Utterance Production
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Utterance Production LCSD56 Psycholinguistics Production It's rather nice in the sense that where the mews is on the way up to Kilburn it's a cheaper area it's not a select shopping centre by any means and there are lots of council houses and flats and I think it's fantastic because they're very nice looking flats and everything has been fairly well designed and you can go up there and shop reasonably 2 Production – actual delivery Its just + rather nice in the sense that where ++ the mews is erm ++ on ++ on the way up to Kilburn + you've got th- ++ well its its more of a er a cheaper + its not a select shopping centre by any means and there're lots of + council houses and flats and ++ erm + I mean I + think its del- its fantastic because you can go up there and they're very + nice looking flats and everything its its been fairly well designed + 'nd you can go up there and + and shop reasonably. What are the main differences in pausing between actual and ideal delivery? Is there any pattern to the repetitions? 3 Production – actual delivery Its just + rather nice in the sense that where ++ the mews is erm ++ on ++ on the way up to Kilburn + you've got th- ++ well its its more of a er a cheaper + its not a select shopping centre by any means and there're lots of + council houses and flats and ++ erm + I mean I + think its del- its fantastic because you can go up there and they're very + nice looking flats and everything its its been fairly well designed + 'nd you can go up there and + and shop reasonably. Is there a pattern to the reformulations? 4 Production Its just + rather nice in the sense that where ++ the mews is erm ++ on ++ on the way up to Kilburn + you've got th- ++ well its its more of a er a cheaper + its not a select shopping centre by any means and there're lots of + council houses and flats and ++ erm + I mean I + think its del- its fantastic because you can go up there and they're very + nice looking flats and everything its its been fairly well designed + 'nd you can go up there and + and shop reasonably. 5 Production Reading aloud from a script could be said to represent ‘ideal’ delivery, where there is time for preparation and planning. The results of the experiment represent what the ideal might be: ‘breaks’ or pauses at major grammatical boundaries – between sentences or clauses. What does this suggest about the planning of utterances? Natural speech is rather different from ‘ideal delivery’. Why? 6 Production Research suggests that: About 90% of repetitions are function words Most reformulations/corrections are content words Thus, observable ‘dysfluencies’ are not random but systematic Also, they are not ‘faulty’, but part of normal processing. 7 Production Compare the utterances below. Which do you think could occur in natural speech, and which would be unlikely to occur? Why? a) He said he was climbing up - up the mountain b) He said he was climbing up the hill - up the mountain c) I asked him to look up her address - up her number d) I asked him to look up her address - her number 8 Production Compare the utterances below. Which do you think could occur in natural speech, and which would be unlikely to occur? Why? a) He said he was climbing up - up the mountain b) He said he was climbing up the hill - up the mountain c) I asked him to look up her address - up her number d) I asked him to look up her address - her number Sentence c) is least likely; corrected words tend to begin at a constituent boundary. 9 Production Experiment: subjects are recorded telling stories. At any pause of >600 milliseconds a light comes on. Subjects are told that light indicates ‘poor story-telling technique’ This is a conditioning process to modify subject’s usual pausing. Gradually, subjects are conditioned to pause less often. Standard result: number of pauses reduces by about 35% However, repetition increases by >100% Implication? 10 Production Pausing is not only an integral part of natural speech; it is also a necessary part of utterance production. Why is pausing necessary? When the amount of pausing drops below a certain level the number of ‘errors’ goes up. What is happening during those silences? One plausible explanation is that they are used for planning (both what to say and how to say it). 11 Production Aitchison (92) suggests that planning takes place both before and during the execution of a constituent. Before, pausing allows time for outline planning. Once execution begins, speakers often pause after the first function word (or before the first content word), allowing time for more detailed planning. 12 Production Not: Plan Utter Plan Utter Clause A Clause A Clause B Clause B But: outline detailed outline detailed Plan A Plan A Plan B Plan B Utter A Utter B 13 Production Outline planning must involve syntax, because speakers can produce strings of words such as the following: She wouldn't have known if you hadn't told her He not only got fined but lost his job as well 14 Production To find out more about outline and detailed planning, we could consider the types of error that occur in natural speech. In the example below (spoken by an air hostess) can you explain what has gone wrong? “Please extinguish your seatbelts” 15 Production “Please extinguish your seatbelts” The air hostess could only anticipate the word ‘seatbelts’ if she was thinking about it. The outline planning of the second constituent (‘fasten your seatbelts’) has affected the first constituent. Outline planning must therefore include some aspect of content words. Why is the above not a good example? 16 Production Now look at the speech errors below. Can you tell which one really occurred in a radio advert? (The others have been made up.) • Shop at Robert Hall, where prices is low and quality are high. • Shop at Robert Hall, where prices are high and quality is low. • Shop at Robert Hall, where prices are ho and quality is lie. • Shop at Robert Hall, where prices high low and quality is are. This utterance consists of three constituents, and the errors involve anticipation during constituent 2 of something in constituent 3. 17 Production ‘Clues’ from speech errors Blends … where two words are ‘fused’ together, possibly two retrieved lemmas competing for same syntactic slot. “The competition is a little stougher” *stiffer/tougher+ (Fromkin 1973) “I don’t expose anyone will eat that” *expect/suppose+ 18 Production Substitution … where the wrong word is selected from the lexicon. “Don’t burn your fingers” *toes+ (Fromkin 1973) “I just put it in the oven at a very low speed” *temperature+ (Garrett 1982) “The infant son weighs seven pounds fifteen inches” *ounces+ “You and David are automatic suffixes” *suspects+ – spoken by linguist 19 Production Word exchanges … where two words switch position. “Well you can cut rain in the trees” *trees ↔ rain+ (Garrett 1982) “This spring has a seat in it” *seat ↔ spring+ (Garrett 1980) Note: it is claimed that a very small percentage of these word exchange errors cross clause boundaries. 20 Production Sound Exchanges … where two linguistic units switch position. “you ordered up ending some fish dish” *ended up ordering+ morpheme stranding “Most cities are true of that” *That is true of most cities+ 21 Production Sound Exchanges … where two linguistic units switch position. “you ordered up ending some fish dish” *ended up ordering+ morpheme stranding “Most cities are true of that” *That is true of most cities+ In the first example, the inflectional morphemes stay in place and the stems move . So the error is made after assigning grammatical function (thus late stage error). Note affixes switch with affixes, stems with stems. In the second example, two NPs exchange, but the inflection, marking number here, adjusts to the error. This suggests that the exchange happened before the syntactic forms were specified for number. 22 Production Phoneme processing errors e.g. perseveration: “… rain and possibly peet …” (sleet) anticipation: “… a leading list …” (reading list) Note: these kinds of error tend not to affect stress and intonation patterns, suggesting that stress is processed before sound. Can the systematic behaviour of ‘slips of the tongue’ be accounted for in models of utterance production? 23 Production 1. “… a singing sewer machine …” (Singer sewing machine) 2. “…the Growl Shift …” (Great Vowel Shift) 3. “Have you wash upped yet?” 4. “I disregard this as precise.” (l regard this as imprecise) 5. “Two jet fighters crashed on the outskirts of a French village today. Both pilots ejaculated safely” (… ejected …) 6. “Does it hear different?” ( . sound different) 7. “… fart very hide” (… fight very hard) 8. “… glear plue sky” (… clear blue sky) 24 Production 9. it’s duck of the law (it’s luck of the draw) 10. smoothing flowly (flowing smoothly / smoothly flowing) 11. speech and complication problem (speech and communication problem) 12. the milken down broke tanker in Barnstaple is clear now (the broken down milk tanker …) 13. A potted watch never boils (a watched pot ...) 14. An island on the small restaurant (a small restaurant on ...) 25 Production Notes: Speech errors as evidence for planning processes:- Errors are systematic, not random, and relate to linguistic units (word, affix, phrase, etc.) Many errors show that the planning system is looking ahead. Outline planning does not seem to specify exactly what the word is, although quite a lot of information is in place at this stage (aspects of both meaning and grammar?) Outline planning creates a ‘rough idea’ of the intended utterance, but things can still go wrong.