Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon

by Jean Aitchison

Featuring new coverage of the brain and language, and lexical corpora, the 4th edition of Words in the Mind offers readers the latest thinking about the ways in which we learn words, remember them, understand them, and find the ones we want to use.  

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Psychology, Science

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Jean Aitchison is a Professor of Language and Communication in the Faculty of English Language and Literature at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Worcester College, Oxford.

Her main areas of interest include:

Socio-historical linguistics
Language and mind
Language and the media

Reviews

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting content, but somewhat dry and biased in its representation, IMHO.

[Anastasia Tuple · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book seems a perfect introduction to linguistics and psycholinguistics for an undergraduate or a layman who is interested in language; however, it was too much of a slow-burner for me. I grew particularly impatient with all the literature excerpts scattered around every other page...

[Minerva · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very interesting!
All about how words are stored in the brain.
I found it easy to understand with nice summaries after each chapter. It was just the right amount of detail for me, and things were explained well with nice drawings or analogies.
It actually made me laugh at some parts too (yes, I’m immature but c’mon? “the lick-ability of breasts?”)

[Jeremy Ullman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuelled my linguistic fire for a while. I've since recommended it to a handful of people. Would revisit down the line.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating. Highly recommended.

[Daria Vogrin · Rating 2 out of 5]

badly written. shame, as the topic's really interesting.