Study of Speech Processes - Addressing the Writing Bias in Language Science

By upending traditional perspectives, this book gives a biologically-grounded understanding of how spoken language conveys meaning.

List of contents

Part I. Questions of Ontology: Writing and the Speech-Language Divide; 1. How we are Introduced to the Study of Spoken Language; 2. The Modality-Independence Argument and Storylines of the Origin of Symbolic Language; 3. The Recent History of Attempts to Ground Orthographic Concepts of Language Theory; Part II. Questions of Epistemology: The Role of Instrumental Observations; 4. Recognizing the Bias; 5. (Re-) Defining the Writing Bias, and the Essential Role of Instrumental Invalidation; Part III. The Structure of Speech Acts: 6. Utterances as Communicative Acts; 7. Relating to Basic Units: Syllable-Like Cycles; 8. Relating Neural Oscillations to Syllable Cycles and Chunks; 9. Breath-Units of Speech and their Structural Effects; Part IV. The Processing of Speech Meaning: 10. The Neural Coding of Semantics; 11. Processes of Utterance Interpretation: For a Neuropragmatics; Index.

About the author

Victor J. Boucher is Senior Researcher and Professor of Speech Sciences at the Université de Montréal. His career work on the physiological processes of speech have led him to view human language as arising from constraints on motor-sensory systems and to a critical reappraisal of methods of language study.

Summary

The assumption that language derives from a mental capacity to assemble words into sentences is changing. Through an appraisal of the bias towards using writing to analyse speech, and a demonstration of how speech acts are studied using instrumental records, this book shows how observable structures present in all languages convey meaning.

Product details

• Authors: Victor J. Boucher, Victor J. (Universite De Montreal) Boucher
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press ELT
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 30.06.2023
• EAN: 9781316636343
• ISBN: 978-1-316-63634-3
• No. of pages: 328
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative linguistics; Philosophy of Language, Linguistics, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Sociolinguistics, PSYCHOLOGY / General, PHILOSOPHY / Language, Psychology, LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General, Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, Phonetics, phonology, Psycholinguistics and cognitive linguistics