Nyelvtudományi Közlemények 85. kötet (1983)

Tanulmányok - Gleason, Jean Berko: Insights from the Extraordinary: Some New Trends in American Psycholinguistics 140

Insights from the Extraordinary: Some New Trends in American Psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics is a relatively young discipline, having received its impetus from linguistic models that began to receive prominent attention in the mid 1950's. Developmental studies in particular were heavily influenced by the work of Chomsky (1957, 1965) ; and for more than a décade the main focus in language acquisition studies was on the child's élaboration of syntactic structures. This paralleled the work of researchers on adult language, who were also concerned with syntax and with the description of linguistic uni versais. The ideal speaker-hearers of early psycholinguistics were of interest because of the similarities they shared, similarities that could illuminate those characteristics of the human mind that make language possible anywhere the species exists. Syntax has been an enduring and important concern of psycholinguistics, but the discipline is not the monolithic structure it was during its first décade or so. In the past few years, the ways in which individuals differ in their acquisition and use of language has once again become an important linguistic concern, as has the language of speakers and hearers who are far from ideal—deaf people, for instance, and aphasie patients, as well as chimpanzees and other primates. American psycholinguistics in the 1980's has become a much more diverse field that it has been heretofore. This can be illustrated by citing a few examples of récent research in the United States. As a visitor to Hungary, the author has been Struck by the usefulness of some of thèse paradigms for linguistics here, and by the fact that some types of studies hâve been done in a sufficiently definitive way that our Hungárián colleagues may hâve been spared great useless effort and expense. Let me begin with the latter case and proceed to the former. Primate language Americans hâve long been fascinated by our near primate relatives. As early as 1931, an American family named Kellogg (1933) attempted to raise a young chimpanzee along with their own son, hoping to teach the chimp the ways of humans, including human language. The Kellogg's chimpanzee, who was named Gua, did not learn to speak, although she did produce some characteristic noises in association with certain events—a typical bark or cry for food, for instance. Some years later, another family (Hayes 1951) succeeded in training Vicki, their home-raised chimpanzee, to produce three words : papa, marna, and cup. Vicki was unable to produce thèse words without actually holding her lips in place with her fingers, however, and it soon became evident