Psychological and neuro-physiological mechanisms of speech.

Plan:

1. Psychological mechanisms of speech.

2. Neuro-physiological mechanisms of speech.

The name Neuro-Linguistic Programming comes from the discipline which influenced the early development of the field. It began as an exploration of the relationship between neurology, linguistics, and observable patterns (" programs") of behavior.

NLP was developed in the early 1970's by Richard Bandler, Ph.D., an information scientist, and John Grinder, Ph.D., a linguist. Bandler and Grinder were interested in how people influence one another, and in the possibility of being able to duplicate the behavior, and therefore effectiveness of highly influential people. Their early research was conducted at the University of California at Santa Cruz. What made their search special was their use of technology from linguistics and information combined with insights from behavioral psychology and general systems theory, to unlock the secrets of highly effective communication.

NLP, as most people use the term today, is a set of models of how communication impacts and is impacted by subjective experience. It’s more a collection of tools than any general theory. NLP is very pragmatic: if a tool works, it's included in the model, even if there's no theory to back it up. None of the current NLP developers have done research to " prove" their models correct. The party line is " pretend it works, try it, and notice the results you get. If you don't get the result you want, try something else."

Much of early NLP was based on the work of Virginia Satir, a family therapist; Fritz Perls, founder of Gestalt therapy; Gregory Bateson, an­thropologist; and Milton Erickson, hypnotist. It was Erickson's work that formed the foundation for a lot of NLP, thus the tight connection with hypnosis. Bandler and Grinder's book " Patterns of the Hypnotic Techniques of Milton H. Erickson, Volume I" is one of the best books ever written on how language influences mental states.

The actual technology, or methodology, that Bandler and Grinder used is known as human modeling; actually the building of models of how people perform or accomplish something. This modeling process ac­tually means finding and describing the important elements and pro­cesses that people go through, beginning with finding and studying a human model. This is a person, who does something in a particular, usu­ally highly skillful, way. For example, if you want to know how to teach some particular skill or concept, you'd first find someone who does it ex­tremely well. Then ask him or her lots of questions about what they do, why they do it, what works and don’t work, and so on.

At the same time, observing this person in action will often lead to new and better questions to ask in the process. Most of us do this al­ready, though perhaps not systematically.

The addition of specific NLP technology makes it possible to dis­cover much of what this human model does that he or she is not aware of. To do this well means to actually study the structure of people's thought processes and internal experience, as well as their observable behavior.

During their early studies Bandler and Grinder developed a unique system of asking questions and gathering information that was based on the fields of transformational grammar and general semantics. Later they and their colleagues discovered certain minimal cues people give that in­dicate very specific kinds of thought processes. These include eye movements, certain gestures, breathing patterns, voice tone changes and even very subtle cues such as pupil dilation and skin color changes (training of Practitioners of NLP includes the skills and knowledge to use these infor­mation gathering techniques and to notice and interpret the subtle cues). NLP is this gathering of information to make models, based on the internal experience and information processing of the people being studied and modeled, including the part that is outside of their conscious awareness. The word 'neuro' refers to an understanding of the brain and its functioning. Linguistic relates to the communication aspects (both verbal and non-verbal) of our information processing. Programming is the behavioral and thinking patterns we all go through. There is a rela­tionship between perceptions, thinking and behavior that is neuro-linguistic in nature. The relationship is operating all the time, no matter what we are doing, and it can be studied by exploring our internal or subjective experience. The formal definition of Neuro-Linguistic Pro­gramming is: The study of the structure of subjective experience.

NLP is not based on theory. It is based on the process of making models. There is a big difference. A model doesn't have to be " true" on " correct" or even perfectly formed. It only has to be useful when applied to what it's designed for. If it isn't, it can be discarded in any situation where it fails. NLP is really an epistemology (the study of the origin and structure of knowledge itself). Everything in NLP is based on specific evidence procedures for effectiveness and is thoroughly tested.

Control questions:

1. What are psychological mechanisms of speech?

2. What are neuro-physiological mechanisms of speech?

Recommended literature:

1. Психология обучения неродному языку. И.А.Зимняя, М., 2000

2. Психология обучения иностранным языкам в школе. И.А.Зимняя, М., 1991

3. Психология развития. Грейс Крайг, Санкт-Петербург, 2000