Psychology of Language Processing and Learning
Linguistics Tripos Part II: Paper 16
MML Tripos Part II: Paper Li.16
Paper Coordinator 2013/14: Dr John Williams
A specimen exam paper and reading list are available from the Linguistics Resources on CamTools. More specialised reading will be provided to accompany each lecture (mostly downloadable research articles and reviews).
Aims
- provide an overview of psychological research that is relevant to language processing and learning
- illustrate the range of methodologies used in experimental research
- cover the most interesting and relevant psychological phenomena that have been revealed through (primarily) experimental research
- introduce the currently most influential approaches to modelling these phenomena
- highlight major theoretical issues in the relevant areas of research
- consider how fundamental principles of learning and memory might be applicable to first and second language learning
Scope
- First and second language processing from a mostly cognitive, but also neurocognitive perspective
- Basic psychological processes that underlie second language learning
Teaching
Proposed lecture schedule/topics to be covered:
Michaelmas Term
- The cognitive approach. Basic notions and issues illustrated with reference to visual word recognition
- Spoken word recognition
- Speech production
- Rules and exceptions: reading and morphology
- Syntactic processing
- Bilingual lexical processing
- Bilingual syntactic processing
- How meaning and concepts are represented in the brain
Lent Term
9. Discourse processing and inferencing
10. Individual differences in language processing
11. Declarative and procedural knowledge and language learning
12. Implicit learning and language learning
13. Statistical learning in first and second language acquisition
14. Attention and second language learning
15. Converting explicit knowledge to implicit knowledge: Automaticity in second language acquisition
16. Cognitive determinants of individual differences in second language learning ability.
You will receive sixteen lectures in total, eight in Michaelmas Term and eight in Lent Term. You will also have eight supervisions, normally three during Michaelmas Term, four in Lent Term and one in Easter Term.
Assessment will be by a three-hour written examination.
Go to other Part II Linguistics papers:
- Linguistic Theory (Linguistics Tripos Part IIB only)
- Phonetics
- Phonology and Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics and Pragmatics
- Historical Linguistics
- History of the French Language
- First and Second Language Acquisition
- Psychology of Language Processing and Learning
- Language Typology
