Psycholinguistics

noun

noun ·Rare ·Advanced level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    The interdisciplinary field of study which concerns the acquisition, comprehension and production of language in its spoken, written and signed forms, using concepts and approaches from linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. uncountable

    "Psycholinguistics is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind and brain: i.e., the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, comprehend, produce and use language."

  2. 2
    the branch of cognitive psychology that studies the psychological basis of linguistic competence and performance wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
derivationetymologyglossematicsgrammarlexicologylinguistics

Example

More examples

"Psycholinguistics is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind and brain: i.e., the psychological and neurobiological factors that enable humans to acquire, comprehend, produce and use language."

Etymology

From psycho- + linguistics.

Related phrases

developmental psycholinguistics

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.