Psychology of Language

This course is designed to provide you with a basic knowledge of psycholinguistics. We will look at language from a psychological standpoint, learning about scientific methods that researchers use to study the mental processes involved in language use. We will focus on three sets of processes - language comprehension (how we perceive and understand speech), language production (how we combine words to convey non-linguistic thoughts), and language acquisition (how we acquire language). This course will help you understand how language functions as one component of the general cognitive system. The course readings will be drawn from textbooks and other sources such as news articles. The course is meant to be an accessible introduction for both Arts and Sciences undergraduates and does not require a particular background in linguistics or psychology.