Psycholinguistics or Linguistics of psychology is the study of the psychological and neurological factors that enable humans to acquire, use and understand language. Psycholinguistics is interdisciplinary in nature and is studied by people in a variety of fields, such as psychology, cognitive science, and linguistics. There are several subdivisions within psycholinguistics that are based on the components that make up human language.
In this subject priority topics to be discussed are language, brain and cognition; psycholinguistics and mass media; first and second language acquisition; bilingualism and multilingualism; human communication models and computers; psycholinguistic analysis of literary texts; oral vs. written communication; psycholinguistics of translation and interpreting; language, communication and education; speech comprehension and production.
There are areas for today’s Psycholinguistics which define its practical importance and future, broadening the scope of application of Psycholinguistic methods and strengthening the ties between Psycholinguistics and other branches of science. Today Psycholinguistics is making great strides forward by stimulating the emergence of the new and enriching the existing methods of research.
Through multidimensional approaches, Psycholinguistics proves to have a potential of solving problems facing people and mankind in the 21st century. Few of them are the following:
The psycholinguistic approach has a problem solving relation in ELT, and that it has a blocking function of the negative transfers of the interferences from the mother tongue to the target language in terms of teaching reading-writing-listening-speaking skills. Developmental psycholinguistics studies infants' and children's ability to learn language, usually with experimental or at least quantitative methods. In addition, it is much more difficult for adults to acquire second languages than it is for infants to learn their first language (bilingual infants are able to learn both of their native languages easily). Thus, critical periods may exist during which language is able to be learned readily. A great deal of research in psycholinguistics focuses on how this ability develops and diminishes over time. It also seems to be the case that the more languages one knows, the easier it is to learn more.
In sum, it is the psycholinguistic approach that primarily forms the ways of language learning and developing learning and acquisition processes. It is a real problem identifier, problem solver, and a facilitator. It must be borne in mind that specifying and then solving the intrinsic difficulties in language learning, which is the prime occupation of the psycholinguistic approach, cannot be regarded as an easy task.
Another aspect of psycholinguistics involves studying individual use of language to understand the mental processes of the individual, a potentially useful tool for psychologists.
Psycholinguistics covers the cognitive processes analyses the processes that make it possible to form a correct sentence out of vocabulary and grammatical structures. This process is called codification. Psycholinguistics also studies the factors that account for decodification, i.e., the psychological structures that allow us to understand utterances, words, sentences, texts etc.
Much methodology in psycholinguistics takes the form of behavioral experiments. In these types of studies, subjects are presented with some form of linguistic input and asked to perform a task (e.g. make a judgement, reproduce the stimulus, read a visually presented word aloud). Reaction times (usually on the order of milliseconds) and proportion of correct responses are the most often employed measures of performance.
Such tasks might include, for example, asking the subject to convert nouns into verbs; e.g., "book" suggests "to write," "water" suggests "to drink," and so on. Another experiment might present an active sentence such as "Bob threw the ball to Bill" and a passive equivalent, "The ball was thrown to Bill by Bob" and then ask the question, "Who threw the ball?" We might then conclude (as is the case) that active sentences are processed more easily (faster) than passive sentences. More interestingly, we might also find out (as is the case) that some people are unable to understand passive sentences; we might then make some tentative steps towards understanding certain types of language deficits (generally grouped under the broad term, aphasia).
Computational modelling is another methodology. It refers to the practice of setting up cognitive models in the form of executable computer programs. Such programs are useful because they motivate theorists to be explicit in their hypotheses and because they can be used to generate accurate predictions for theoretical models that are so complex that they render discursive analysis (Discursive psychological studies highlight the way people construct versions of 'mental', 'social' and 'material' events and processes as parts of particular practices), unreliable. Psycholinguistics plays its important role in this regard.
Another field where psycholinguistics has role to play is Forensic psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics is the study of the relationship between linguistic behavior and psychological processes of the speaker or writer that underlie that behavior. Forensic psycholinguistics applies the field of psycholinguistics to criminal or civil cases. A young discipline, forensic psycholinguistics combines the practical experience of seasoned investigators with knowledge gained from the research of experts within the disciplines of psychology and linguistics, including sociolinguistics.
Areas of Using Psycholinguistics
Psycholinguistics is no longer only a subject of universities studies.
Psycholinguistics is a universal tool for business and personal use.
Businesses can use it to enhance customer relationship by adding psychological characteristics to customer profiles. Analyzing customer’s requests, letters, e-mails and faxes you can routinely get prompt and unveiled feedback, which the customer probably never intended to reveal, information previously available only by expensive research.
Psycholinguistic analysis makes possible to extract valuable marketing information from any kind of stored messages on daily basis without special surveys.
Marketing can benefit from psycholinguistic analysis narrowing and specifying market segmentation, highly focusing promotions and campaigns by creating emotionally colored advertisement texts or defining most successful trademarks.
Strategic managers may get great advantage over counterparts analyzing business information, such as: business reports, political speeches, press releases, newspaper or magazine articles, business correspondence, etc. They will be able to recognize warning signs in business environment, avoid surprises, adapt and act effectively.
To conclude psycholinguistics is not confined to psychologists and linguists. Many people have been stirred by splendid visions of its practical possibilities. One thinks of medical applications to the diagnosis and treatment of a heterogeneous variety of language disorders ranging from simple stammering to the overwhelming complexities of aphasia. One thinks too of pedagogical applications, of potential improvements in our methods for teaching reading and writing, or for teaching second languages. If psycholinguistic principles were made sufficiently explicit, they could be imparted to those technological miracles of the twenty first century, the computing machines, which would bring into view a whole spectrum of cybernetic possibilities.
THIS IS VERY HELPFUL. THANKS.
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