Master of Arts - Psycholinguistics

Discover how insights from linguistics help to explain how humans learn, understand and use languages. The University of Essex MA Psycholinguistics provides students with a thorough grounding in research from the perspective of linguistics on human language processing, the representation of language in the brain, and first and second language acquisition.

Students cover the processing and acquisition of sounds, words and sentences, look at different kinds of language disorders, and investigate the relevance of data from human language processing to understanding of the nature of language. Students also learn how to design and conduct experiments, and analyze the results from them.

Researchers are using experimental techniques to understand how children learn language, how adults process language, and what happens when language ability is impaired by brain disorders. Essex combines a wide range of methodologies: corpora, infant behavioural studies at the babylab, response time and eye movement measures for adults.

Students can choose areas of special study including: how words are represented and accessed in the mind, how speakers understand sentences in real time, music, language and the brain, and children’s English. 

Essex's researchers are using experimental techniques to understand how children learn language, how adults process language, and what happens when language ability is impaired by brain disorders. The world-class Psycholinguistics Lab measures how long it takes individuals to react to words, texts and sounds.

Essex is one of the largest and most prestigious language and linguistics departments in the world, a place where talented students become part of an academic community in which the majority of research is rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’. They are also ranked 13th in the UK for Linguistics in the QS World Rankings by Subject (2020).