Table Of ContentPERSPECTIVES IN
NEUROLINGUISTICS AND PSYCHOLINGUISTICS
Harry A. Whitaker, Series Editor
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
THE UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
HAIGANOOSH WHITAKER and HARRY A. WHITAKER (Eds.).
Studies in Neurolinguistics, Volumes 1,2, and 3
NORMAN J. LASS (Ed.). Contemporary Issues in Experimental Phonetics
JASON W. BROWN. Mind, Brain, and Consciousness: The Neuropsychology
of Cognition
SIDNEY J. SEGALOWITZ and FREDERIC A. GRUBER (Eds.). Language Devel
opment and Neurological Theory
SUSAN CURTISS. Genie: A Psycholinguistic Study of a Modern-Day "Wild
Child"
JOHN MACNAMARA (Ed.). Language Learning and Thought
I. M. SCHLESINGER and LILA NAMIR (Eds.). Sign Language of the Deaf:
Psychological, Linguistic, and Sociological Perspectives
WILLIAM C. RITCHIE (Ed.). Second Language Acquisition Research: Issues
and Implications
PATRICIA SIPLE (Ed.). Understanding Language through Sign Language
Research
MARTIN L. ALBERT and LORAINE K. OBLER. The Bilingual Brain: Neuro-
physiological and Neurolinguistic Aspects of Bilingualism
HAIGANOOSH WHITAKER and HARRY A. WHITAKER (Eds.). Studies in Neuro
linguistics, Volume 4
TALMY GIVON. On Understanding Grammar
CHARLES J. FILLMORE, DANIEL KEMPLER and WILLIAM S-Y. WANG (Eds.).
Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior
In preparation
JEANNINE HERRON (Ed.). Left-Handedness, Brain Organization, and
Learning
FRANCOIS BÖLLER and MAUREEN DENNIS (Eds.)· Auditory Comprehen
sion: Clinical and Experimental Studies with the Token Test
Individual Differences in
Language Ability and
Language Behavior
Edited by
CHARLES J. FILLMORE
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
DANIEL KEMPLER
Department of Linguistics
University of California, Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
WILLIAM S-Y. WANG
Project on Linguistic Analysis
University of California, Berkeley
Berkeley, California
ACADEMIC PRESS NEW YORK SAN FRANCISCO LONDON 1979
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
Social Science Research Council
Committee on Sociolinguistics
Members, 1978-1979
Allen D. Grimshaw, co-chairman
Dell Hymes, co-chairman
Charles A. Ferguson
Charles J. Fillmore
Shirley Brice Heath
Hugh Mehan
Joel Sherzer
David L. Szanton, staff
COPYRIGHT © 1979, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
TRANSMITTED IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS, ELECTRONIC
OR MECHANICAL, INCLUDING PHOTOCOPY, RECORDING, OR ANY
INFORMATION STORAGE AND RETRIEVAL SYSTEM, WITHOUT
PERMISSION IN WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER.
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road, London NW1 7DX
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Main entry under title:
Individual differences in language ability and language
behavior.
Includes bibliographies.
1. Psycholinguistics. 2. Language and languages—
Variation. 3. Language acquisition. I. Fillmore,
Charles F. II. Kempler, Daniel. III. Wang,
William S -Y., 1933-
BF455.I46 155.2*2 78-20044
ISBN 0-12-255950-9
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
79 80 81 82 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
List of Contributors
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on which the authors' contributions begin.
JOHN B. CARROLL (13), The L.L. Thurstone Psychometric Laboratory, The Uni
versity of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina 27514
DAVID CRYSTAL (167), Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading,
Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AA, England
RUTH S. DAY (57), Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, North
Carolina 27706
ROBERT EFRON (245), Neurophysiology-Biophysics Research Laboratories, Vet
erans Administration Medical Center, Martinez, California 94553, and Depart
ment of Neurology, University of California Medical Center, Davis, California
95616
CHARLES A. FERGUSON (189), Department of Linguistics, Stanford University,
Stanford, California 94305
CHARLES J. FILLMORE (85), Department of Linguistics, University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
LILY WONG FILLMORE (203), Department of Education, University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
XI
xii List of Contributors
PAUL FLETCHER (167), Department of Linguistic Science, University of Reading,
Whiteknights, Reading RG6 2AA England
JOHN H.V. GILBERT (229), The Phonetics Laboratory, Division of Audiology and
Speech Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia,
Canada
HENRY GLEITMAN (103), Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174
LILA GLEITMAN (103), Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsyl
vania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174
HAROLD GOODGLASS (253), Psychology Research, Veterans Administration
Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02130
JOHN J. GUMPERZ (305), Department of Anthropology, University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
CURTIS HARDYCK (261), Institute of Human Learning, University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
DELL HYMES (33), Graduate School of Education, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174
HARRY J. JERISON (277), Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Los
Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024
W. LABOV (327), Department of Linguistics, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174
WALLACE E. LAMBERT (47), Department of Psychology, McGill University,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
JERRE LEVY* (289), Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19174
HILARY NAYLOR (261), Institute of Human Learning, University of California,
Berkeley, Berkeley, California 94720
JOHN ROBERT ROSS (127), Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, Massa
chusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
REBECCA M. SMITH (261), Department of Social Welfare, University of Califor
nia, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90024
DEBORAH TANNEN (305), Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University,
Washington, DC 20007
* PRESENT ADDRESS: Department of Behavioral Sciences, University of Chicago,
Chicago, Illinois 60637.
Preface
The typical descriptive paradigm for mainstream linguistics has been
built on the fiction of the homogeneous speech community; except for
obvious questions of dialect, individual variation in language has been
peripheral to the interests of scholars working within this paradigm. Now,
however, enough has been discovered about the nature and extent of
individual variation in linguistic abilities and behavior to make it clear
that linguistics needs methods and theories which take heterogeneity in
language as a starting assumption. The collection of articles found in this
book is an argument for locating concern with individual differences at the
center of the study of language.
The chapters in this volume were selected to elucidate the various
dimensions of linguistic ability and behavior along which individuals can
differ from each other, the development of techniques by which individu
als can be measured along such dimensions, and inquiry into the correla
tion of such measures with biological, psychological, and cultural parame
ters. The fields represented in these chapters seemed to us to be just those
needed for laying the groundwork for a major effort in this area.
xiii
xiv Preface
The book is divided into five sections. The first section contains three
chapters which describe previous treatments of linguistic variation in
psychology and anthropology. The authors stress continuity between past
and present investigations, and place recent work in a historical perspec
tive. The second section consists of four chapters which discuss variation
in verbal fluency and in speakers' judgments. Both experimental and
theoretical viewpoints are taken. The chapters in the third section focus on
the origins, patterns, and functions of differences in language acquisition.
The chapters cover abnormal development, phonetic and phonological
development, and second language learning. Section four is made up of
five investigations of the neurophysiological substrates of linguistic varia
tion. These authors correlate linguistic variability with differences in the
biology of perception and cerebral organization. A comparative examina
tion of brain size variability places the topic of neurolinguistic variation in
an evolutionary light. The final section contains two chapters which look
at language in its social setting. The linguistic correlates of social differ
ences, in both individuals and groups, are analyzed.
Such diverse perspectives endow this volume with a rather explicit
interdisciplinary approach to the study of language variation. The neces
sarily wide range of interests touched upon, we feel, is essential for a
preliminary understanding of the factors that can account for the diversity
of observable language behavior. As a volume presenting pioneering
research in a newly emerging area of language study, the work contained
in this compendium should be of interest to linguists, psychologists, and
ethnographers, as well as educators and clinicians. The level of sophistica
tion of each chapter is geared for an audience with some familiarity of
linguistics and psychology, but is not forbidding to a reader with a
familiarity with any one of the fields touched upon. The volume integrates
a broad variety of interests at a level which people from all relevant fields
can appreciate, rather than presenting an in-depth view from a single
perspective.
It is our hope that this broadly based survey into the questions of
language variation will stimulate new research which will lead us closer to
a coherent and integrated view of language ability and language behavior.
Acknowledgments
For the funding of this project we are indebted to the efforts of Dr.
David Jenness and the Sociolinguistics Committee of the Social Science
Research Council (SSRC) and to Dr. James Kavanagh of the National
Institute for Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) through
whose offices the needed money was granted by NICHD to SSRC for
sponsorship. We would also like to thank Marcy Darnovsky for her
time and ingenuity devoted to organizing this project.
xiv
Introduction
CHARLES J. FILLMORE
DANIEL KEMPLER
WILLIAM S -Y. WANG
People can differ greatly, and sometimes obviously, in the ways they
use and control their language. Even with the same communicative goals,
speakers will vary in many ways in their language performance, whether
it is in the choice of words or intonation patterns, in the pacing of their
utterances or in turn-taking strategies, or in the coherence or effectiveness
of the total performance. We have wondered how such individual differ
ences should be understood; in particular, we have wanted to learn how
such differences could be seen as relating to social, psychological, or
biological parameters. In what ways does personality determine, and in
what ways is personality determined by, an individual's language re
sources? How and why do cultures value language fluency differently?
How does our own culture identify, assess, and cultivate language ability?
Does the observed variation in language ability have any basis in biologi
cal equipment? There is a sizeable literature documenting significant
differences across individuals, from the whorls and ridges on the skin of
1
Individual Differences in Language Ability and Copyright © 1979 by Academic Press, Inc.
Language Behavior All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
ISBN 0-12-255950-9
2 Charles J. Fillmore, Daniel Kempler, William S -Y. Wang
the fingers, to the mechanics of the heart, to the chemistry of the glands, to
the structure of the cerebral cortex (e.g., Williams, 1967). It seems reason
able to raise the question of how much of what we see as language
differences can be traced to observable variation in personal hardware. If
such biological differences for language should exist, what, we need to
ask, is the function of such variation in the evolution of the species?
Many language differences are readily noticeable. Our nontechnical
vocabulary is replete with terms which recognize such differences: words
like gabby, articulate, tongue-tied, verbose, etc. The kinds of personal varia
tion in language use designated by such terms, which are distinct from the
sorts of differences treated in the study of dialectal and idiolectal variation,
have never been part of the traditional concern of linguistics. Further
more, in recent decades, mainstream linguistics has been captivated by
such illusory notions as those of the "ideal speaker-hearer" and the
"homogeneous speech community" (e.g., Chomsky, 1965). There is every
sign now that our discipline is reexamining the usefulness of these "con
venient idealizations." An interest in language variation and the ethnog
raphy of speaking, as well as the emergence of more realistic views of the
purpose of grammar writing, all lead quite inevitably to questions of the
source and nature of the differences we see in language behavior and
linguistic abilities (cf. Weinreich, Labov, and Herzog, 1968).
It became clear to us fairly early on that if we wished to be able to pose
the right questions about language ability variation, we needed not only
to rid ourselves of the methodological commitments that underlay the
assumption of the "ideal speaker-hearer," we also had to be wary even of
such a comparatively uncontroversial notion as that of the "normal"
speaker-hearer. The possibility of defining norms of performance and
ability, it became clear, has to depend on empirical data concerning the
exact nature and range of observable individual differences. In particular,
it seemed important to balance the accumulated knowledge of the "nor
mal" experimental subject—the college sophomore—with expertise on at
least four others: the child, the nonnative, the language impaired, and the
linguistically self-conscious, that is, the intellectual. The questions we
found ourselves confronting clearly reached beyond linguistics, or any
other single discipline. We were led, in short, to the idea of a broad-based
interdisciplinary compendium on individual differences in language abil
ity and language behavior.
Our first task in defining the scope of the project was to identify the
relevant issues and to consider which research disciplines offered data,
insights, and methodologies that could contribute to the study of the
kinds of individual variation in language behavior that interested us.
Various areas of recent and ongoing research impressed us as particularly
pertinent. Carroll's well-known analysis of the major components of lan
guage ability offered a valuable starting point toward defining the issues.
