Talking the Talk

Trevor Harley is Emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Dundee, Scotland.

• Preface to the third edition 161 Language 20What is this book about? 21What is the plan of this book? 21What is language? 25Are there other types of language other than human? 28How do human languages differ from each other? 29How many languages are there? 32Where did language come from? 35How has language changed? 39How has English changed? 41How do we describe language? 44How do we do psycholinguistics? 45Is psycholinguistics a science? 47What counts as an explanation in psycholinguistics? 49What is a statistical model? 53What are the issues in modern psycholinguistics? 552 Animals 60How do animals communicate? 61What do monkeys communicate about? 63What can we learn from the birds? 64How powerful are animal communication systems? 65Do dolphins and whales use language? 67Can we teach language to animals? 68Can parrots talk? 70What about chimps? 71What did Washoe know? 74Why is Kanzi the chimp so important? 77Why are animals poor at human language? 80Why is the question of animal language important? 823 Children 84When do children learn language? 84Can a human foetus learn language? 86Why do babies babble? 88How do young children segment speech? 90What are the first words? 92How do children learn words? 95What mistakes do children make? 97How do adults talk to children? 99What are the early sentences? 101What drives syntactic development? 103When does language acquisition stop? 106Are we driven to produce language? 107What’s the difference between a pidgin and a creole? 108How do children learn language? 110Do we need to have innate knowledge of language? 114What are the problems with nativist accounts of language development? 116Are there language-specific impairments? 119Are there genes for language? 121Is there a critical period for language acquisition? 122What can we learn from isolated children? 125Is language development dependent on cognitive development? 130Is language development dependent on social development? 1344 Two 138What is bilingualism? 138How does a child become bilingual? 140Do you have to be young to learn a second language well? 141How many lexicons does a bilingual person have? 143What are cognates? 144Do two languages interfere with one another? 145What does neuroscience tell us about bilingualism? 147Is learning two (or more) languages good for you? 148What’s the best way to learn a second language? 1505 Thought 153What is thought? 153What is inner speech? 155Is language a special, separate module? 157What is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis? 158What can we learn from numerical cognition? 163What can we learn from how people name colours? 166Does language influence memory and reasoning? 170Are we forced to think in categories? 174Are there practical consequences of the way we use language? 1756 Meaning 179What’s the meaning of meaning? 179What does philosophy tell us about meaning? 180What’s a dog? 182Are meanings captured by networks? 184What’s a semantic feature? 187How do we search our semantic memory? 191What does deep dyslexia tell us about word meaning? 193What do connectionist models tell us about meaning and deep dyslexia? 195How can we explain what goes wrong in dementia? 201How is semantic memory organised? 203How does the brain store semantic categories? 204What’s grounding? 206What are statistical models of meaning? 2087 Words 211How do study word processing? 212How do we recognise spoken words? 214What is the Cohort model of word recognition? 218What is the TRACE model of word recognition? 219How should we evaluate models of spoken word recognition? 221How do we read? 223How did reading evolve? 224What’s the dual-route model of reading? 226What does brain damage tell us about reading? 228What are the problems with the dual-route model? 230What’s the triangle model of reading? 233Do we have to sound a word to understand it? 236Does speed reading work? 238How do we understand ambiguous words? 240What is the alphabetic principle? 244What is phonological awareness? 246What is the best way of learning to read? 248What is developmental dyslexia? 250What causes developmental dyslexia? 252How should we treat developmental dyslexia? 2568 Understanding 259What is parsing? 260What is syntactic ambiguity? 261What are garden path sentences? 263How do we deal with temporary ambiguity? 265How do we decide where to attach phrases? 266What does the study of electrical activity in the brain (ERPs) tell us about parsing? 269How do multiple constraints operate? 271How then do we parse, really? 274Why is making a model of the world important? 276What do we remember of what we understand? 277How do we make use of context? 279How do we go beyond the words? 281What can we do with language? 285How do we link new information with old? 288How do we construct our mental model? 292How does brain damage affect recognising spoken words? 293Where does humour in language come from? 294How do chatbots work? 2969 Speaking 300Can we learn from our mistakes? 301What are Freudian slips? 305What is the Fromkin-Garrett model of speech production? 306How do we retrieve words when speaking? 310Why are words sometimes on the “tip of our tongue”? 317How do we plan syntax? 320What is syntactic priming? 322How do we get different parts of a sentence to agree with each other? 325How do we control conversations? 329How does brain damage affect language? 33110 End 338Are there sex differences in language? 338How does neurodiversity affect language? 341How does ageing affect language? 342Is there a “Grand Model” of language processing in the brain? 344What were those issues again? 347What use is psycholinguistics? 350What’s the future? 35111 Next 352Chapter 1: language 352Chapter 2: animals 354Chapter 3: children 355Chapter 4: two 358Chapter 5: thought 359Chapter 6: meaning 362Chapter 7: words 365Chapter 8: understanding 368Chapter 9: speaking 370Chapter 10: end 372Questions 3741 Language 3742 Animals 3743 Children 3754 Two 3755 Thought 3756 Meaning 3757 Words 3768 Understanding 3769 Speaking 37610 End 377