Psycholinguistics

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This book is an introduction to psycholinguistics, the study of human language processing. It deals with the central area of this field, the language abilities of the linguistically mature, monolingual adult. It aims to be comprehensive in its coverage, dealing with both written and spoken language, and their comprehension and production, and the nature of linguistic systems and models of processing. The book is divided into two parts. Part I identifies and investigates the main contributory areas of study, concerning the nature of the language signal, the biological foundations of language (including auditory and visual systems, the organisation of language in the brain, and articulatory and manual systems), and the sources of evidence on the abstract language system. Part II reviews a number of processing models and issues, covering perception and production of speech and writing, lexical storage and retrieval, and the comprehension and production of multiword utterances. The final chapter examines the issues that arise in the context of brain damage and the consequent impairment of language processing (in aphasia and related disorders), an additional important source of evidence and area of process modelling. Psycholinguistics provides an overview of the major contemporary issues surrounding the psychological foundations of language, most of which have roots in the last decade of research. It assumes a basic grounding in linguistic theory, but it is drawn from the author's considerable experience of teaching this subject, and has thus been designed to be accessible to students of linguistics and psychology, as well as for any reader with an interest in the psychological foundations of human language. It will be an essential work for students and specialists alike.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Part I Elements of Psycholinguistics
• 1 Characteristics of the language signal
• 2 The biological foundations of language
• 3 Sources of evidence for the language system
• Part II Processes and Models
• 4 Processing the language signal
• 5 Accessing the mental lexicon
• 6 Understanding utterances
• 7 Producing utterances
• 8 Impairment of processing
• References
• Index of names
• Subject index

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In the past decade, the knowledge base for the field of psycholinguistics has expanded greatly. Research in many of its subareas has increased dramatically and its boundaries have continued to expand through contact with related areas like cognitive neuroscience. Bringing together all this work has become a difficult task with the result being that most recent texts have tended to focus on the subareas of the topic (e.g., Cognitive Models of Speech Processing, ed. by G.T.M. Altmann, 1990; W.J.M. Levelt, Speaking: From Intention to Articulation, CH, Dec'89). In contrast, Garman attempts to introduce readers to a large number of subareas and, in doing so, to provide a somewhat broader view of the topic. In fact, the book does contain an incredible amount of information that psycholinguistics students will find quite useful. Unfortunately, in some ways the book tends to read like a telephone directory, with facts being presented in an almost machine gun-like fashion. Someone not already familiar with these areas will wish that more effort had been put into integration of the material and, possibly, that the range of topics covered had been reduced. Garman clearly has a lot to say; possibly, all that is really needed to make the book accessible to introductory undergraduate psycholinguistics students would be a more thorough editing job. S. J. Lupker University of Western Ontario