Psycholinguistics

Oxford Introductions to Language Study

by Thomas Scovel

Psycholinguists have shown that the production and comprehension of even the simplest language is a highly complex process. This brief introduction shows how psycholinguistic research can act as a window to the workings of the human mind and the study of consciousness.

Genres: Linguistics, Psychology, Language, Nonfiction, 20th Century, Academia

152 pages, Paperback

First published April 2, 1998

About the author

Thomas Scovel was born in China and currently teaches courses in ESL, psycholinguistics, pedagogical grammar, second language acquisition, and TESOL methodology at San Francisco State University.

He has spent many years teaching and living in various Asian countries. He has been an active member of TESOL, AAAL, and the International Neuropsychological Society.

Thomas Scovel is the author of Psycholinguistics. In addition he has written books on the critical period and second language acquisition and has published over fifty articles on areas of applied linguistics.

Reviews

[Yeasin Reza · Rating 4 out of 5]

অক্সফোর্ডের ইন্ট্রোডাকশন টু ল্যাঙ্গুয়েজ স্টাডি সিরিজের বইগুলো নাকি দারুণ। খু্ব সহজবোধ্য ভাষায় ভাষাবিজ্ঞানের মতো দুরূহ একাডেমিক বিষয়গুলো সম্পর্কে যাতে সাধারণ পাঠকেরা জ্ঞান রাখতে পারে সেদিকে বিশেষ লক্ষ রাখা হয়েছে। আমি ইংরেজি সাহিত্যের ছাত্র, সাহিত্য পড়তে পড়তে ভাষাবিজ্ঞান সম্পর্কে কৌতূহলী হয়ে পড়তে গিয়ে দেখি যে, এই বিদ্যা আমার মতো মাথামোটা ছাত্র বা পাঠকের আয়ত্তের বাইরে। তাই একজনের পরামর্শে এই সিরিজের বইগুলো খুঁজছিলাম। হারুন ভাইয়ের বরাতে অপ্রত্যাশিতভাবে উক্ত বহি করগত হবার ফলে যারপরনাই খুশি।

তো Psycholinguistic জিনিসটা কি, কেমনে কি এসব কাহিনী তে যাবোনা। ভুলভাল বলে একাডেমিক ছাত্র হিসেবে আমি যে অত্যন্ত খারাপ তা প্রকাশ করে ফেলতে চাইনা, এদিকে আমি নিজেও একাডেমিক শিক্ষার অংশ হিসেবে বইটি এপ্রোচ করিনাই। তবে দারুণ ব্যাপার হচ্ছে Thomas Scovel সাহেব বইটি শুরু করেছেন এই বলে, তিনি বইটি লিখেছেন আপামর সাধারণ পাঠকদের উদ্দেশ্য করে। খুশির কথা এই যে, তিনি তাঁর কথা রেখেছেন। বইটি বেশ সুপাঠ্য, এমন চমৎকার ভঙ্গিতে সাইকোলিঙ্গুইস্টিক বিষয়টি উদাহরণের সহিত বুঝিয়েছেন যে কোন কিছু দুবার পড়তে হয়নি। থমাস সাহেবের লেখনশৈলী বৈঠকি মেজাজের, যেন লেকচার শুনছি ইউটিউবে।

অন্যান্য প্রাণীর সাথে মানুষের প্রধান পার্থক্য হচ্ছে মানুষ কথা বলে, চিন্তা বা অনুভূতি নামক বিমূর্ত ভাব কে ভাষায় রূপান্তরিত করতে পারে। ভাষা নামক এক আশ্চর্য জিনিস মানুষকে শুধুমাত্র একটা দু'পেয়ে প্রাণী'র স্তর থেকে আশরাফুল মাখলুকাতে উন্নীত করেছে। আমরা যা চিন্তা করি তা কিভাবে ধ্বনির মাধ্যমে শব্দে রূপান্তর করে পরপর অর্থবোধক বাক্য তৈরী করি যা অপর একজন বুঝতে পারে এই আশ্চর্য প্রক্রিয়ার উদ্ঘাটন ই সাইকোলিঙ্গুইস্টিকসের সারকথা। বিমূর্ত ভাব কিভাবে মূর্ত ভাষায় জারিত হয়, কোন কোন প্রপঞ্চ পুরো প্রক্রিয়াটাকে সার্থক করে তোলে আর কিভাবে একজন মানব শিশু ভাষা নামক অলৌকিক বস্তুটিকে আত্মস্থ করে সেইসব বিষয়াদি উক্ত বহি'র আলোচ্য বিষয়।

৩.৫/৫

[Amin Abootalebi Yazdi · Rating 3 out of 5]

The book, for a beginner, is not enough. But the thing I really appreciate about it was the further reading part, right at the end, which is categorised according their levels of technicality.
I recommend this small book for a very fast reading before you start reading any other book on this topic.

[Joseph · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have an autographed copy.

[Gofita · Rating 1 out of 5]

This class and book helped me to realize why I never ever want to get a Master's or more in the field of Linguistics. I love language, but not on a theoretical science aspect view aka field study. My brain did not have the capacity to keep up with the class even though we had the best professor ever teaching it and the book was just horrible...I might as well have been reading Greek...I definitely took on more than I could chew, but thankfully my Prof. took pity on me and really helped me scrape out my B- in the class!

[Heleen.A.H · Rating 3 out of 5]

at first months of age, crying is considered as an autonomic stimuli to noxious stimuli as a primary reflex, in this stage crying is known to be iconic. however, the inhalation and exhalation during the iconic period of crying are crucial for human foe successful speech communication for the rest of children's lives. after this and in the next months of children's development their crying becomes more symbolic, manifesting more complex internal feelings and need such as attention ..etc rather than expressing physical need or discomfort!
and then after extensive interactions with caretaker children began to coo 2 months of age(producing soft sounds) and babbling 6 months of age ( producing some Vowles and constants)! but until now acquisition is not of segmental phenomena means they don't produce sounds od their mother tongue rather, they can produce any sounds! at a late stage of bubbling 8 months of age, babies seem to produce rhythms and sounds of their mother tongue! then children begin to express their first-word using idiomorphic, they start talking by their own language inventing new words (eg...kaka for food)! and they start talking by egocentric speech it means they start learning things around them, things that attract their attention, and nothing more!
after that they begin constructing sentence at first they use the single word as a skeletal sentence and this called holophrastic stage, but they progress through the different stage of grammatical development first with two words and subsequently with more but this development of language is not only affected by nurture and learning, when children start instructing sentences they don’t do it randomly rotate between position, for example (pivots) tend to be used initially or finally, they are even able to create new words they never heard of, their grammatical rules are simple and elegant but not false and it is rare for young children to repeat the same word twice in constructing their little sentences by the contrast of chimps that appear to express limited utterances randomly and repetitively even when exposed to intense learning! this is only one measure of the weight of evidence for the innateness of language (Noam Chomsky)! Chomsky has argued just as humans have a kind of genetical ability to stand and walk so too do they possess UG (universal grammar)!!!

.
but how are language and speech produced?
it is known that process of production of language is a linear progression of four successive stages:
1/ conceptualization= picking up concepts for what we wish to say !
this stage deals with mental abstraction so psycholinguistics have gone on recorded with an interesting mentalistic account. his theory is that primitive linguistic concepts are formed as two concurrent and parallel modes of thought. these are (syntactic thinking) which produce the sequence of words which we typically think of when we talk about how language is initiated! and (imagistic thinking) which creates more holistic and visual mode of communication!
2/ formulation:-(formulate thought into linguistic plan)!
in psycholinguistics examine speech errors as window to formulation process, linguist divide sounds to vowels and constants and subcategorized each of these into various phonetic group and speech production follow phonetic classification from normal talking to errors, we make speech mistakes within the boundaries and framework of certain language structure as if we had planed our slips to fit an appropriate linguistic slot intentionally! so to formulate your ideas you are constricted to all phonological, lexical and grammatical pattern of language !!!

I’ll stop spoiling the book and if you want to know the whole story and are interested till now the this book will be a good one to choose!!!

[bepis :3 · Rating 3 out of 5]

4--

[Simone · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very nice and readable introduction into the field of psycholinguistics. I had just a slight idea what it is all about, now I feel like reading more academic texts. I learnt a few interesting facts and found this branch of linguistics very inspiring.

[Anastasia Tuple · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a nice, easy, and compact intro to what the field of Psycholinguistics really is about.
Of course, the book is not detailed and doesn't include comprehensive information, because it is just an introduction to the field!
I liked the plain and non-jargon language, the examples and the overall coherence.
I would recommend it to an undergraduate student in Linguistics, as well as to anyone who would like to get an idea on Psycholinguistics.

[Ahmed M. Hashim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome book that gives you a glance at the latest psycholinguistic works

[Matireputul]

i learned about this field which was unknown to me.

[Hanan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had fun studying it.

[Fernan Pérez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Revelador para lectores no familiarizados con la lingüística. A veces confuso en términos técnicos, sin embargo siempre claro en los conceptos.

[Abdulmogeeb AlHumaid]

although I wanted to finish the whole book , but an alternative one came late , anyway this book has the most important theories and so so so simple

[Zakaria Bziker · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my psycholinguistics master class and it was helpful though I was familiar with most of the issues adressed in the book.

[ANGELINA]

i what read...

[Noor Ahmed · Rating 5 out of 5]

a stuff of knowldge

[Rawabi]

good