ABSTRACT
In the most conventional sense, psycholinguistics is a sub-field of psychology dedicated to the study of language behavior and cognition (i.e., mental processes) as observed primarily in the processing of written and spoken language in comprehension and language processing in speech production, and also in first language acquisition and language disorders. Psycholinguistics is closely related to linguistics and the two fields of study overlap to an increasing degree, but there are still subtle differences. Whereas the more humanistic field of linguistics approaches language as a natural phenomenon in its own right and has traditionally relied mostly on introspection and contemplation as methods of research, psycholinguistics sees language more as an instance of cognition and employs experimental methods for its research. Broadly speaking, psycholinguistic data collection methods have included a wide variety ranging from basic pencil-and-paper questionnaires to advanced imaging via fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging), but in the study of bilingualism and second language acquisition, the term psycholinguistics has come to imply the more technologically advanced methods that are common in psycholinguistics research, such as computerized reaction time measures and eye tracking (and also brain-based methods like event-related brain potentials, which are covered by Wood Bowden and Issa, Chapter 14, this volume). Psycholinguistics can thus be conceived of as both a field of study with unique theoretical perspectives and as a set of research tools. The present chapter focuses on the latter, reviewing existing research on online language processing among heritage Spanish bilinguals and placing particular emphasis on the specific methodologies used in psycholinguistic research. This first section of the chapter introduces the fundamental concepts of language processing and the classification of some research methods as online, and also provides basic descriptions of four specific research methods that have been or will likely be employed in the study of Spanish as a heritage language (SHL).
