Psycholinguistics

Definitions

The interdisciplinary field of study which concerns the acquisition, comprehension and production of language in its spoken, written and signed forms, using concepts and approaches from linguistics, psychology and cognitive science.

uncountable

Equivalents

Examples

“Psycholinguistics is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind⟳ and brain: i.e., the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire⟳, comprehend, produce⟳ and use⟳ language.”

“Psycholinguistics began with attempts to test⟳ the empirical validity of various formal linguistic concepts.”

“2006, Nobuhiro Furuyama, 44: Language and gesture as a single communicative system, Mineharu Nakayama, Reiko Mazuka, Yasuhiro Shirai, Ping Li (editors), The Handbook of East Asian Psycholinguistics, Volume 2: Japanese, Cambridge University Press⟳, page 333, Speech-gesture research⟳ is one of the emerging fields in psycholinguistics that, by referring to speech-accompanying gestures, attempts to elucidate the underlying process⟳ in which qualitatively different types of thinking, e.g. imagistic thinking and linguistic thinking, become⟳ coordinated with one another.”

“The seeds for work⟳ on processing have⟳ their roots in early L2 research⟳, but the psycholinguistics of SLA didn't really take⟳ off until the 1990s.”

CEFR level