ACTIVATION IN

LANGUAGE
PROCESSING
FATIN FARHANA BINTI HAMAM
TGB 140028
LANGUAGE PROCESSING

Refers to the way human being communicate ideas and
feelings, and how such communications are processed and
understood.

QUESTIONS
Do people who grow up speaking more than one language use
more brain area for language processing?
Does the brain use more resources especially for languages of
different structures?
What are the properties of language in use, which will tell us
something about language as it is processed?
How does the brain process language?

How does the brain manipulate
and process language?
Language is a system of pairing of forms (often sounds) and
meanings which is used to (formulate) and transfer
information.

Language manipulation appears to be
a rule-governed activity
involving symbol manipulation
involving the pairing of symbols and 'meaning

How the brain manipulates language involves answering how
the brain performs these three functions.

If we can understand how the brain manipulates language, we
have a window on to how the hardware is connected to the
higher cognitive functions = mind.
According to the spreading activation framework, memory is
represented as a set of concept (nodes) that are interconnected
by associative pathways.
When part of the memory network is activated, activation spread
along the pathways.

Activation & control (Green, 1986, 1993, 1998)
- a bilinguals language systems may take on different levels of
activation (selected/active/dormant)
- a bilingual can suppress activation & output from
one of the languages (i.e., items with particular
language tags)

ACTIVATION
3 levels of language activation:
1) Selected: currently being spoken
2) Active: plays a role in ongoing processing
(works parallel to selected)
3) Dormant: stored in long-term memory, no role in
ongoing processing
.
PHONOTACTIC PROBABILITY
How common the sounds and the sound sequences of the
stimulus.
Words and nonwords with a high phonotactic probability. For
examples: mile, pick, fan, line
Words and nonwords with a low phonotactic probability. For
examples: house, town, lock
High phonotactic probability correlates tightly with the density
of the words similarity neighborhood.
Stimuli that have a high phonotactic probability activate the
lexicon faster. Just like frequent words are faster to process,
frequent sounds are also faster to process.
Also, phonotactic probability activate lots of lexical entries.
.
BILINGUALISM

A variety of definitions:
- a person who is equally proficient in 2 languages
- a person with minimal competence in L2
- a person with a functional command of 2 languages (and
whose linguistic competence is in a stable state)

Current brain research studies suggest that when a person is
equally good in both languages the brain uses the same areas,
with the same level of activation and for the same reasons in both
languages.




Some things bilinguals commonly do:
- mix L1 & L2
- keep L1 & L2 separate
- translate
- in many cases, experience interference

A language switch (on/off): accounts for the bilinguals ability
to switch between L1 & L2 based on the situation.
Substantial evidence against such a switch: both languages
can be activated at the same time
e.g. chat pain coin (both meanings are activated)
Also, orthographic neighbours in both languages of a bilingual
are activated during word recognition (Van Heuven et al.,
1998)
e.g. English target doom
English neighbours: room, dorm, door
Dutch neighbours: boom, drom, doos

BILINGUAL PROCESSING :
THE SWITCH HYPOTHESIS
1) Two separate stores
L1 & L2 words stored separately (in language-specific
lexicons)


2) One common store
L1 & L2 words stored together (in a language-independent
lexicon)


L1 L2
L1 + L2
THE BILINGUAL LEXICON
Conceptual Store
L1
Words
L2
Words
Concept Mediation
Conceptual Store
Word Association
L1
Words
L2
Words

THE BILINGUAL LEXICON
Concept-mediation:
- no direct links between L1 & L2 items
- L1 & L2 words are connected via a language-independent
conceptual store
Word-association:
- there are direct links between equivalent L1 & L2 words
- L2 word meaning is always retrieved via L1





bike fiets
Dutch-English speaker
How do the mind and brain accommodate the presence of two
languages? What does that tell us that we would not know if we
studied only monolingual speakers?

The bilingual is a mental juggler: Both languages are active regardless
of the requirement to use one language alone:
What is the consequence of parallel activity and competition
across the bilinguals two languages?

The hypothesis is that juggling creates a need to negotiate
competition across the two languages so that the use of
each language is controlled to enable fluent performance.

These control processes may include inhibition of the L1
or more dominant language with enduring consequences
for native language use.

Skill in resolving cross-language competition is
hypothesized to create expertise that affects cognition
and the brain.


Bilingualism may offer protection against the normal declines in
attentional control associated with aging.

Bialystok et al. (2005): Older bilinguals outperform age-matched
monolingual counterparts on the Simon Task and on other non-
linguistic measures of inhibitory control.

Bialystok et al. (2007): Bilingualism delays the onset of
Alzheimers-type dementia by four years. Language experience
may provide protection to the brain.