LANGUAGE AND ITS NORMAL PROCESSING. Vivien C.Tartter. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 1998. Pp. xvii + 550. $89.95 cloth, $49.95paper.

Abstract

Scholars in the multidisciplinary fields of language studies will benefit from acquiring Language and Its Normal Processingby Vivien Tartter. The volume, which functions well as a textbook or reference book, contains chapters incorporating basic concepts, themes, trends, and controversies in psycholinguistics. One of the author's principal interests in writing the book (and for us to read the book) is to “communicate the fun and excitement . . . in psycholinguistic research” (p. xv). The author successfully synthesizes research on a variety of topics: meaning and meaning processing; syntax and sentence processing; speech and its perception and production; as well as presentations on sociolinguistics; first and second language acquisition, and multilingualism; and the psychology of reading and writing printed text.