Learning About Language is an exciting and ambitious series of introductions to fundamental topics in language, linguistics and related areas. The books are designed for students of linguistics and those who are studying language as part of a wider course.
An Introduction to Psycholinguistics examines the psychology of language as it relates to learning, mind and brain as well as to aspects of society and culture. How do we learn to speak and to understand speech? Is language unique to humans? Does language influence culture?
Using non-technical language, and providing concrete examples, the authors explore:
How children learn to speak and read their native language Deaf language education Case studies of wild children and animals and what we can learn from these Second language acquisition, second language teaching methods, and the problems associated with bilingualism Language and the brain The relationship between thought and language In this new edition the authors propose a radical new theory of grammar - natural grammar - which unlike other theories can account for both speech comprehension and speech production.
Also taking into account the extensive growth in theory, research and practice, this new edition is an accessible and focused introduction to the key issues and the latest research in the field of psycholinguistics.
This is a really good reinforcement of our first term of lectures. I've just read part 1 so far (first language acquisition) but have a bunch of good leads for further reading for assignment 1. Chapters 1 and 4 are useful for question C and chapter 5 for question B. I wouldn't say it gave me much (If any) more information than our lectures but it refers to lots of studies for secondary sources and made the process of writing up term 1 lecture notes a lot easier.
Nb. For fellow japanese/linguistics students, the author has done a lot of research into early stage language acquisition for English and Japanese children comparatively. So an interesting crossover for us