Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics studies the psychological processes underlying language — how people comprehend, produce, and acquire language.

Scope

It covers language comprehension and production, the mental lexicon, sentence processing, and the cognitive and neural bases of language.

Core questions

• How do people understand and produce language in real time?
• How is language represented in the mind?
• How are words recognized and retrieved?
• Is language processing modular?

Key concepts

• Sentence processing
• Mental lexicon
• Speech production
• Modularity
• Lexical access
• Comprehension

Key theories

Information-processing limits

Miller's work on memory span shaped models of language processing.

Modularity of mind

Fodor argued language processing is handled by an autonomous, encapsulated module.

Models of speech production

Levelt's model specified the stages from intention to articulation.

History

Psycholinguistics emerged with the cognitive revolution (Miller), debated the modularity of language (Fodor), and developed detailed processing models (Levelt), now integrated with neurolinguistics.

Debates

Modular versus interactive processing

Whether language processing is encapsulated or interacts freely with general cognition.

Key figures

• George Miller
• Jerry Fodor
• Willem Levelt

Seminal works

• miller-1956
• fodor-1983
• levelt-1989

Frequently asked questions

What does psycholinguistics study?

The mental processes by which people comprehend, produce, and acquire language.