Bien qu'elle soit omniprésente dans notre société, l'écriture au clavier reste assez mal caractérisée. L’étudier impose de s'intéresser à l'intersection de plusieurs champs de recherche tels que la psycholinguistique, le contrôle moteur et la programmation de séquence. Le but de cette thèse était d'étudier les processus linguistiques et moteurs mis en jeu lors de l'écriture au clavier. Une première étude comportementale a démontré l'importance des processus linguistiques pour expliquer les performances d'écriture (temps de réaction, intervalles inter-frappes et proportion de réponses correctes). Dans une deuxième étude, nous avons évalué la fiabilité d’une plateforme de récolte de données en ligne pour enregistrer des séquences de frappe à grande échelle. Ensuite, trois études d'EEG ont permis de caractériser les processus de préparation de réponses motrices et leur éventuelle interaction avec des processus linguistiques. Nous avons observé à plusieurs reprises un patron d'activation/inhibition des cortex moteurs, précédemment caractérisé dans le contexte de tâches de choix forcé. Nous avons pu également observer la dépendance de cet index aux effecteurs engagés dans la séquence tapée. Les résultats présentés sont discutés en termes de processus linguistiques et moteurs sous-jacents. L'écriture au clavier se présente comme une modalité appropriée pour étudier leur interaction potentielle lors de la production écrite et la question générale de la transmission d'information entre processus cognitifs. Les données présentées ici contribuent à la caractérisation de ce comportement désormais omniprésent et ouvrent ainsi de nombreuses perspectives de recherche dans ce domaine. / Typing has become a ubiquitous skill in our modern information societies. It constitutes an important language production modality and probably our preferred way to produce written language. Still its investigation is rather scarce. Understanding typing behavior pertains to several research domains such as language production, motor control and sequence programming. The aim of this thesis was to characterize linguistic and motor processing during typing. The methodology combined fine grained behavioral and electroencephalography (EEG) investigations.The first study aimed to assess the importance of linguistic processes during typing. It revealed a composite pattern of effects on response latencies, inter-keystroke intervals and accuracy rates. The second study assessed the reliability of an online platform to perform large-scale studies of typing skills. Then, three EEG studies aimed to characterize motor planning during typing and their putative interaction with linguistic processing. While linguistic processing was harder to trace with EEG, all three studies revealed a reliable pattern over motor cortices prior to the striking of the first keystroke of a word, interpreted as an index of motor preparation. The manipulation of effectors engaged in sequence production revealed versatile inhibitory processes dependent on the content of the sequence. The results are discussed in terms of linguistic and motor processes and their putative interactions during typed language production, contributing to the popular debate about information processing in cognitive science. This work provides novel data that pave the way to promising future investigations of typing.

The thesis focuses on lexical retrieval in bilinguals' first language. The aim of the work is to follow up on the research conducted abroad which has shown that lexical retrieval in the first language of bilinguals is slower than lexical retrieval in matched monolinguals. The present thesis is based on an experiment consisting of a verbal fluency task and a picture naming task; the participants were 152+120 students of the Faculty of Arts of Charles University with varying levels of their L2 (ranging from speakers with low proficiency in L2 to almost balanced bilinguals). In contrast to the previous research, this project thus views L2 proficiency as differentiated along a scale. The results of both tasks suggest that lexical retrieval in native speakers of Czech with high proficiency in L2 is not slower than in matched speakers with low proficiency in L2. Analysis of reaction times in the picture naming task also indicates the involvement of frequency and cognate effects.

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For today’s digital native students, digital translation tools appear to be the most favoured help tools in language classes. The day of the paper dictionary has gone and this is being followed closely by online dictionaries and thesauruses. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the knowledge concerning the role digital translation tools have in the teaching and learning of English at secondary school level. Specifically, it looks at the use of digital translation tools, the possibilities and challenges they present both in and outside of the classroom, and what way teachers perceive their impact to be on English language learning outcomes. Perceptions were gathered from eight English teachers during recorded, semi-structured interviews, both group and individual. These were transcribed then analysed using a thematic analysis. The analysis and results highlight a growing concern that students are using digital translation tools in the lower grades and many appear to lack confidence in their language abilities. Furthermore, it is clear that teachers see the use of digital translation tools as one means of help, not the only means, and that it is important to test students’ knowledge by regulating the use of these tools from time to time. Teachers have mixed opinions concerning the general standard of English being affected by the use of digital translation tools. This study has also raised the question of the possibility of a growing dependency on digital translation tools among students in lower grades, an area needing more research.

Psychological factors and their appearance in upper secondary English education are the focus of this study to collect knowledge regarding the effects on written and oral language production among upper secondary students. Three specific factors are mainly covered, videlicet depression, stress, and anxiety. This issue was selected because of personal interest, furthermore, to collect knowledge and didactic tools regarding the area. The psychological factors are explained in the study and thereafter explored in the context of upper secondary students, specifically in their English language production. The study targets upper secondary students and the psychological factors affecting their language production in English, therefore the survey research had this specific age group as correspondents. The survey included was constructed to collect the quantitative data necessary to answer the research questions. The study involves suggestions for didactical improvements for teachers to consider in future education to be able to support the students suffering from psychological factors. The results observed a presence of psychological factors in the majority of cases and severe effects of it during language production in English.

Language production often requires speakers to convey information to a conversational partner about objects in their environment. According to Grice’s Maxim of Quantity (1975), speakers should provide only the precise amount of information needed to identify an object. However, it is frequently observed that speakers will include redundant adjectives in their referring expressions, rendering their descriptions overspecified. The majority of the research investigating overspecification has focused on how scene characteristics influence the likelihood of this behaviour. To date, less is known about the internal characteristics of the speaker that may play a role in the production of overspecified descriptions, and in referential communication more generally. The current experiment investigates the role of working memory in the generation of referential descriptions and examines how this interacts with manipulations of scene characteristics and cognitive load. Participants were asked to provide instructions to a confederate about which object to select from an array of either three or six unrelated objects while they simultaneously remembered a series of either zero, three, or five numbers. Participants also completed an operation span task to measure their individual working memory capacity (WMC). Results showed a main effect of array size for speech onset times, confirming that speakers are faster to initiate their speech when there are fewer objects in the display. Further, there was a significant three-way interaction between array size, cognitive load, and operation span scores, indicating that speakers with lower WMC are more likely to use redundant adjectives for three object arrays under low levels of load. Finally, there was a significant, negative correlation between speech rate and adjective use, indicating that speakers adjust their rate of speech depending on their choice of referring expression. The results of this research suggest a potential role for individual WMC in the production of overspecified descriptions. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / Interactive communication often involves speakers relaying information to a conversational partner about objects in the environment, a phenomenon typically referred to as referential communication. A significant focus of previous research in this area is on how speakers chose to identify objects for a conversational partner. The focus of the current research is to examine the underlying cognitive mechanisms that support this behaviour. Participants were asked to communicate with a partner about objects on a computer screen while completing a secondary memory task. The findings of this research suggest that individual working memory capacity influences the amount of information speakers choose to include in their referential descriptions. Further, we show that including unnecessary information in object descriptions (i.e., referring to object attributes in the absence of contrastive objects) leads to a reduced speech rate, likely because of increased demands on speech planning.

The incredible productivity and creativity of language depends on two fundamental resources: a mental lexicon and a mental grammar. Rules of grammar enable us to produce and understand complex phrases we have not encountered before and at the same time constrain the computation of complex expressions. The concepts of the mental lexicon and mental grammar have been thoroughly tested by comparing the use of regular versus non-regular word forms. Regular verbs (e.g. walk-walked) are computed using a suffixation rule in a neural system for grammatical processing; non-regular verbs (run-ran) are retrieved from associative memory. The role of regularity has only been explored for the past tense, where regularity is overtly visible. To explore the representation and encoding of regularity as well as the inflectional processes involved in the production of regular and non-regular verbs, this dissertation investigated three groups of German verbs: regular, irregular and hybrid verbs. Hybrid verbs in German have completely regular conjugation in the present tense and irregular conjugation in the past tense. Articulation latencies were measured while participants named pictures of actions, producing the 3rd person singular of regular, hybrid, and irregular verbs in present and past tense. Studying the production of German verbs in past and present tense, this dissertation explored the complexity of lexical entries as a decisive factor in the production of verbs. / Regularität spielt eine entscheidende Rolle bei der Produktion von Verben. Zweiroutenmodelle nehmen an, dass regelmäßige Formen aus Stamm und Suffixen zusammengesetzt werden und unregelmäßige Verben als ganze Form im mentalen Lexikon gespeichert sind. Ziel der Dissertation war eine ausführliche Untersuchung der Repräsentation von regelmäßigen und unregelmäßigen Verben im Deutschen sowie der morphologischen Prozesse bei ihrer Produktion. Dazu wurden drei Typen von Verben im Deutschen untersucht: Regelmäßige Verben (z.B. lachen) haben nur einen Stamm, irreguläre Verben (z.B. graben) haben mehrere Stämme und ihre Formen sind daher unvorhersagbar. Hybride Verben (z.B. singen) haben regelmäßige Formen im Präsens und unregelmäßige, unvorhersagbare im Präteritum. Besondere Berücksichtigung fand daher das Tempus bei der Generierung von Verben. Artikulationszeiten in einer Serie von Bild-Wort-Interferenzexperimenten lassen vermuten, dass Regularität nicht durch abstrakte generische Knoten repräsentiert ist wie es z.B. für Genus angenommen wird. Die Artikulationszeiten von allen drei Typen von Verben in einem weiteren Bildbenennungsexperiment haben gezeigt, dass Regularität eine Eigenschaft des gesamten Lexikoneintrags eines Verbs ist und nicht von individuellen Wortformen. Die präsentierten Daten sind eine Herausforderung für das Zweiroutenmodell (Pinker, 1999), sie sind jedoch mit einem Ansatz vereinbar, der komplexe Lexikoneinträge für unregelmäßige Verben annimmt.

The main purpose of this study is to establish a Turkish slips of the tongue (SOT) corpus and make typological comparisons with English, French and German corpora. In the first part of the study, a slips of the tongue corpus has been created. 85 podcast recordings were analyzed and 53 SOT errors were found. SOT errors were extracted from the podcasts and these audio clips were combined with their spectrograms in a flash video. Classification of SOT errors were carried out with respect to linguistic units involved, type of error, and repair behavior. In this study it is hypothesized that Turkish will have more morphological errors due to agglutination, and Turkish will have less phonological errors as vowel harmony will function as an extra control mechanism. Classification of the SOT errors with respect to linguistic units that are involved shows that 54.27% of the errors are phonological, 16.98% of errors are morphological, 13.21% of errors are lexical and 7.55% errors are phrasal. The classification with respect to error type shows that 26.42% of errors are anticipations, 30,19% of errors are perseverations, 18.87% errors are substitutions and 7.56% of errors are blends. There is a difference in the percentages of errors as compared to the other corpora. Turkish has more morphological and phonological errors. Also the data shows that there are more perseverations than anticipations, similar to German. Typological comparisons with other languages suggests that the difference in the ratio might be caused by the SOV sentence structure rather than agglutination. The first hypothesis was therefore confirmed partly. However, the second hypothesis was not supported. Vowel harmony did not function as a control mechanism on the phonological well-formedness of the utterance. Rather, it seems to be located at the level of morpho-phonology in the lexicon proper. Turkish having more phonological errors might also be related with a higher demand on working memory because of the head-final SOV sentence structure. In order to be able to draw more reliable conclusions the size of the Turkish SOT database needs to be increased.

[pt] O objetivo desta tese é investigar o processo de revisão da escrita e o processo de estabelecimento da correferência quanto à forma como são monitorados por grupos com diferentes graus de experiência em escrita. A pesquisa insere-se no quadro dos estudos sobre processamento da escrita, focalizando o processo da produção, e ancora-se, teoricamente, no tocante à pesquisa em escrita, no modelo de processamento cognitivo da escrita de Flower e Hayes (1980) e no modelo de revisão de Hayes (1987). Nos estudos da correferência, consideram-se as principais teorias voltadas para a investigação da influência de fatores que favorecem a acessibilidade à memória para seu estabelecimento, a Teoria da Acessibilidade (Ariel, 1990), a Teoria da Centralização (Grosz, Joshi e Weinstein, 1995) e a Hipótese da Carga Informacional (Almor, 1999). Relacionamos as questões teóricas aos dados de natureza cognitiva obtidos por meio de metodologia experimental. O laboratório utilizado foi o LAPAL, na PUC-Rio. Os experimentos conduzidos basearam-se em tarefas de produção e revisão de textos. Foi utilizada a ferramenta de keystroke logging Inputlog (http://www.inputlog.net/) para gravação e análise dos dados. Os participantes eram alunos de graduação e de pós-graduação de uma instituição pública e de uma instituição privada no Rio de Janeiro. No primeiro experimento foram analisados dados de natureza global do processamento da escrita e do processamento da correferência a partir de imagens-estímulos de duas histórias em quadrinhos, sem material verbal. No que tange ao comportamento global do processamento de escrita, foram verificadas medidas relativas ao processo e ao produto do texto produzido (em termos de número de caracteres e de palavras) e também relativas a pausas e tipos de revisões realizadas. No âmbito das medidas voltadas especificamente para o processamento da correferência, foramanalisados dados relacionados aos tipos de expressões referenciais selecionadas para introduzir e retomar entidades discursivas, bem como quanto ao momento em que elementos de retomada foram revistos (revisão do tipo imediata ou posterior) e à natureza do tipo de alteração implementada no que tange ao grau de especificidade do termo usado na substituição (mais/menos específico). O segundo experimento objetivou investigar os fatores que influenciam a escolha de uma expressão referencial anafórica a partir da informação contida no antecedente. Foi conduzida tarefa de revisão com quatro textos de mesmo tipo narrativo. Em cada tipo de texto avaliou-se os tipos de retomadas anafóricas das expressões referenciais em função do grau de ativação de informação na memória favorecido pela acessibilidade ao antecedente. Foram tomadas como variáveis independentes a função sintática do antecedente (mais suj.; menos suj.), o papel temático (mais agente; menos agente), e a distância entre o antecedente e o elemento de retomada (igual período; diferente período). No primeiro experimento os resultados apontaram divergências entre os tipos de revisões efetuadas (imediatas/posteriores) e quanto à proporção de revisões efetuadas (apagamentos/inserções) indicando que o grupo de alunos de pós-graduação empregou mais qualitativamente estratégias e recursos de revisão no monitoramento de seus textos do que os alunos de graduação. No segundo experimento, na análise estatística conduzida para cada grupo separadamente, foi verificado efeito principal de posição sintática (nos 2 grupos), distância (nos 2 grupos), e papel temático (no grupo de pós-graduação). Além disso, verificaram-se efeitos de interação entre posição e distância, e entre posição, papel temático e distância (grupo de graduação) e de posição e distância (grupo de pós-graduação). A qualidade das revisões efetuadas foi diferente, tendo o grupo de alunos de pós-graduação efetuado mais revisões do tipo posterior e percentualmente mais revisões que implicaram modificações na qualidade textual. Em conjunt / [en] The purpose of this doctoral thesis is to investigate the writing process and the process of establishing coreference as to how they are monitored by groups of different degrees of writing experience. The research is part of the study of writing processing, focusing on the production process, and is theoretically anchored in writing research related to the Cognitive Writing Model of Hayes and Flower (1980) and in Hayes s Writing Revision Model (1987). In the studies of coreference, we consider the main theories that investigate the influence of factors that favour accessibility to memory, Accessibility Theory (Ariel, 1990), the Centering Theory (Grosz, Joshi and Weinstein, 1995) and the Information Load Hypothesis (Almor, 1999). We related the theoretical questions to the data captured by means of experimental methodology. The laboratory used was LAPAL, at PUC-Rio. The experiments conducted were based on writing production and revision tasks and we used the technological tool of keystroke logging Inputlog (http://www.inputlog.net/) to record and analyse data. Participants were graduate and post graduate students of public and private institutions in Rio de Janeiro.In the first experiment the data analysed related to production of writing and coreference processing from image-stimuli of two comic strips without verbal material. Concerning the measures related to writing production, we analysed the relation between the process and product in terms of the number of characters and words as well as pauses and the types of revisions made. Regarding the measures of coreference processing, we examined the types of of referential expressions selected to introduce and to establish coreference within discourse entities, as well as data related to the moment when correferential elements were revised (immediate or delayed revisions) and the degree of specificity implied in the alterations worked out. The second experiment aimed to investigate the factors that influence the choice of anaphoric referential expressions from the type of information contained in the antecedent. We conducted an experiment of writing revision consisting of four different texts of the same discursive genre. In each of them we took into account the degree of activation in memory provided by information that favours accessibility to memory stored items. The independent variables were the syntactic function of the antecedent(more subject/less subject), the thematic role of the antecedent (more agent/less agent) and the the distance between the antecedent and the anaphoric referential expression (equal period/different period). Results from the first experiment pointed out differences between the types of revisions (immediate/delayed) and the proportion of revisions made (deletions/insertions) indicating that post-graduate group used more revision strategy resources while monitoring their production as compared to the group of graduates. In the second experiment, statistical analysis conducted for each group separately revealed effects of the factors considered as for syntactic position (in the 2 groups), thematic role (in the post-graduates group) and distance (in both groups). In addition, interaction effects between distance and syntactic position and between position, thematic role and distance (graduates group) and position and distance (post-graduates group) were significant. The quality of the revisions was proven diverse, having post-graduates proceeded to more delayed revisions that imply alteration in overall text quality than the group of graduates. As a whole, the experiments conducted allowed us to identify differences between the experimental groups and suggest evidence that schooling level plays an important role in writing and in the choices made in for coreference processing.

La production du langage est une activité cognitive longtemps restée étudiée de manière isolée des processus cognitifs plus généraux pouvant sous-tendre sa réalisation. Notre approche a été de contribuer à la dynamique naissante d’une ouverture de la psycholinguistique aux autres domaines de la psychologie cognitive, en spécifiant les interactions qu’entretiennent les mécanismes langagiers avec les mécanismes attentionnels. Pour ce faire, nous avons notamment étudié dans quelle mesure la production d’une information linguistique isolée repose sur des mécanismes de sélection. Conjointement, nous avons tenté de mettre en évidence les mécanismes attentionnels sous-tendant ces mécanismes de sélection lexicale. Les sélections de deux types de mots grammaticaux ont été comparées : les mots de la classe ouverte et les mots de la classe fermée. Les résultats ont révélé que la sélection des deux types de mots, les mots de la classe fermée qui structurent la phrase et les mots de la classe ouverte qui lui donnent un sens, recrutent des ressources attentionnelles. Aussi, nous avons montré que l’effet d’interférence sémantique –supposé affecter un mécanisme de compétition à l’étape de sélection lexicale- peut être résolu avant l’engagement de ressources attentionnelles. Ce résultat suggère que l’effet d’interférence sémantique reflète un mécanisme situé avant la sélection lexicale. Une dernière étude s’est proposé d’explorer la dynamique temporelle de notre système de production à sélectionner plusieurs mots dans un contexte de production de séquences de mots, tel que celui de syntagmes nominaux. Les résultats chronométriques ont révélé que les mots sont sélectionnés de manière strictement séquentielle, une dynamique suggérant que le recrutement de ressources attentionnelles pour la sélection d’une information linguistique isolée peut contraindre leur agencement dans un contexte de production plus naturel. / Language production is a cognitive activity long studied in isolation from more general cognitive processes that could underlie its achievement. Our approach aimed to contribute to the emerging dynamics of the opening of psycholinguistics to other domains of cognitive psychology by specifying how linguistic mechanisms interact with attentional mechanisms. To do so, we first investigated to which extent producing a single linguistic unit relies on selection mechanisms. Also, we highlighted the attentional mechanisms underlying these lexical selection mechanisms: The selections of two types of grammatical words were compared: open- and closed- class words. Results revealed that the selections of both, closed-class words structuring the phrase, and open-class words conveying meaning, require attentional resources. In a third study, we showed that the semantic interference effect - affecting a competition mechanism supposedly taking place at the level of lexical selection- can in fact be resolved before the involvement of central attentional resources. This suggests that this semantic interference effect possibly reflects a mechanism taking place prior to lexical selection. In a last study, we explored the temporal dynamics of our production system when engaged in the selection of several words within a sequence, using noun phrases. Chronometric results revealed that words are selected strictly sequentially. This dynamics suggests that the way attentional resources are recruited for the selection of an isolated linguistic unit can constrain the way several words are produced in a more natural speaking context.