt the communication processes, queer pronunciation or voice, and etc. And at the end he also added that the term language disorder can be used to refer disruption in language acquisition and language use in mother tongue. 13 Paul, 2007: 8 said that a variety of names have been given to the problem relates to language abnormalities, including language impairment, language disability, language disorder, language delay, language deviance, and childhood or congenital aphasia or dysphasia. At certain points in the history of language pathology, some terms have predominated, whereas others were used less commonly. From this statement, it can be concluded that the term language disorder may refers to any language impairment in mother tongue.

2.2.1 Developmental and Acquired Language Disorder

Based on its origin, the language disorder can be classified into two groups; developmental and acquired language disorder. The former, Developmental language disorder is a disordered of language due to abnormalities acquired from the time of birth. Developmental language disorder currently has no known cause. It is first observed when a child is learning to talk and is much more common than the acquired form of the disorder. Children with this type of language disorder begin speaking late and progress more slowly than others normal children. Second, acquired language disorder is a language disorder which occurs after a period of normal development as a result of a neurological or other general medical condition such as brain damage due to stroke, traumatic brain injury, and disease such as schizophrenia and dementia. Peach Saphiro 2012: 203 said that acquired language disorder including; aphasia, dementia, and schizophrenic – a language disorder due to disorder of thought. Acquired language disorders refers