PS: Introduction to Psycholinguistics

Winter Term 2005/06 Instructor: Daniel Wiechmann Office hours: Mon 2-3 pm Email: [email protected]

Phone: 03641-944534 Web: www.daniel-wiechmann.net

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 Course requirements  Come to class prepared, and participate  Short oral presentation (max 15 min)  Short homework assignments asking you to discuss (some aspect of) a paper  (Empirical) term paper (roughly 15 pages)  Deadline submission (2 weeks before SS 2006)

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 Prerequisites for admission to term paper  You must not miss more than two sessions  You must prepare an outline for you term paper until session 13

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 Materials respective master copies of the relevant readings can be found at my office door (R 606) [please copy all of them asap, since they tend to get lost over time] files for this course, i.e., e.g., ‘Power Point’-presentations that have been used in class can be downloaded from

http://www.db-thueringen.de/content/top/index.xml

(search term: ‘Psycholinguistics’ or simply use my name)

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 Aim of the course  Introduce you to some central issues in psycholinguistics  Familiarize you with the principles of empircal research and experimental design (in order to help you conduct your own research/ term paper)

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 You know that this course is NOT right for you if...

 ...you cannot afford spending a lot of time on this course cause there is so much you have to do this term.

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 You know that this course IS right for you if...

 ...you are not afraid of thourough reading and are willing to invest some time in what really is a interesting research enterprise.

 ...you already have an interest in the philosophy of mind or the cognitive sciences and would like to know what liguistics can contribute to that matter

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 What will we be doing?

 (a little bit of) historical background on  Psycholinguistics  Cognitive science in general

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 Block 1: Theoretical issues   What are the processes involved in producing and understanding language?

Do processes in language operate independently or interact (modularity)?

    What is innate about language?

Do we need specific rules for language processing? (linguistic theory vs psycholinguistic theory) What can studies from brain damage tell us?

[...]

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 Block 2: Methodological block: We will...

 ...think (a little) about what empirical science is all about  ...have a look at some set of experimental methods that you could apply in your own studies (sentence completion, sentence production, forced choice, etc...)  ...have a closer look at proper experimental design (ratio test items/filler items,...)

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 Block 3: A glimpse into prior emprical research  We will have a look at a selected set of experimental studies, which can be used as a structural template for your term papers  Structure of a term paper:  Introduction  Method   Results Discussion  Conclusion

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 Block D: Projects  Presentation of outlines of your term papers  At this point it is required that you have already collected the necessary data  Discussion