Psycholinguistics

Bachelor 2020/2021

Type: Elective course (Psychology)

Area of studies: Psychology

Delivered by: School of Psychology

Where: Faculty of Social Sciences

When: 3 year, 3, 4 module

Mode of studies: offline

Instructors: Anatoly V. Kharkhurin

Language: English

ECTS credits: 5

Contact hours: 58

Full Syllabus

Abstract

This course focuses on different areas of research in Psycholinguistics and provides an overview of major theories in each of these areas. Psycholinguistics is a relatively new discipline that emerged at the intersection of Cognitive Science, Psychology, Linguistics, Computer Science, and Anthropology. Although, the focus is on language, in contrast to Linguistics, this discipline is concerned with the mental processes underlying language processing. It deals with everything that you always wanted to know about languages, but were afraid to ask. What does happen in our brain when we speak, read, or write? How do we learn language? How do we learn second language? Does our language influence the way we think? Does the ability to speak more than one language changes our perception of the world? Can we make computers understanding and producing human speech? And more generally, how can a study of the psychological aspects of language processing contribute to the creation of the Artificial Intelligence?

Learning Objectives

To explore some of the major paradigms of Psycholinguistics and to understand the kinds of questions that are pertinent to the study of the human mind in the linguistic context.
To examine the contemporary theories and empirical evidence supporting scientific discussions in psychology of language.
To develop and engage the critical thinking skills that are characteristics of behavioral scientists.
To develop oral presentation skills necessary for professional presentations in the academic and scientific environment.
To organize effective forms of interpersonal communication as part of group work.

Expected Learning Outcomes

To gain an understanding of the methodological and empirical foundations underlying Psycholinguistics research.
To relate Psycholinguistics theories to everyday linguistic practice on an intuitive level and using professional terminology.
To acquire the critical thinking skills that are characteristics of behavioral scientists.
To gain skills of effective forms of interpersonal communication as part of group work.
To acquire skills necessary to use academic sources to research and understand mental states and processes underlying language acquisition and use.
To acquire skills to test theories about mental states and processes underlying language acquisition and use empirically.
To present results of individual and group work to the professional community in written, oral and/or visual forms.

Course Contents

The Study of Language
Why Study Language and Why Is It So Difficult? What is Language? How Has Language Changed Over Time? What is Language For? The History and Methods of Psycholinguistics. Models in Psycholinguistics. Language and the Brain.
Multilingualism and Creativity
The focus of this theme is on the relationship between multilingual and creative practices. It expands an existing theoretical framework linking multilingual practice and creative behavior to take account of the plurilingual paradigm. The theme first briefly recapitulates the Multilingual Creative Cognition paradigm and identifies multilingual factors (such as language proficiency and age of language acquisition) shaping cognitive mechanisms underlying creative thinking. It then continues with an argument supporting the need for a broader perspective on the relationship between multilingual and creative practices. It follows this with an introduction of some of the plurilingual factors which may contribute to creative behavior (in particular, it will focus on multicultural and emotional experiences). The theme concludes with a discussion of the applications of an extended plurilingual creativity paradigm in education and introduces the Plurilingual Intercultural Creative Keys (PICK) programme.
Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition
Bilingualism. Second Language Acquisition. Evaluation of Work on Bilingualism and Second Language Acquisition.
Connectionism
Interactive Activation Models. Back-propagation.
Language Production
Slips of the Tongue. Syntactic Planning. Lexicalization. Phonological Encoding. The Analysis of Hesitations. The Neuroscience of Speech Production. Writing and Agraphia.
Structure of Sentences
Dealing with Structural Ambiguity. Early work on Parsing. Processing Structural Ambiguity. Gaps, Traces, and Unbounded Dependencies. The Neuroscience of Parsing.
Recognizing Visual Words
Basic Methods and Findings. What Makes Word Recognition Easier (or Harder)? Attentional Processes in Visual Word Recognition. Do Different Tasks Give Consistent Results? Is There a Dedicated Visual Word Recognition System? Meaning-based Facilitation of Visual Word Recognition. Processing Morphologically Complex Words. Models of Visual Word Recognition. Coping with Lexical Ambiguity.
Language Development
What Drives Language Development. The Language Acquisition Device. Phonological Development. Syntactic Development.
The Foundations of Language
Where Did Language Come From? Do Animals Have Language? The Biological Basis of Language. Is There a Critical Period for Language Development? The Cognitive Basis of Language. The Social Basis of Language. What is the Relation Between Language and Thought?
Describing Language
How to Describe Speech Sounds. Consonants. Vowels. Syllables. Linguistic Approaches to Syntax.

Assessment Elements

Critical thinking questions
Paper
Oral presentation
Data collection and analysis
Midterm exam
Final Exam

Interim Assessment

Interim assessment (4 module)
0.05 * Critical thinking questions + 0.11 * Data collection and analysis + 0.2 * Final Exam + 0.2 * Midterm exam + 0.15 * Oral presentation + 0.29 * Paper

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Kharkhurin, A. V. (2012). Multilingualism and Creativity. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters.
The psychology of language : from data to theory, Harley, T. A., 2014

Recommended Additional Bibliography

Pinker, S. (1996). Language Learnability and Language Development, With New Commentary by the Author : With New Commentary by the Author. Harvard University Press.
Pinker, S. (2013). Learnability and Cognition : The Acquisition of Argument Structure (Vol. New ed). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=585970

Course Syllabus