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Glite Dictionary
psycholinguist

psycholinguist

1 9.3
A person who studies how people learn, use, and understand language and how the brain helps
  • noun
  • /ˌsaɪkoʊˈlɪŋɡwɪst/
  • Specialized
: psicolingüista
  • Psycholinguist Susan Ervin-Tripp studies how children learn their first language.

Examples

  • These things that happen between Mark and Carl are unpleasant and often about Moxie, absurd as that is, because as a young teenager, before he knew he was going to be a famous psycholinguist, Carl used to drink it, thinking it was alcohol and that he was getting drunk.

    Fiction book (1994)

  • "Bad, but not as bad" is a notable thing for a psycholinguist.

    Academic text (2010)

  • One doesn't have to be a psycholinguist to obsess over pronouns.

    Academic text (2010)

  • Or, as the psycholinguist Albert Katz has recently stated, "A good metaphor emphasizes similarity relations and de-emphasizes the dissimilarities" (33), which is something a simile may also do.

    Academic text (2004)

  • A prominent psycholinguist, Stephen Pinker, explores the connection between language and thought.

  • The insights of a psycholinguist can help improve teaching methods for language acquisition.

Surface Forms

psycholinguist singular
psycholinguists plural

Morphology

psycholinguist = linguist (semi-transparent) = psycho + linguist

The word is transparently built with the combining form 'psycho-' plus 'linguist', but the sense is a specialized technical one rather than an everyday meaning.

Etymology

The word psycholinguist combines psycho- meaning 'mind' and linguist meaning 'language expert', like in the word language. So, a psycholinguist studies how the mind understands and uses language.