PREVIEW
Psycholinguistics studies how the mind enables human beings to produce and understand language. The field is a wide and diverse one; the most important areas it covers are:
• Language storage. How is language represented in the mind?
• Language processing. What mental processes enable language users to speak, write, listen and read?
• Neurolinguistics. Where in the brain are language operations located? What can physical changes in the brain tell us about the way in which language users coordinate the processes they use?
• First language acquisition. How does an infant succeed in acquiring a first language in a remarkably short period of time? See Chapter 12.
• Second language acquisition and use. How does a learner acquire knowledge about a second language and the ability to apply that knowledge? How are the processes employed different when a language user is operating in a second language?
• Language impairment. What can we learn about language processes by studying cases where they do not function in the same way as elsewhere in the population? See Chapter 14.
There is also a set of associated topics where broader questions are raised about language as a phenomenon. They include:
• The characteristics of language. To what extent can animal communication be regarded as a type of language? What does this tell us about what is unique in language?
• The evolution of language. How did language come about? Does it reflect characteristic ways in which the human brain functions?
• Thought and language. Do we need language in order to think? Or do we need to think before we can produce language?
The present chapter will focus chiefly on the first two of these, language storage and language processing, which lie at the centre of psycholinguistic enquiry. Ideas and research findings in these areas have important implications for enhancing communication skills, for teaching literacy, for understanding how learners acquire a second language, for designing speech therapy, for devising good study techniques, and so on.
The general goals of the chapter are to invite you to view language from a very different perspective to that of the pure linguist and to raise awareness of complex language processes that we tend to take for granted. By the end of the chapter, you should understand better how language is stored in the mind so that it is available for use.
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