Editing Psycholinguistics (section)

===Language production===
{{Main|Language production}}

Language production refers to how people produce language, either in written or spoken form, in a way that conveys meanings comprehensible to others. One of the most effective ways to explain the way people represent meanings using rule-governed languages is by observing and analyzing instances of [[speech errors]], which include speech disfluencies like false starts, repetition, reformulation and constant pauses in between words or sentences, as well as slips of the tongue, like-blendings, substitutions, exchanges (e.g. [[Spoonerism]]), and various pronunciation errors.

These speech errors have significant implications for understanding how language is produced, in that they reflect that:<ref>{{cite book | editor-last=Fromkin | editor-first=Victoria A. | title=Speech Errors as Linguistic Evidence | publisher=De Gruyter | date=31 December 1984 | isbn=978-90-279-2668-5 | doi=10.1515/9783110888423}}</ref>
# Speech is not planned in advance: speech errors such as substitution and exchanges show that one does not plan their entire sentence before they speak. Rather, their language faculty is constantly tapped during the speech production process. This is accounted for by the limitation of working memory. In particular, errors involving exchanges imply that one plans one's sentence ahead but only with regard to its significant ideas (e.g. the words that constitute the core meaning) and only to a certain extent.
# Lexicon is organized semantically and phonologically: substitution and pronunciation errors show that lexicon is organized not only by its meaning, but also its form.
# Morphologically complex words are assembled: errors involving blending within a word reflect that there seems to be a rule governing the construction of words in production (and also likely in mental lexicon). In other words, speakers generate the morphologically complex words by merging morphemes rather than retrieving them as chunks.

It is useful to differentiate between three separate phases of language production:<ref name="Psycholinguistics">{{cite book|last=Harley|first=Trevor A.|title=Psycholinguistics|date=2011|publisher=SAGE|isbn=9781446263013|location=Los Angeles, Calif.|oclc=846651282|name-list-style=vanc}}</ref>

# conceptualization: "determining what to say"; 
# formulation: "translating the intention to say something into linguistic form";
# execution: "the detailed articulatory planning and articulation itself".

Psycholinguistic research has largely concerned itself with the study of formulation because the conceptualization phase remains largely elusive and mysterious.<ref name="Psycholinguistics" />