Introduction

Preview

The first part of this book (chs. 1 to 3) surveys the elements of psycholinguistics. For this purpose it is convenient to think of most types of observable language behaviour as comprising three levels: (a) the language signal, which we shall take to cover all the forms of language expression which are generated and perceived by language users, including writing as well as speech; (b) the neurophysiological activity involved both in the first and the next level; (c) the language system. While the first two levels relate to physical entities, the third is abstract, and may be implemented even when we are not using palpable language signals at all, as in silent verbal reasoning, contemplation of our language, and general language knowledge.

These three levels define the first three chapters. In this first chapter we shall review the properties of the language signal. Since these derive, at least in part, from the operations of our neurophysiological systems, they can help to determine the limits of functioning of those systems. In the second chapter we shall consider aspects of the neurophysiological systems themselves: since they are involved, in some way, in constituting whatever mechanisms subserve language behaviour, a knowledge of them must be a necessary, if not a sufficient, basis for theories of language processing, which we shall deal with in the second part of the book.