Course description: This module gives students the opportunity to consider how language is organised and assembled in the human brain, allowing us to read, write and communicate easily with one another. The module also considers cases where language has broken down, whereby practical applications of psycholinguistic knowledge will be explored, including speech and language therapy. Students will develop an appreciation of psycholinguistic theory and modelling, explore how psycholinguistic phenomena can be tested and gain skills in conducting empirical investigations. In addition, students will consider what large collection of authentic language data can tell us about the constraints which are placed on speakers when producing language ‘on the fly’. Students will develop an appreciation for the usefulness of large scale corpora, how they can be interrogated and developed and help us to answer questions about language processing and production.
