Talking the Talk (2nd Edition)

Language makes us human, but how do we use it and how do children learn it? Talking the Talk is an introduction to the psychology of language. The book is written for an audience with no background in the area or knowledge of psychology; it explains how we actually ‘do’ language: how we speak, listen, and read.

This book provides an accessible and comprehensive introduction to psycholinguistics, which is the study of the psychological processes involved in language. It shows how it’s possible to study language experimentally, and how psychologists use these experiments to build models of language processing. Structured around questions that people often ask about language, the emphasis of Talking the Talk is on how scientific knowledge can be applied to practical problems. It also stresses how language is related to other aspects of psychology, particularly in whether animals can learn language, and the relation between language and thought.