The Relationship between Linguistics and Psycholinguistics

CHAPTER II AN OVERVIEW OF SPEECH PRODUCTION AND SPEECH

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2.1 The Relationship between Linguistics and Psycholinguistics

The scientific study of language is called Linguistics, while the people who focus their research on language are called linguists. The word Linguistics derived from the Latin lingua, which means language. It is to describe and explain the structure of language used by a group of people but what we are talking here is apparently about general linguistics, which generally studies about language in detail. Linguistics itself is divided into two parts known as macro and micro linguistics. Psycholinguistics is a field that combines methods and theories from psychology and linguistics to derive a fuller understanding of human language. From psychology, it inherits experimental methodology and a body of knowledge about process in perception, memory, attention, learning, and problem solving. From linguistics, it derives detailed descriptions of specific languages, rigorous accounts of the shape of grammar, and ideas about the nature of human language. The basic issue that motivated the establishment of psycholinguistics as a separate field of the study was the problem of the ‘psychological reality’ of linguistic concepts. For example, speakers of English can form the plural of noun by adding the suffix-s. This process allows us to form the plural chandeliers from chandelier. But do we actually use a productive rule to produce this plural or do we simply retrieve the plural chandeliers from our long-term memory as a unit? Psycholinguistics research shows that, in fact, Universitas Sumatera Utara both rote and rule are operative at various times in language production Pinker: 1999. Some of linguists have made their own definitions of Psycholinguistics in different points of view: Lackanger in Umar and Napitupulu: 36 cites: “Psycholinguistics is the studyof language acquisition and lingusitc behaviour, as well as the psychological mechanism responsible for them.” The definition above emphasizes on the limitation between language acquisition and linguistic behaviour. The acquisition of language is closely concerned with the language learning, otherwise, linguistics behaviour relates to the process of competence and performance. The process of competence and performance are at all times, with other words, the mechanism of psychology has a very important role. Stern 1983: 296 cites: “Psycholinguistics deals directly with the process of encoding and decoding as they relate states of message to state communicators.” This definition stresses on the process of encoding and understanding to the codes delivered between speaker and listener. These processes, decoding and encoding take place in human mind. The speaker and listeners hold an important role in this case. The speaker delivers his or her messages in codes, later on, the listener will try to perceive the meaning codes. That is the reason why it needs mutual understanding between speaker and listener. Diebold Slama, 1973: 39 cites: “Psycholinguistics is concerned in the broadest sense with relation between messages and the characteristics of human individuals who select and interpret them.” Psycholinguistics is the broadest sense Universitas Sumatera Utara simply talks about relationship between messages delivered and human characteristics in selecting and interpreting these messages. Paul Fraisse Slama, 1973 cites: “Psycholinguistics is the study of relation between our need for expression and communication and the means offered to us by a language in one’s childhood and later. “In this way, the limitation emphasizes on the relationship between our need of expression in communication and all the things offered to us through language that we have been learning in our life. Hartlet in Umar and Napitupulu: 35 cites: “Psycholinguistics investigates the interrelation of language in mind in processing and producing utterances and language acquisition.” What we can take from this statement is how acquisition of language works. It is the process of how we can get known the process that occurs and it has meaningful unit, which furthermore can be understood by hearer. After having collected some linguists’ views on Psycholinguistics, we can further have some ideas on that. These ideas can be such important and even crucial in discussing about psycholinguistics. It can be summarized as follows: 1. Psycholinguistics is actually a study that talks about the relationship between language and human mind. 2. Psycholinguistics emphasizes on the language acquisition and linguistic behaviour. 3. Psycholinguistics is closely concerned with decoding and encoding process, in other words, it relates to the process of selecting and interpreting the codes. 4. Psycholinguistics examines language change, language knowledge, and language use. Universitas Sumatera Utara 5. Psycholinguistics talks about the process which occurs between the hearer and the speaker concerning with language. As mentioned earlier psycholinguistics discusses the process of how people produce language. In interpreting a language, people generally have and follow a set of accepted rules that is concerned with sounds and meanings. If we want to perceive the meanings of listening and speaking, we get perceive also the meaning of relation between language structure and the process of listening and speaking. The accepted rules of language structure are usually called Grammar. Grammar helps the study of listening and speaking: therefore, it has been so important for the psychology of language. These rules summarize regularities in the behaviour of people speaking language. Grammatical rules will then lead us toward the understanding of basic law of thought and the nature of human intelligence. Noam Chomsky got to divide this into two. They are competence and performance.

2.2 Competence and Performance