Psychology of Language and Communication
by Geoffrey Beattie and Andrew Ellis
First published 1986
This wide-ranging introduction to the psychology of human
language use offers a new breadth of approach by breaching conventional
disciplinary boundaries with examples and perspectives drawn from many
subdisciplines - cognitive and social psychology, psycholinguistics,
neuropsychology and sociology. After an exploration of the diverse nature of
communication, using examples throughout the animal kingdom, the authors focus
on the range of human communicative channels, the nature of human language and
the variations occurring between and within societies and cultures. Subsequent
chapters cover speech production as a psycholinguistic skill; the coordination
of verbal and non-verbal channels; the structure and management of
conversations; language perception and comprehension; the cognitive
neuropsychology of language, and the development of communicative skills. The
book also presents an informative and entertaining historical perspective, and
illustrates the fact that insights gained into controversial problems in other
fields and at other times can shed light on many of today's most contentious
debates in psychology.