psycholinguistics (n.)

A branch of LINGUISTICS which studies the correlation between linguistic behavior and the psychological processes thought to underlie that behavior. There are two possible directions of study. One may use LANGUAGE as a means of elucidating psychological theories and processes (e.g. the role of language as it affects memory, perception, attention, learning, etc.), and for this the term psychological linguistics is sometimes used. Alternatively, one may investigate the effects of psychological constraints on the use of language (e.g. how memory limitations affect SPEECH PRODUCTION and COMPREHENSION). It is the latter which has provided the main focus of interest in linguistics, where the subject is basically seen as the study of the mental processes underlying the planning, production, perception and comprehension of speech, and investigations typically proceed by examining linguistic PERFORMANCE through small-scale experimental tasks. A theory-driven approach is also encountered, in which evidence to support a point of linguistic theory (often in relation to GENERATIVE grammar) accumulates using such techniques as adult GRAMMATICALITY judgements. The subject now includes a large number of research domains, notably child language ACQUISITION, second language acquisition, language PROCESSING, linguistic COMPLEXITY, the relationship between linguistic and cognitive UNIVERSALS, the study of reading, language PATHOLOGY, and species specificity.