MENTALISTIC VS MECHANISTIC APPROACH IN PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

The psycholinguistic approach is a problem-solving area in the language learning and teaching process. It has fundamental contributions to language and teaching pedagogy.

The psycholinguistic approach has provided the theoretical ground for the flourishing of many second language learning theories and methods. Mentalist and Rationalist, Mechanistic, Cognitive- code theories of learning are the side- product of psycholinguistic viewpoints in science and research. The two proponent approaches are mechanistic and mentalistic.

            Mentalistic approach is proposed by Chomsky (1965). His approach considered the existence of a natural and internal capacity for language. Chomsky's idea of deep and surface structure revealed his philosophical view of meaning in language, but he more concentrated on the deep structure which is abstract knowledge of language and meaning. This approach is based on the theory that knowledge of grammar is programmed in human mind, for example: children can form sentences they have never heard before. He holds that each language is composed of a limited group of sounds and writing symbols that produces or generates infinite sentences.

           Mechanistic approach is proposed by Bloomfield (1933). He focuses on the surface structure of language (what was actually being said and how sounds are classified). Mechanistic views that language is a system that works to relate sound (structural approach). Mimicry is the primary method of learning language. Bloomfield (1933, p.31) said, “The human body (and) the mechanism which governs speech (are so) complex (that) we usually cannot predict whether a speaker will speak or what he will say”. It has also shown that the study of meaning is not a clearly defined level of linguistics. Rather it is a set of studies of the use of language in relation to many different aspects of experience, to linguistic and non-linguistic context, to participants in discourse, to their knowledge and experience, to the conditions under which a particular bit of language is appropriate.