Psychology of Language

Reviewed by Katherine Martin, Associate Professor, Southern Illinois University Carbondale on 3/20/25

Comprehensiveness rating: 3 see less

In a broad sense, most of the chapters in this book cover topics that are core for any text in psycholinguistics, including the basics of linguistic structure, the biological basis of language, bilingual language, spoken language production, and reading. However, there is a surprisingly heavy emphasis on linguistic structure (almost 20% of the book) and much less coverage of actual topics in psycholinguistics (and the surprising appearance of other topics that are not really core to psycholinguistics). For example, there is no coverage speech perception, but there are chapters on language families and pidgins and creoles. There was also a surprising amount of detail on the structure of written language itself (not actually on the processing of written language); although this is an interesting topic that is often ignored in linguistics, it felt a little out of place in a book on psycholinguistics. The coverage of material within chapters is also somewhat uneven; for example, the chapter on research methods in psycholinguistics is heavily focused on neuroimaging techniques without even a mention of behavioral tasks such as priming or lexical decision, and the chapter on speech production focuses very heavily on outlining various models of speech production and relatively little on what we "know" about speech production aside from theoretical models. Finally, there are no chapters on pragmatics or discourse comprehension, or on "bonus" topics often found in psycholinguistics texts, such as language disorders.

Content Accuracy rating: 4

In general I found the content to be largely accurate, though I would quibble a bit with the way certain details were described or examples given. To give just a couple related examples, in the chapter introduced language sounds, I found the definition of "phonology" (given as "the description of sounds in terms of how they are produced") to be a bit odd - I would think this is a better description of articulatory phonetics rather than phonology. When describing the various allophones of /t/ in English, the final /t/ in 'sit' is described as unaspirated, but I think this is more likely to be an example of an unreleased allophone. There were also places where the superscript needed to indicate aspiration (rather than just a letter 'h') was not implemented, likely leading to confusion.

Relevance/Longevity rating: 4

The book largely presents big picture ideas rather than focusing on specific research findings or trying to highlight the most recent developments, and as a result the content feels largely timeless. There is nothing that feels out of date and I don't feel that the content is likely to go out of date quickly or easily either, though the lack of focus on new developments does mean that students get a somewhat more limited picture of the field.

Clarity rating: 3

For much of the book the prose is straightforward and relatively easy to understand, though I did regularly encounter sentences that I felt were hard to parse, or descriptions that I felt were a little difficult to understand (see my comments regarding accuracy above). This would pop up perhaps once or twice a chapter, though it is worth noting that many of the chapters are short, often only 2-3 pages in length (although this was quite uneven across the book). The greatest issue here for me was what felt like very uneven coverage of material, which ended up feeling like the text jumped around or was incomplete in a number of places.

Consistency rating: 5

I generally found no issues with consistency, either internally or with existing research or frameworks, aside from the more general issues regarding lack of clarity or precision in descriptions which I have mentioned above.

Modularity rating: 5

This book does well in the area of modularity. The chapters largely do not depend on one another and can generally be read in any order depending on an instructor's needs, though of course covering the chapters on linguistic structure early (which is where they occur sequentially within the book) facilitates understanding of some later content, such as discussion of specific speech errors.

Organization/Structure/Flow rating: 3

In a broad sense I felt that the organization of this book was logical, though there were things that stood out to me as a bit odd. The very first chapter, "Speaking in Tongues", felt like it was a bit of a hodgepodge with chapters on language change, language families, and psycholinguistic research methods - some topics that are not particularly central to psycholinguistics, and some material (e.g., research methods) that got quite technical very early on. The placement of the chapters covering linguistic structure came early (this was primarily chapters two and three), and I felt this was appropriate placement. The chapter on the biological basis of language, chapter four, was okay where it was but also could be argued to fit better earlier on, before getting into the details of linguistic structure. Chapter five was titled "Learning to Speak", but this only had two sections, the first of which ("Language Development") was very focused on describing the Skinner vs. Chomsky debate and thus may have fit better in the preceding chapter; the second covered pidgins and creoles, which is not a common topic in psycholinguistics texts but might have fit better in the following chapter on bilingualism. The topic of models of reading appeared in two different chapters and may have been more effectively combined together, and the chapter on speaking was left to the very end - a bit unusual, given that this topic is typically a primary emphasis in psycholinguistics texts and occurs much earlier (as well as being more elaborated).

Interface rating: 4

I read the book primarily in a downloaded .pdf format and encountered few issues with this interface. In places where there were interactive elements in the online version, the downloaded .pdf provided an active hyperlink to navigate directly to the relevant section in the online version to take advantage of the interactive elements (these were often practice activities). If a reader was not able to access the online version for any reason, a printed version of the same activity was still provided in the .pdf underneath the hyperlink, so a reader would not completely miss out on the material - this was a nice feature. Although these elements appeared in various places throughout the book, I thought they were an excellent addition and would have liked to see even more of them. I did note one issue with an interactive element: in the section on the phonetic alphabet, there were links to play audio for the various sounds but these audio files were not web-based and required a download (either from the .pdf or even when accessing the online version of the book) and then had to be played in a separate media player of some type, which is not ideal for ease of use.

Grammatical Errors rating: 3

Unfortunately I repeatedly noticed typos and issues with grammar throughout the book. There would be a chapter or two with no issues, followed by a chapter with multiple problems on a single page, so it seems as if the editing may have been a bit inconsistent. Generally, although these typos are noticeable and distracting, they did not severely impair my understanding.

Cultural Relevance rating: 5

I found no issues regarding cultural insensitivity or offensive content. It may be worth noting for some readers that there is a clear focus on the Canadian context in the book, for example with Canadian English and French being highlighted in the chapter on sound systems and Indigenous/First Nations languages emphasized in the section on language families.