Psycholinguistics: what it is, objectives and research areas.

A summary of the characteristics of Psycholinguistics as an area of research and work.

One of the characteristics that most differentiates human beings from other species is language, thanks to which human beings have been able to evolve considerably over the years. Therefore, the study of language, while complex, has acquired great relevance in recent decades.

Psycholinguistics is the branch of psychology that allows us to analyze the process of both the production and comprehension of human language, as well as its acquisition at an early age,

In this article we will explain what psycholinguistics is all about. In this article we will explain what psycholinguistics consists of and we will also see the areas of research that are found within this branch, which is linked to both psychology and linguistics.

What is psycholinguistics?

The appearance of the term psycholinguistics, took place in 1951 at Cornell University (United States), where a committee for the study of psychology and linguistics was created. (United States), where a committee for the study of psychology and linguistics was created, which at that time was chaired by Charles Osgood, the famous American psychologist known for developing the scale known as "semantic differential", which allows to measure the attitudes of people towards a question, based on the choice of one or another word, which are at the opposite pole.

Another pioneer in the field of psycholinguistics was Noam Chomskywho explained that language should be understood as a systematic process composed of a series of principles and rules that fulfill their function at the cognitive level and are responsible for creating sentences in a spoken form. This language scholar affirmed that children are capable of learning the mother tongue because they are biologically prepared for it, this mechanism being universal for all humans; however, it is also necessary for them to be stimulated by their parents and/or caregivers.

Thus, psycholinguistics is the branch of psychology that studies the way in which human beings process spoken language, i.e., the way in which they are stimulated by their parents and/or caregivers.that is, the way in which they understand, produce, acquire or even lose the ability to speak.

At the same time, it studies the cognitive processes that come into play when processing spoken language, and psycholinguistics is nowadays considered a consolidated science within the general framework of cognitive sciences, possessing a very multidisciplinary character, as we will explain in more detail below.

This branch of psychology is located between psychology and linguistics, using theories from both areas of knowledge to originate new research in order to understand the mechanisms underlying psycholinguistics.

Likewise, psycholinguistics focuses its attention on both psychological and neurological factors that influence spoken language, giving psycholinguistics the ability to understand the mechanisms underlying psycholinguistics.This has given psycholinguistics a consideration as an area of experimental study (e.g., studying the process of language acquisition during childhood or also the study of the process of learning a second language).

Objectives of Psycholinguistics

Among the objectives of psycholinguistics and the psychology of language to understand and explain the psychological and neurological processes involved in the process of expressing oneself through spoken language, the following are worth mentioning:

• To understand the process carried out by the brain to decipher the messages it receives through spoken language.
• To study the processes involved in language acquisition.
• To understand the process of spoken language production by individuals.
• To analyze the processes and structures of the brain that give humans the ability to speak.
• To study the process of information storage in the brain.
• To analyze the functional organization of the ability to communicate through language.
• To study the evolution of language during the stages of childhood development.
• To analyze the thinking of human beings.
• Analyze writing skills.
• To perform a syntactic and semantic analysis of language.
• To study the auditory comprehension of the human being.
• To analyze verbal expression.

These are some of the objectives of psycholinguistics from which studies and research are carried out in different areas, among which we will explain in the following section.

Psycholinguistics research areas

The following is a brief explanation of the main areas of research by specialists in the field of psycholinguistics.

1. Spoken language production

This area of psycholinguistics is in charge of studying and understanding the the underlying processes that enable human beings to produce language (e.g., the way in which language is produced). (e.g., the way in which the information that someone intends to express through language is transformed into acoustic waves).

2. Understanding spoken language

In this area the goal is to understand how an acoustic signal can be interpreted as a spoken language by the person or group of people who have received this message through the ear. who have received this message through the ear.

3. Language acquisition process

This area is in charge of studying and analyzing the way in which a child acquires a series of skills that allow him/her to acquire the ability to speak through different phases. through different phases.

4. Disturbance or disorders affecting language production and/or comprehension.

This area of psycholinguistics is in charge of studying the different disturbances in the brain the different disturbances in the brain that can cause certain difficulties in expressing and/or understanding language. (e.g., Wernicke's aphasia and Broca's aphasia).

5. Study of thought and language

This area is in charge of studying the interrelation between thought and language, which makes it possible for a person to, among other functions, think before speaking or mentally analyze certain sentences he/she has heard.. This also makes it possible to develop a series of arguments regarding a given topic or to express one's own ideas.

6. Neurocognition

This is the area of psycholinguistics that deals with the study and understanding of the different areas of the brain. the study and understanding of the different areas of the brain involved in both the production and comprehension of language (e.g., we now know that the brain is involved in the production and comprehension of language). (for example, we now know that Broca's area is a section of the human brain involved in language production).

As we can see, psycholinguistics, through its different areas of research is responsible for conducting a fairly complete and comprehensive analysis of the language of people, so it proves to be a very important area within scientific research and, in particular, psychology.

Relationship with other areas of science

As we have seen, psycholinguistics is closely related to other areas such as psychology, linguistics and neuroscience. Therefore, we will briefly explain its relationship with some of them.

Psycholinguistics and linguistics

Psycholinguistics and linguistics have always been closely related since their origins, being both located within the psycholinguistic paradigm.Both are located within the paradigm of information processing, and these two areas have been two complementary approaches.

Psycholinguistic scholars are concerned with the study of cognitive processes and mental representations, while linguistic scholars are concerned with studying and understanding how to characterize the grammatical rules of language and propositional forms used in natural language.

With respect to understanding language acquisition by humans, pure linguists are charged with developing hypotheses to understand the initial state that is compatible with the ability to learn language, while linguistic psychologists focus, rather, on the cognitive mechanisms that make language learning possible, and for this purpose, it is essential that the cognitive mechanisms that make language learning possible be understood.To this end, it is essential that they understand both the structure of natural language and, for example, the capabilities of human beings to process information in the mind.

It should be noted that there are several currents in the study of language, both within psycholinguistics and linguistics, which use different approaches to it.

2. Psycholinguistics and neurosciences

There is a close relationship between psycholinguistics and neurosciences, since one of the most important objectives for psycholinguists is the study for the knowledge and understanding of information processing in the human brain. The fact is that the processes that make it possible to understand and also produce language originate from the functioning of the brain. Therefore, for a thorough analysis of language production and processing, it is necessary to know the underlying brain mechanisms..

An example of this is that numerous studies have shown that there are some areas of the left hemisphere that are closely related to the processing of information transmitted through language (e.g., Wernicke's area is the main area of the brain responsible for the process of language comprehension, and Broca's area is specialized in language production).