Objective: To review the results of study on the application of transcranial magnetic stimulation(TMS) in neural language processing, and investigate whether TMS can be used as an effective method for study of neural language processing. Data sources: An online search of Medline database was undertaken to identify articles about TMS published from January 1985 to January 2004, besides more than 6 kinds of journals abroad were searched manually, the keywords were "transcranial magnetic stimulation, language or speech" with language limited to English. Meanwhile, relevant Chinese articles were searched in Wanfang database with computer by using the keywords of "transcranial magnetic stimulation, plasticity of the brain" published between January 2001 and August 2004. Study selection: Papers about the application of TMS in neural language processing were selected, while those with obvious incorrect scientific research design and the reviews were excluded. Data extraction: Relevant information in the articles about the application of TMS in neural language processing was reviewed. Data synthesis: The collected papers were analyzed and synthesized, and it was suggested that the linguistic processing was very complex, and the language processing was composed by a lot of components such as reading, handwriting, naming, syntax and so on. TMS could cause the transient functional changes in the region of cortex, which can influence the special ongoing neural language processing during linguistic processing. Conclusion: TMS is a new and promising tool for investigating neural language processing. But how to study the precise mechanism of the linguistic processing by TMS may require further development.