Psycholinguistique, cognition, communication

Résumé (en anglais)

The article presents the history of psycholinguistic since its birth in the United States in 1951 until today. The author describes the first three waves of psycholinguistics – the stimulus-response theory based on behaviourism and structuralism, the second wave inspired by Chomsky's generative grammar and the constructivist psycholinguistics inspired by Piaget's works – as well as the way in which these theories have influenced language teaching. Then, she examines J. Bronckart's autonomous psycholinguistic model, derived from Piaget's psycholinguistics and inspired by Culioli's linguistic theory, which she considers a landmark for this field and a condition for its viability. Finally, the author describes Tatiana Slama-Cazacu's dynamic contextual theory according to which the object of psycholinguistics is the real act of human communication materialized in a code including several levels and influenced by the context. In conclusion, the author reviews the reasons why present psycholinguistics faces difficulties in defining its true object and expresses the opinion that the specificity of this science resides in its experimental method thanks to which psycholinguistics can provide principles and techniques applicable in learning the mother tongue, as well as foreign languages. The article is completed by a glossary of terms used in psycholinguistics and by a guiding bibliography in the field.