Eva M. Fernándezis Associate Professor at Queens College, City University of New York. She is also affiliated with the CUNY Graduate Center's Programs in Linguistics and in Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Languages, and currently directs Queens College’s Center for Teaching and Learning.   Helen Smith Cairnsis Professor Emerita at Queens College, City University of New York. She is affiliated with the CUNY Graduate Programs in Linguistics and in Speech, Language, and Hearing Sciences. Her research and scholarship are in the areas of adult sentence processing and first language acquisition in children.

• List of Figures. List of Tables.Prologue.1. Beginning Concepts.2. The Nature of Linguistic Competence.3. The Biological Basis of Language.4. The Acquisition of Language.5. The Speaker: Producing Speech.6. The Hearer: Speech Perception and Lexical Access.7. The Hearer: Structural Processing.8. Remembering Sentences, Processing Discourse, and Having Conversations.Epilogue. Appendix: Experimental Designs in Psycholinguistics.References.Name Index.Subject Index.

"It provides a wide-ranging, clearly written and organised introduction to many aspects of the field of psycholinguistics. It also encourages the reader to consider partaking in experimental psycholinguistics as much as theoretical study." (Linguist, 15 June 2011) "The strengths of the book are many: its attention to monolingual and bilingual contexts, its clear explanation of methodology and its selection of key illustrated studies." (Times Higher Education Supplement, 4 November 2010)"It is an ideal text for undergraduates taking a first course in the study of language." (Forbes.com, 2 November 2010)