Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics investigates the mental mechanisms underlying language processing.  (Cognitive)

"Psycholinguistics is the study of the cognitive process that supports the acquisition and use of language" Schmitt, N.

"Psycholinguistics is the study of how the mind equips human beings to handle language" Simpson, J

Psycholinguistics is the study of the language processing mechanisms. Psycholinguistics deals with the mental processes a person uses in producing and understanding language.

   It is concerned with the relationship between language and the human mind, for example, how word, sentence, and discourse meaning are represented and computed in the mind.

How to perceive words and store them in the mind, how to understand a sentence, how to learn to read, how language and writing systems influence mental organizations.

Two Aspects:

Language Comprehension –how we understand the meaning of words and sentences  (receptive process)

Language Production –how we speak and use language (productive process)

The Structure of Language

Language is a system of symbols and rules that is used for meaningful communication. A system of communication has to meet certain criteria in order to be considered a language:

·         A language uses symbols, which are sounds, gestures, or written characters that represent objects, actions, events, and ideas. Symbols enable people to refer to objects that are in another place or events that occurred at a different time.

·         A language is meaningful and therefore can be understood by other users of that language.

·         A language is generative, which means that the symbols of a language can be combined to produce an infinite number of messages.

·         A language has rules that govern how symbols can be arranged. These rules allow people to understand messages in that language even if they have never encountered those messages before.

Subdivisions in psycholinguistics are also made based on the different components that make up human language.

Linguistics-related areas:

Phonetics and phonology are concerned with the study of speech sounds. Within psycholinguistics, research focuses on how the brain processes and understands these sounds.

Morphology is the study of word structures, especially the relationships between related words (such as dog and dogs) and the formation of words based on rules (such as plural formation).

Syntax is the study of the patterns which dictate how words are combined to form sentences.

Semantics deals with the meaning of words and sentences. Where syntax is concerned with the formal structure of sentences, semantics deals with the actual meaning of sentences.

Pragmatics is concerned with the role of context in the interpretation of meaning.

HISTORY

Over the centuries...

     Language discussions of language acquisition and of the origins of language.

Nineteenth century...

     Parallel interest in the psychology of adult language development

Twentieth century...

    First half: Behaviorism

    Second half: Miller and Chomsky

Second century....

First half: Behavourism.

Second half: Miller and Chomsky.

Today...

Psycholinguistics is a multidisciplinary field, drawing upon cognitive psychology, theoretical linguistics.....