Psycholinguistic Methods in Second Language Research

The study of psycholinguistics investigates the mechanisms that underlie language comprehension and language production. The research methods used in psycholinguistics aim to capture processing as an individual is actively engaged in either understanding or producing language. These kinds of techniques are referred to as on-line methods. This chapter presents a review of some of the most commonly used techniques for investigating how language processing unfolds in real time in adult second language learners. During a self-paced reading experiment, text is segmented into either words or phrases, which are displayed one at a time on a computer screen. Self-paced reading experiments can be implemented in any experimental software. During eye-tracking, an individual's eye gaze is recorded via camera while reading text or viewing visual scenes while listening to language, as in the visual world paradigm.