Reviewer: Dongyin Mei, MA (University of South Alabama)
Description: The authors provide a general introduction to psycholinguistics by explaining how it interacts with various disciplines, including linguistics, neurology, cognitive psychology, and communication disorders. Theoretical concepts are applied to explain language acquisition, normal speech errors, neurological language disorders, and second language acquisition.
Purpose: The intent is to provide a general overview of psycholinguistics and the main areas of research. One central purpose of the book is to stimulate students' interests in psycholinguistic research.
Audience: The authors note that students who are studying psycholinguistics may have very different backgrounds. Undergraduate students who are taking psychology as a major or minor or who intend to do graduate study in psycholinguistics, cognition, speech therapy, English teaching, or education would all be among the intended audience. The authors have demonstrated expertise in linguistics, psycholinguistics, and speech and language disorders in aphasia.
Features: The book covers mental faculties involved in language production, comprehension, and acquisition in unimpaired individuals and in individuals with aphasia. Speech and language errors mirror underlying cognitive processes involved in language production, which includes (1) ideas generation, (2) word retrieval, (3) sentence planning, (4) phonological encoding, and (5) articulation. The authors present experiments on cognition related to language processing, such as memory for words and sentences, speech sound discrimination, and word recognition. Individuals with aphasia, who may be impaired in language processing and communication, make errors by substituting semantically related words and/or phonologically related words. In terms of language acquisition, the authors explain how children acquire the phonology, morphology, semantics, and syntax by virtue of social interaction and cognitive development. A comparison between first language acquisition and second language learning is provided to illustrate speakers' differences in the underlying cognitive processes involved in language. The interdisciplinary features of psycholinguistics are highlighted throughout. The use of plain language makes the material easy to understand. Supplemental materials (examples, charts, and graphs), the glossary, and index could be helpful for students. New publications are included in the references.
Assessment: The plain language and introductory level of this book make it a solid resource for students who do not have much background in linguistics, psycholinguistics, or communication sciences and disorders. Students who are already acquainted with one or more areas could use this book as a selective reading resource. Research experiments discussed in the book could be intriguing to students who plan to go on to graduate study in psycholinguistics or related areas. Examples of speech and language errors help readers build real-life connections with psycholinguistics.
