Psycholinguistics

Psycholinguistics, a recent branch of linguistics developed in the sixties, is the study of interrelationship of psychology and linguistic behaviour. According to, Microsoft Encarta 2007,

‘‘Psycholinguistics is the interdisciplinary study of the mental process involved in language acquisition, production, and comprehension.’’

Longman Dictionary of Applied linguistics 1985, defines psycholinguistics as

‘‘the study of (a)mental process that a person uses in producing and understanding language, and (b)how human learn language.’’

  

‘‘Psycholinguistics includes the study of SPEECH PERCEPTION, the role of MEMORY, CONCEPTS and other processes in language use, and how social and psychological factors affect the use of language’’.

        However only psycholinguistics and sociolinguistics are not enough to acquire a language; we need communicative competence too. Indeed, psycholinguistics emphasizes on dealing with language and mind, in acquiring a language with individuals while sociolinguistics gives emphasis on dealing with language and social aspects.