Psychology of Language module (PY51011)

This module introduces current theories and findings in Psychology of Language (Psycholinguistics).

Psycholinguistics is the scientific study of human language and communication. The research field has informed us, for example, that babies can distinguish between the sounds in their mother tongue by 6 months of age (and lose the ability to distinguish sounds only found in other languages), and also that, as adults, we can produce 2-4 words per second, making very few errors. How do we manage this? This module explores the fascinating topic of language use and explores the uniquely human characteristic to master this communicative ability.

What you will learn

In this module, you will:

• explore word recognition and whether and why we understand words differently when they are written vs spoken
• explore sentence comprehension and how we understand complex sentences
• investigate discourse comprehension and how we work out a coherent message across a chunk of text
• delve into word production and understand why we sometimes make errors when speaking
• examine sentence production and how we produce sentences seamlessly, exploring whether or not we start a sentence before we know all the words we are going to say
• study dialogue and explore whether we change what we say depending on the person we are speaking with
• dive into bilingualism and understand how bilingual and multilingual people understand and speak more than one language
• explore psycholinguistic methodology and how we can explore human language and communication scientifically

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

• demonstrate detailed knowledge of core theories in the area of psycholinguistics
• find, read, and evaluate relevant research within this area
• express your knowledge in writing and discussion

Assignments / assessment

• online quizzes (40%)
• written piece of coursework (60%)

Teaching methods / timetable

This module is typically taught via:

• face-to-face weekly 2-hour lectures
• small group tutorials

Learning materials will be provided through a variety of sources which are made readily available to students, e.g., lecture notes, tutorial notes, supplementary videos and demonstrations, a list of essential, and suggested readings from University of Dundee library resources.