The Psychology of Language
From Data to Theory, 4th Edition
By Trevor A Harley
To Be Published November 1st 2013 by Psychology Press – 624 pages
Description
This fully revised edition of the popular textbook provides an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the psychology of language for undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers. It contains everything the student needs to know about how we acquire, understand, produce, and store language.
The Psychology of Language, 4th Edition, covers all the main topics in the psychology of language, such as language production, comprehension, syntax and parsing, reading development, and word recognition. In addition, this text covers language acquisition, how language is related to thought, bilingualism and second language acquisition. Following a strong developmental theme, it also describes how children acquire language while demonstrating how this is related to the brain and to other aspects of cognition.
Whilst maintaining both the structure of the previous editions and the emphasis on cognitive processing, this fourth edition has been thoroughly updated with all the latest and cutting-edge research. In particular, the book takes into account recent research into cognitive neuroscience and the relationship between language and the brain.
The Psychology of Language, 4th Edition describes complex ideas in a clear and approachable style, and assumes no prior knowledge other than a grounding in the basic concepts of cognitive psychology. It will be essential reading for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of cognition, psycholinguistics or the psychology of language. It will also be useful for those on speech and language therapy courses.
The Psychology of Language, 4th Edition, is supported by a companion website featuring a range of helpful supplementary resources for both students and lecturers.
Reviews
Praise for Previous Editions:
"It is comprehensive, covering all aspects of psycholinguistics … As such it is an excellent companion to an undergraduate speech and language therapy degree course, interlinking modules of study into a cohesive whole. It would also be an accessible reference resource for practising therapists." – Kathy Jones-Williams, in Speech&Language Therapy in Practice
"I want this book for me, not just for my students. For the student, it's an exceptionally thorough, but lively, introduction to language use in a wider context. For me, it's a valuable reminder of psycholinguistics's evolution from its concerns with the psychological reality of grammar, to its current spot at the center of modern cognitive neuroscience." - Gary S. Dell, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign,USA
"Trevor Harley provides a systematic and lucid introduction to the scientific study of human language use. He traverses a complex range of topics from foundational theory and experiment to practical matters of pedagogy and pathology. It's a winning combination delivered with wit, balanced accuracy, and admirable directness of style." – Professor Merrill Garrett, Psychology Department, University of Arizona, USA
"Harley’s book offers an excellent means of enhancing our understanding of language. It provides a clear, comprehensive and thorough review of the current state of play in psycholinguistics, making it an ideal choice for advanced undergraduate and graduate students." - Annukka Lindell, University of Wales, Bangor, UK
"Harley has thoroughly revised his very successful textbook on psycholinguistics in light of new research. The coverage of this work is quite remarkable and it constitutes the ideal resource for advanced undergraduate students, postgraduate students and researchers interested in the field." - Martin Pickering, University of Edinburgh, UK
"I have been using Harley's text in my 3rd year undergraduate Psychology of Language course since the first edition came out because I believe its coverage of the important issues is comprehensive and scholarly while being highly accessible and intellectually stimulating. My students have always found it to be a very useful resource in helping them understand language processing." - Marcus Taft, University of New South Wales, Australia
Contents
Preface. How to Use this Book. Section A. Introduction. 1. The Study of Language. Introduction. What is Language? The History and Methods of Psycholinguistics. Language and the Brain. Themes and Controversies in Modern Psycholinguistics. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 2. Describing Language. Introduction. How to Describe Speech Sounds. Linguistic Approaches to Syntax. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. Section B. The Biological and Developmental Bases of Language. 3. The Foundations of Language. Introduction. Where Did Language Come From? Do Animals Have Language? The Biological Basis of Language. The Cognitive Basis of Language: The Cognition Hypothesis. The Social Basis of Language. The Language Development of Visually and Hearing-impaired Children. What is the Relation Between Language and Thought? Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 4. Language Development. Introduction. The Driving Forces of Language Development. Do Children Learn Any Language in the Womb? Phonological Development. Lexical and Semantic Development. Early Syntactic Development. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 5. Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition. Introduction. Bilingualism. Second Language Acquisition. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further reading. Section C. Word Recognition. 6. Recognizing Visual Words. Introduction. Basic Methods and Basic Findings. Meaning-based Facilitation of Visual Word Recognition. Morphology: Processing Complex Words. Models of Visual Word Recognition. Coping with Lexical Ambiguity. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 7. Reading. Introduction. A preliminary Model of Reading. The Processes of Normal Reading. The Neuropsychology of Adult Reading Disorders: Acquired Dyslexia. Models of Word Naming. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 8. Learning to Read and Spell. Introduction. Normal Reading Development. Developmental Dyslexia. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 9. Understanding Speech. Introduction. Recognizing Speech. Models of Speech Recognition. The Neuropsychology of Spoken Word Recognition. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. Section D. Meaning and Using Language. 10. Understanding the Structure of Sentences. Introduction. Dealing with Structural Ambiguity. Early work on Parsing. Processing Structural Ambiguity. Gaps, Traces, and Unbounded Dependencies. The Neuroscience of Parsing. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 11. Word Meaning. Introduction. Classic Approaches to Semantics. Semantic Networks. Semantic Features. Family Resemblance and Classification. Combining Concepts. Processing Figurative Language. The Neuropsychology of Semantics. Connectionist Approaches to Semantics. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 12. Comprehension. Introduction. Memory for Text and Inferences. Reference, Co-reference, and Ambiguity. Models of Text Representation and Processing. Individual Differences in Comprehension Skills. The Neuropsychology of Text and Discourse Processing. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. Section E. Production and Other Aspects of Language. 13. Language Production. Introduction. Speech Errors and What They Tell Us. Syntactic Planning. Lexicalization. Phonological Encoding. The Analysis of Hesitations. The Neuropsychology of Speech Production. Writing and Agraphia. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 14. How Do We Use Language? Introduction. Making Inferences in Conversation. The Structure of Conversation. Collaboration in Dialog. Sound and Vision. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 15. The Structure of the Language System. Introduction. What are the Modules of Language? How Many Lexicons are There? Language and Short-term Memory. Summary. Some Questions to Think About. Further Reading. 16. New Directions. Introduction. Themes in Psycholinguistics Revisited. Some Growth Areas? Conclusion. Appendix: Connectionism. Interactive Activation Models. Back-propagation. Further Reading. Glossary. Example of Sentence Analysis. References. Author Index. Subject Index.
Author Bio
Trevor Harley is Dean of Psychology and Chair of Cognitive Psychology at the University of Dundee, Scotland. He was an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge, where he was also a PhD student, completing a thesis on slips of the tongue and what they tell us about speech production. He moved to Dundee from the University of Warwick in 1996. His research interests include speech production, how we represent meaning, and the effects of ageing on language.
Name: The Psychology of Language: From Data to Theory, 4th Edition (Paperback) – Psychology Press
Description: By Trevor A Harley. This fully revised edition of the popular textbook provides an up-to-date and comprehensive introduction to the psychology of language for undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers. It contains everything the student needs to know about how we...
Categories: Language, Psychology of, Psycholinguistics, Cognitive Neuroscience of Language, Cognitive Psychology