Transcript Slides A Ch 1-2

Jean Aitchison
Oxford University
How many words do
people know?
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How do you define “word”?
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Should we count proper names?
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Are walk, walks, walking, walked different
words?
Can you define seeder even though you've
never seen it before?
Could you recognize the meaning of a word
that you couldn't use yourself?
Is “knowing” production or comprehension?
How many words do
people know?
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40,000 to 80,000
How many words do
trained apes know?
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200-400
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Kanzi
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More Kanzi
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Washoe
How many words do
dogs know?
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200
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Rico
Word recognition is
fast
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Average word is 375ms long
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Average time to recognize word is 200ms
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WTH?
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What is going on?
Name a state that
begins with the letter
How can you do that?
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Did you go through each state to find one?
Why would some people say Michigan and
others Mississippi?
Name a state that
begins with
Name a state that
begins with
B
What is the mental
lexicon?
How is the mental
lexicon organized?
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Words with a similar sound are connected
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Words with similar meanings are connected
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Similarly spelled words connected
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Words for associated things are connected
Lots of info stored with
words
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What is the difference between crook and
thief?
Lots of info stored with
words
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What is the difference between crook and
thief?
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Which one is low class?
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Which one can politicians be?
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Which one steals purses?
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Which one embezzles from a company?
Lots of info stored with
words
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If spry means agile, energetic
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Who is more likely to be spry?
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an active young child
an active old woman
Speech errors
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Errors are clues to mental processing
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Why does your mom confuse your siblings names,
but never calls them Sylvester or Harvey?
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Why would you ask for a fork when you mean a
knife?
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Why would you say spittoon when you meant
platoon?
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Why would you say condone when you mean
condemn?
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Why do people talk about old timer's disease?
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Why do people say for all intensive purposes?
Aphasia
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Damaged brains may give insight into
processing
Experiments
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Word association
Say the first thing that
comes to your head
Say the first thing that
comes to your head
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forest
Say the first thing that
comes to your head
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ice
Say the first thing that
comes to your head
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torment
Say the first thing that
comes to your head
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leprechaun
Tip of the tongue
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You can't remember words but you can say
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how many syllables
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what it starts with
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what words have similar meaning
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what words sound similar
What does this say about the mental lexicon?