Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon

by Jean Aitchison

Words in the Mind deals with words, and how humans learn them, remember them, understand them, and find the ones they want. It discusses the structure and content of the human word-store or ‘mental lexicon, with particular reference to the spoken language of native English speakers.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Psychology, Science

328 pages, Hardcover

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]

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

[Anastasia Tuple]

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]

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]

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

[Matthew]

Fascinating. Highly recommended.

[Daria Vogrin]

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