Levelt's Model

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I. Introduction Language is a phenomenon unique to the human species, which, due to its overt complexity, has caught the interest of diverse disciplines ranging from the arts to medicine and the sciences. As cognitive processing of human language is indeed very complex, the subject has become a key focus of psycholinguists and neurologists in recent decades. Extensive research has gone in to the motor processes involved in language production, however the cognitive processes still lack concrete elucidation. Until recently, very little at all has been known about the cognitive processes of language production (Gleason, Ratner, 1998). Clearer comprehension of human language processing will allow researchers facility to further understand the nature of various language disabilities, such as aphasia, and other maladies that disrupt the linguistic process. Conjointly, the study of cognitive language processing serves to illustrate the concepts and methods that define the way in which humans specifically process language on sensory, cognitive, and motor levels. W.J.M. Levelt (1989) postulates that the human language process is a 6-stage top-down cycle originating and resulting in concept perception based on contextual knowledge within a given discourse setting. Levelt’s comprehensive model has become one of the most regarded theories behind human language production amongst scientific and linguistic communities, and serves as a core element to many subsequent models. This paper will serve as a survey focused on Levelt’s (1989) model of language processing from pre-verbal intention to verbal output, examining the core concepts behind this theory. VI. Conclusion Linguists before Levelt have attempted at developing conceptual models of the cognitive language process, but few have found quite the level of recognition for their efforts as he—this comes with
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