Psycholinguistics and experimental methods

This course is part of the programme
Master's Degree Programme Humanities Studies

Objectives and competences

Overview of the field of psycholinguistics, its aims, scope, methods, main questions, main developments, and possible directions for individual research.
Competences:
Ability to recognize interesting research topics in the field of psycholinguistics
Students obtain skills for searching, reading and critical analysis of the scientific literature in psycholinguistics

Prerequisites

The introductory linguistic courses. This course is related to other courses in the Language curriculum.

  • This course is a second-study-year course for the students of the Master's Degree Programme Humanities Studies.

  • This course is a first-study-year course for the students of the Master's Degree Programme Humanities Studies - Double Degree.

Content

Psycholinguistics studies the psychological (and neurological) aspects of human language. The students will study the main psychological and neurological models of language constructed on the basis of the study of language evolution, language acquisition, and language processing. The students will also learn about the major experimental techniques used in psycholinguistics.

Intended learning outcomes

Knowledge of the foundations of psycholinguistics and the innate aspects of natural language
Knowledge of the foundations of comprehension and production of language
Knowledge of the foundations of language acquisition by children

Readings

  • Bock, K., & Levelt, W. (1994). “Language Production: Grammatical Encoding”. In: M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of Psycholinguistics. San Diego, CA: Academic Press, Inc. E-version
  • Carroll, David W. 2007. Psychology of language. Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth. Catalogue E-version
  • Chomsky, Noam (1959). “A Review of B. F. Skinner’s Verbal Behavior” in Language, 35, No. 1, 26-58. E-version
  • Fernandez, Eva M., and Cairns, Helen Smith. 2010. Fundamentals of psycholinguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell.[F&C] Catalogue
  • Golden, Marija. 1996. O jeziku in jezikoslovju. Ljubljana: U. v Ljubljani, Filozofska fakulteta. Catalogue
  • Pinker, Steven. 2010. Jezikovni nagon: kako um ustvarja jezik. Ljubljana: Modrijan. (angleški izvirnik: Pinker, Steven. Catalogue
  • The Language Instinct: How the human mind creates language. New York: Morrow. [in več kasnejših izdaj])
  • Field, J. (2004). Psycholinguistics: The Key Concepts. New York: Routledge. Catalogue E-version
  • Gibson, E., & Pearlmutter, N. (2000). “Distinguishing Serial and Parallel Parsing”. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research. Vol. 29(2), pp. 231-240. Kluwer Academic, US. E-version
  • Rosch, E. (2002). “Principles of Categorization”. In Levitin, D. J. (Ed), Foundations of Cognitive Psychology: Core Readings, pp. 251-270. Cambridge https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/3080.003.0017

Assessment

Attending lectures, active participation in in-class discussions 10 %
1 or 2 homework assignments 20 %
final exam 70 %

Lecturer's references

Associate professor of Linguistics at the University of Nova Gorica.