Psycholinguistics: A Very Short Introduction

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring

This Very Short Introduction to psycholinguistics is an accessible and engaging description of how people use language. Talking and understanding language probably seem like simple and straightforward skills, but research in psycholinguistics has shown that complex computations take place behind the scenes when you communicate with others. Recent debates concerning how AI tools such as ChatGPT work highlight some of these core questions about the language faculty and how it is that humans comprehend, produce, and learn language.

The book begins with an overview of the fields of linguistics and psychology and how they have cooperated from the earliest days of psycholinguistics. It then considers how words and sentences are interpreted, how they are generated, and how human conversation is coordinated. The book also reviews research on reading, sign language processing, and bilingualism. The closing chapter summarizes where the field is heading, with a brief discussion of Large Language Models, the role of Information Theory, the growing emphasis on the neurobiology of language, and the increasing diversity of research in psycholinguistics, both with respect to the languages studied and the backgrounds and histories of language researchers. Issues that are considered include: (1) How successfully do people adapt what they say to the needs of their audience when they design their phrases and sentences? (2) How do people read languages such as Chinese, which do not use an alphabetic writing system? (3) Do the size and efficiency of a person’s memory affect how effectively people use language? (4) Is bilingualism cognitively advantageous, and if so, what are the mechanisms that lead to this so-called bilingual advantage? And (5) Do users of sign language gesture when they communicate? These questions and more are answered using insights from the latest research based on methods from the cognitive and neurosciences.

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Fernanda Ferreira, Department of Psychology, University of California

Fernanda Ferreira is Professor of Psychology and a member of the Graduate Program in Linguistics at the University of California, Davis. She was formerly Chair of Language and Cognition at the University of Edinburgh. She is founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Glossa Psycholinguistics, and has previously served as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General. She co-edited with John Henderson the academic text The Interface of Language, Vision, and Action: Eye Movements and the Visual World (2004).