Read the summary and the most important questions on Language in Mind An Introduction to Psycholinguistics | 9781605357058 | Julie Sedivy

• 1 Science, Language, and the Science of Language

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• What is the downside of answering with exact answers and absolute rights to test students' knowledge, according to Isaac Asimov?

  Minimizes the necessity of thinking, which pleases both students and teachers.

• 1.1 What Do Scientists Know about Language?

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• What is the scientific approach of psycholinguistics?

  They use experimental methods to study the psychological machinery that drives language learning, language comprehension, and language production.

• What do theoretical linguists focus on?

  They focus on providing detailed descriptions and analyses of the structure of language. Paying close attention to the patterns found in language to examine constraints that language places on how sounds, words, or sentenced can be assembled.

• What do computational linguists focus on?

  They write and implement computer programs to explore the data structure of human language or to simulate how humans might learn and use language.

• What makes the approach of computational linguists extremely useful?

  It is useful for uncovering patterns that require searching through amounts of data. They also help to evaluate whether general ideas about human mental operations can be successfully implemented in practice, finding out which theory is more realistic than others.

• What do neurolinguists and cognitive neuroscientists focus on?

  They study the brain and how this complex organ carries out the mental operations that are required for learning or using language.

• What do neurolinguists and cognitive neuroscientists investigate in the brain?

  The role of specific regions and networks, correlate specific brain responses with psychological operations, and asses the consequences of brain damage, all with the aim of understanding how the brain's "hardware" is able to run the "software" involved in learning or using language.

• What are biolinguists trying to trace?

  
  The long explanatory line that links the workings of genes with the
  structure of the brain and, ultimately, the mental operations needed to be competent at language.

• What do language typologists focus on?

  They are like naturalists, collecting data samples from many different modern languages, and historical linguists are like archeologists, reconstructing extinct ancestors and establishing the connections and relationships among existing languages.

• What is it that language typologists and historical linguists can help us with?

  Both take a broad view of language that help us understand some of the forces at play in shaping language within an individual's mind and brain. Example: typologists might discover deep similarities that hold across many languages, and historical linguists might identify trends that predict the direction in
  which languages are most likely to change.