PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

This course belongs to the didactic activities of the Master's Degree in Language Sciences (curricula: Language Sciences, Linguistics for Deafness and Developmental Disorders).
The general aim of the course is to provide students with basic theoretical and methodological skills for the study of language in its psychological representation.
More precisely, it addresses issues of language representation and processing in monolingual adults with sporadic mention to bi-/multilingualism, second languages, pathological conditions and language acquisition, and it introduces experimental methodologies used in psycholinguistic research.
Finally, this course aims at familiarizing students' with psycholinguistic literature and at strenghtening their ability to discuss possible experimental follow-ups and to make connections among different areas of linguistic research (theoretical linguistics, language education, ...).

1. Knowledge and understanding
- Knowledge of the main themes and areas of psycholinguistic research.
- Knowledge and understanding of the main analyses and methodologies employed in psycholinguistic studies.
- Understanding of the main relationships between language and extra-linguistic cognitive components.
- Knowledge of scientific terminology and understanding of scientific texts that use it.

2. Ability to apply knowledge and understanding
- Ability to critically compare different analyses of the same phenomenon.
- Ability to apply theoretical and methodological knowledge in understanding scientific texts.
- Ability to apply theoretical and methodological knowledge in the development of original research questions.
- Ability to integrate psycholinguistic notions to the study and analysis of other disciplines investigating the use of language.

3. Ability to make judgments.
- Ability to provide arguments for or against psycholinguistic theories discussed in class.
- Ability to evaluate and argue for alternative hypotheses and methods of investigation for the same phenomenon.

4. Communication skills
- Ability to present and argue for theories and concepts of psycholinguistics in written and oral modality, with appropriate use of scientific terminology.
- Ability to elaborate effective presentations.
- Ability to interact with peers and with the lecturer appropriately.

5. Learning skills
- Ability to develop empirical research questions.
- Ability to organize literature research for psycholinguistic topics.

Basic notions of general linguistics

- Introduction to psycholinguistics: language in neurobiological and psychological perspective
- Levels of linguistic and psycholinguistic analysis
- Main concepts and methodologies of psycholinguistic and neurolinguistic research
- The lexicon: mental lexicon organization, access and retrieval
- Speech perception and recognition
- Sentence comprehension and representation
- Psycholinguistics of discourse: inferences, theory of mind and communicative intentions
- Psycholinguistics of reading and writing

T. Harley (2013): The Psychology of Language. From Data to Theory. Routledge (capitoli 4-5-10-11-14)

The list of references may be subject to small changes during the class period based on students' interests and inputs (updated version available on Moodle).

Learning assessment will rely on a written test comprising both multiple-choice and open-ended questions, alongside a few practical exercises.
Students will have the opportunity to improve their grade through homework assignments and in-class practical activities.

More in detail:
- Knowledge and comprehension: assessed through multiple-choice questions
- Applying knowledge and comprehension: assessed through open-ended questions
- Making judgments: assessed through specific multiple-choice questions
- Communicative skills: assessed through open-ended questions

written and oral

A. Scores in the 18–22 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- sufficient knowledge and understanding of the course content;
- limited ability to interpret data and formulate independent judgments;
- sufficient communication skills;

B. Scores in the 23–26 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- fair knowledge and understanding of the course content;
- fair ability to interpret data and formulate independent judgments;
- fair communication skills;

C. Scores in the 27–30 range will be awarded in the presence of:
- good or excellent knowledge and understanding of the course content;
- good or excellent ability to interpret data and formulate independent judgments;
- good or excellent communication skills;

D. Honors ("cum laude") will be awarded in the presence of outstanding knowledge of the course content, judgment, and communication skills.

Lecture-style presentations