The capacity for language sets the human mind apart from all other minds, both natural and artificial, and so contributes critically to making us who we are. In this course, we will examine a few fundamental questions about the psychology of language: How we understand and produce it, seemingly without effort, how children acquire it so quickly and so accurately, what the relationship is between language and thought, why language evolved, etc. We will also try to extend our understandings of the theories and models of psycholinguistics to second language acquisition so that we can apply them to our ES/FL teaching and learning. The course will consist partly of lectures, videos, and discussions, but you will also participate in several hands-on activities and demonstrations designed to teach concepts and methods in psycholinguistics.
This course will introduce you to some of the central questions in psycholinguistics and some of the ways in which researchers go about answering those questions.
Upon successful completion of this course, you should be able to:
- describe and discuss theory construction in the central areas of psycholinguistics
- describe and discuss different methods, perspectives and models used within cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics
- relate their knowledge of the central sub-areas of psycholinguistics to other aspects of cognition and (second) language acquisition
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