Since the 20th century, there has been a growing interest in the issue of cognitive psychology and the functioning of the human brain. According to Eysenck and Keane, cognitive psychology is “aiming to understand human cognition observing the behavior of people performing various cognitive tasks” (1). The purpose of this paper is to present the topic concerning how cognitive processes in language influence students’ presentations in the classroom. The research question of the paper is: what linguistic devices should be applied to improve a student’s performance?
People have always thought of language as a verbal means of expression without considering how cognitive systems are connected with such basic real-life activities (Groome and Eysenck). However, even a slight change in the word order of a sentence proves to be crucial for the recipient. Thus, students’ success during project presentations depends not only on the level of preparation but on the correct usage of linguistic devices as well.
According to Chomsky’s theory, any existing language consists of surface and deep structures, where the latter represents cognitive happening in the human brain while absorbing information. Depending on a surface structure of a verbal message, there is a difference in actions undertaken by the mind to process the data correctly (Eysenck and Keane). Regarding this statement, some advice for students could be singled out. Firstly, the sentence structure should be concise and comprehensive. When trying to perceive the gist of a longer sentence, the human brain focuses on encoding the information and hence, loses the line of thought. To keep the attention of a classroom, the presenter should ask the audience rhetoric questions and state clear topic sentences, which express an intriguing idea.
Considering the concern mentioned above, understanding fundamental cognitive processes is of crucial importance for a student. Correct implementation of linguistic devices into a presentation can change colleagues’ and teacher’s attitudes to the topic presented. Thus, the main point discussed in the paper might be of great use for high school and university students who have some issues with proper project preparation.
Works Cited
Eysenck, Michael W., and Mark T. Keane. Cognitive Psychology: A Student’s Handbook. Psychology Press, 2015.
Groome, David, and Michael W. Eysenck. An Introduction to Applied Cognitive Psychology. Routledge, 2016.