Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior

1st Edition - January 1, 1979
Editors: Charles J Fillmore, Daniel Kempler, William S-Y. Wang
Language: English
eBook ISBN:
9 7 8 - 1 - 4 8 3 2 - 6 3 2 0 - 5

Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior is a collection of papers that discusses differences at the center of the study of language, specifically, on the… Read more

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Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior is a collection of papers that discusses differences at the center of the study of language, specifically, on the various dimensions of linguistic ability and behavior along which individuals can differ from each other. Papers also review the development of techniques that measure these dimensions in relation to biological, psychological, and cultural parameters. Some papers review individual differences in language study in terms of different perspectives: that of a psychometrician's, of an individualistic's vantage point, and of a psycholinguistic's. Other papers discuss how each individual accesses, uses, and judges his language through fluency, biases, spatial principles, or a linguistic-phonetic mode. Several papers examine individual differences in language acquisition, such as "profile analysis," strategies in acquisition of sounds, second language learning, and duplication of adult language system. A group of papers addresses the biological aspects of language variation. These biological aspects include selective disorders of syntax (agrammatism), selective disorders of lexical retrieval (anomia), and cerebral lateralization effects in language processing. Certain papers explain individual differences in languages using sociolinguistic analysis. The collection is well suited for linguists, ethnologists, psychologists, and researchers whose works involve linguistics, learning, communications, and syntax.

List of Contributors

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter Summaries

References

I The Treatment of Individual Differences

1 Psychometric Approaches to the Study of Language Abilities

The Place of Psychometrics in Psychology

Factor-Analytic Studies of Language Abilities

The Possible Relevance of Language Ability Studies for Linguistic, Psycholinguistic, and Sociolinguistic Research

Studies of Specific Language Abilities Involved in Foreign Language

Aptitude Tests

References

2 Sapir, Competence, Voices

3 The Treatment of Individual Differences in Psycholinguistic Research

II Language Use and Language Judgments

4 Verbal Fluency and the Language-Bound Effect

General Method

Results and Discussion

General Discussion

References

5 On Fluency

1. The Generativist Position

2. Language Variability

3. Two Senses of "Competence"

4. The Competence-Performance Distinction

5. Dimensions of Fluency

6. Sources of Fluency Differences

7. Research Possibilities

8. Summary

References

6 Language Use and Language Judgment

1. Population Differences in Metalinguistic Performance, in the Presence of Relatively Invariant Linguistic Performance

2. Are the Metalinguistic Functions Related to Language Use and Learning?

3. Summary and Conclusions

References

7 Where's English?

1. Background

2. The Experiment

3. The Results

4. Downshot and Upshot

Appendix

References

III Acquisition

8 Profile Analysis of Language Disability

Descriptive

Developmental

Interactional

Profiles and Language Disability

Profile 1: Hugh

Profile 2: Peter

Profile 3, 4, and 5: Difficulties with Complex Sentences

Profiles Extended

Appendix

References

9 Phonology as an Individual Access System: Some Data from Language Acquisition

1. Individual Differences in Phonology

2. Individual Differences in Child Phonologies

3. Toward a Model of Phonology

References

10 Individual Differences in Second Language Acquisition

Cognitive and Social Strategies in Second Language Learning

Sources of Individual Differences in Second Language Learning

Summary

References

11 Individual Variation in Some Phonetic Aspects of Language Acquisition

Introduction

Apologia

Aspects of Perception

Conclusion

References

IV Neurolinguistics

12 Individual Variations in the Perception of Dichotic Chords

13 Effect of Aphasia on the Retrieval of Lexicon and Syntax

Agrammatism

References

14 How Shall a Thingummy Be Called?

Method

Results

References

15 On the Evolution of Neurolinguistic Variability: Fossil Brains Speak

Materials and Methods

Results

Discussion

Summary and Conclusions

References

16 Strategies of Linguistic Processing in Human Split-Brain Patients

Lateralization and Language

Language Limitations of the Right Hemisphere

What Is Meant by Language?

The Cognitive Dispositions of the Right Hemisphere

A Missing Process in the Right Hemisphere

Summary

References

V Sociocultural Aspects

17 Individual and Social Differences in Language Use

Example 1: Regent St.

Example 2: Yogurt Dressing

Example 3: Party

Example 4: Who's the Artist?

Example 5: How's the Family?

Example 6: The Fingers of the Hand

Example 7: A Gig

Example 8: I Don't Wanna Read

Example 9: I Don't Know

Example 10: A Bridge

Conclusion

References

18 Locating the Frontier between Social and Psychological Factors in Linguistic Variation

A Deviant Individual: Nathan B.

Individual Variation in Repetition Tests

Individual Variation in the Acquisition of the Philadelphia Dialect

Categorical Discrimination

References

Subject Index