DOCSLIB.ORG

What Is the Relationship Between Language Production and Comprehension?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
What Is the Relationship Between Language Production and Comprehension? Journal of Memory and Language 89 (2016) 1–7 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Memory and Language journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jml Editorial Same, different, or closely related: What is the relationship between language production and comprehension? The historical tradition in psycholinguistics has largely became a hot issue through Lee’s (1950) discovery of the been to study either language production or comprehen- delayed auditory feedback (DAF) effect. When you hear your sion. Almost all of nineteenth century psycholinguistics, own speech delayed by some 150 ms, speech fluency dra- for instance, concerned the production of language, culmi- matically breaks down. Based on these observations, Lee nating in Wundt’s two-volume Die Sprache of 1900. This designed an engineering model of self-monitoring, which also held for research in language acquisition which, lar- required feedback to take place within the syllable being gely based on diary data, almost exclusively concerned spoken. the child’s production of speech until Eimas, Siqueland, Almost simultaneously, Broadbent (1952) demon- Jusczyk, and Vigorito (1971) introduced the experimental strated that participants were unable to understand a study of speech perception in infants. During the 1970s new question while answering a previous question. Atten- psycholinguistics became almost exclusively comprehen- tion can focus on one or the other task, but not on both sion research. Johnson-Laird opened his review of experi- simultaneously. This insight led to Broadbent’s famous fil- mental psycholinguistics in the 1974 Annual Review of ter model of selective attention. The issue kept returning in Psychology with the statement: ‘‘The fundamental problem psycholinguistics. If we cannot simultaneously focus atten- of psycholinguistics is simple to formulate: what happens tion on listening to speech and producing it, these pro- if we understand sentences?” Production research long cesses must involve access to the same processing remained an island of (quite sophisticated) speech error resources. Which resources are involved here? Kempen and hesitation analysis. But also when during the 1980s (2000; see also Kempen, Olsthoorn, & Sprenger, 2012) and 1990s the research agenda became more balanced argued that these are grammatical unification processes, between comprehension and production research, the which are shared in grammatical encoding and decoding. two fields developed largely independently. Historically Where these processes happen to be identical, concurrent only a small set of studies have explicitly addressed the listening and speaking is indeed possible, as demonstrated issue of relations between these two skills of the language in Marslen-Wilson’s (1973) studies of close shadowing. user. These studies are briefly surveyed below. Scholars have often observed that relations between Relations between production and comprehension were comprehension and production are affected by adaptation often invoked as causes of language change. Bredsdorff and learning. Levelt (2014) provides many examples. (1821,1886) mentioned mishearing, misunderstanding, or Wundt (1900, vol. I, p. 476), for instance, discusses the misrecollection of sounds as potential causes of sound adaptations in L2 or dialect perception to native articula- change in the speaker. Also indolence of the speaker would tion: ‘‘each [perceived] speech sound is a complex in which affect articulation and hence the sound patterns perceived one’s own articulatory experience takes part”. Conversely, by the listener, a view with which others, in particular it is an almost universal assumption in nineteenth century Wundt (1900), concurred. and in behaviorist twentieth century acquisition theory An important nineteenth century theory invoking the that the child exclusively learns by imitation. Perception interaction of production and perception of speech is leads production. Exceptions were noticed though. For Wernicke’s (1874) theory of self-monitoring in speech. Dur- instance, in the infant’s babbling spontaneous production ing speech the sensory speech center is actively involved in takes the lead, as authors such as Preyer (1882) and controlling whether the spoken words match stored sound Tracy and Stimpfl (1894,1909) argued. Wundt (1900) images. When the system breaks down, as in conduction agrees, but dismisses claims by Darwin (1877), Taine aphasia, paraphasias will occur. Self-monitoring in speech (1876), and Preyer (1882) that the child can also invent http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.03.002 0749-596X/Ó 2016 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 2 Editorial / Journal of Memory and Language 89 (2016) 1–7 new words: ‘‘After all, children’s speech is a product of the Proposals for the architecture of the language user’s child’s environment, in which the child itself is, essentially, conceptual base emerged in the artificial intelligence only passively involved.” (Vol. I, p. 296). Behaviorist Kantor world, for instance in work by Schank (1972) and (1936) considered the listener as a ‘‘stimulus” to which the Winograd (1972). These proposals often included sketches speaker ‘‘adjusts”. The mechanism underlying this adjust- of parsers mapping input sentences onto conceptual struc- ment however remains in the dark. tures, for which Wood’s (1970) augmented transition net- The discussion of relations between comprehending work (ATN) was an attractive formalism because it and producing language took a new turn following the acknowledged the incrementality of sentence parsing and ‘‘cognitive revolution” (see Levelt, 1974/2008, Vol III for a because the conditions on transitions in the network can detailed review). The premise that language users are be syntactic, semantic, or conceptual. However, no speaker endowed with linguistic ‘‘competence”, a generative gram- models worth mentioning were proposed. The mostly tacit mar of their language, raised the question how that gram- assumption was that speaking and listening involved a mar was implemented in ‘‘performance”, in particular in shared conceptual base. Interactions between the two speaking and listening. The initial idea was that linguistic modes of language use were hardly considered. rules match one-to-one to parsing operations in the lis- That was quite different in the domain of phonetics tener and generative operations in the speaker. This where, since the 1950s, efforts emerged to incorporate ‘‘derivational theory of complexity” was at the basis of articulatory representations into phonetic models of Matthews’s (1962) analysis-by-synthesis model, where speech perception. As Liberman (1957) put it: ‘‘speech is the listener generates structures till a matching one is perceived by reference to articulation” (p. 122). This had found, and of Yngve’s (1961) ‘‘depth hypothesis”, where a already been suggested by Stetson (1951). Stevens (1960) sentence’s complexity for the speaker/listener depends proposed a schematic ‘‘analysis-by-synthesis” model of on the maximum number of phrase structure nodes that speech perception in which the ‘‘spectral representation” have to be put on hold when generating or parsing the sen- auditorily derived from the speech signal is converted into tence. This version of the derivational theory was soon an articulatory description, whose ‘‘active synthesis” yields replaced by the so-called ‘‘coding hypothesis”, first formu- a matching spectral representation. Liberman’s life’s work lated by Mehler (1963). When you listen to or memorize a was to develop and experimentally test his version of this sentence you recode its surface form as deep structure plus analysis-by-synthesis approach, the ‘‘motor theory of transformations (such as ‘‘passive” or ‘‘negative”). Repro- speech perception”, fully reviewed in Liberman (1996). Lis- ducing the sentence is going back from deep to surface teners map the acoustic signal onto the articulatory move- structure. These are ‘‘psychologically real” linguistic struc- ments that could have produced the signal and from there tures, identical for comprehension and production. The onto the intended gestural pattern. complexity of mapping surface structure onto deep struc- Speech perception affecting speech production has ture or inversely is a function of the number of transforma- been a recurrent theme in the history of psycholinguis- tions involved. A declarative sentence is easier to produce tics. Meringer and Mayer (1895) already defined a cate- or understand than a passive one, which is harder than a gory of ‘‘extraneous intrusions” in their analysis of slips passive negative one. Hence transformations are ‘‘psycho- of the tongue. A word just heard or seen could erro- logically real” in both comprehension and production. A neously intrude into the utterance a speaker was plan- flurry of experiments followed. ning, an observation time and again reconfirmed in However, this transformational version of derivational modern speech error research. Garrett (1980) called them complexity also had to be abandoned. Fodor and Garrett ‘‘environmental contaminants”. A similar phenomenon (1967) proposed to keep the coding hypothesis, i.e., the was observed by conversational analysts. Schenkein surface/deep structure mapping by the listener, but to for- (1980) discussed a wealth of cases in which a word or get about transformational complexity. The aim should phrase is repeated in immediately adjacent turns, such rather be to find out which cues in the surface structure as Does that sound wrong? – It sounds
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Pervasive Role of Pragmatics in Early Language
    The pervasive role of pragmatics in early language Manuel Bohn Department of Psychology, Stanford University, Leipzig Research Center for Early Child Development, Leipzig University https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6006-1348 Michael C. Frank Department of Psychology, Stanford University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7551-4378 Short Title: Pragmatics in early language ​ Author’s Note: We thank Erica Yoon and Bahar Köymen for comments on an earlier version of ​ this paper. MB received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 749229. MCF received funding from the Jacobs Foundation Research Fellowship program. Please address correspondence to [email protected]. 1 Abstract Language is a fundamentally social endeavor. Pragmatics is the study of how speakers and listeners use social reasoning to go beyond the literal meanings of words to interpret language in context. In this review, we take a pragmatic perspective on language development and argue for developmental continuity between early non-verbal communication, language learning, and linguistic pragmatics. We link phenomena from these different literatures by relating them to a computational framework (the rational speech act framework), which conceptualizes communication as fundamentally inferential and grounded in social cognition. The model specifies how different information sources (linguistic utterances, social cues, common ground) are combined when making pragmatic inferences. We present evidence in favor of this inferential view and review how pragmatic reasoning supports children’s learning, comprehension, and use of language. Keywords: Language development; Social cognition; Pragmatics; Computational modeling; ​ Communication 2 Introduction From a toddler pointing at a toy and saying “dat!” all the way to a lukewarm letter of recommendation, human beings use language to communicate an infinite range of meanings both flexibly and efficiently.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 15 Second Language Acquisition
    Chapter 15 Second Language Acquisition Dorothy Chun and Jan Frodesen Key Terms • Automaticity • Communicative competence • Critical period hypothesis • Interaction hypothesis • Interlanguage • Nativist theories of SLA • Sociocultural theories of SLA Chapter Preview As we have seen in earlier chapters, language is a complex array of many different components, ranging from individual sounds to whether a particular utterance or sentence is appropriate in a given situation or culture. In this chapter we will look at the issues involved in learning or acquiring a second language as an adolescent or adult learner. The main question with regard to second language acquisition (SLA) is: Why do people acquire a first language with little conscious effort while it is so difficult to master all of the aspects of a second language and speak it like a native speaker? This chapter will first discuss the main linguistic issues with regard to how second languages are acquired (e.g., phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon/vocabulary, pragmatics). It will then describe some of the influences from the field of psychology on the study of second language acquisition and will examine the cognitive processes that differ between first-language (L1) and second-language (L2) learning. Thirdly, the chapter will consider how social and affective issues of L2 learning have come to the forefront in the last decade of the 20th century and into the 21st century. Finally, interspersed throughout the chapter are discussions of the 1 relationship between current knowledge about how second languages are acquired and the practice of language teaching, including some of the current issues in language teaching, especially those arising from increased globalization.
    [Show full text]
  • 1 the Origins of Language
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-49945-3 — The Study of Language George Yule Excerpt More Information 1 The Origins of Language The first person to set foot on the continent of Australia was a woman named Warramurrungunji. She emerged from the sea onto an island off northern Australia, and then headed inland, creating children and putting each one in a specific place. As she moved across the landscape, Warramurrungunji told each child, “I am putting you here. This is the language you should talk! This is your language!” Erard (2016) This origin story from the Iwaidja people of Australia, illustrated in the painting above, offers an explanation of not only where language came from, but also why there are so many different languages. Among the English-speaking people, there have been multiple attempts to provide a comparable explanation, but not much proof to support any of them. Instead of a belief in a single mythical earth mother, we have a variety of possible beliefs, all fairly speculative. We simply don’t have a definitive answer to the question of how language originated. We do know that the ability to produce sound and simple vocal patterning (a hum versus a grunt, for example) appears to be in an ancient part of the brain that we share with all vertebrates, including fish, frogs, birds and other mammals. But that isn’t human language. We suspect that some type of spoken language must have developed between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, well before written language (about 5,000 years ago).
    [Show full text]
  • Phd Handbook in Linguistics
    The PhD program in Linguistics Table of Contents The PhD program in Linguistics 2 Graduate work in the Department of Linguistics 2 Graduate Courses in Linguistics 3 Graduate Introductory courses (400-level) 3 Graduate Core courses (400-level) 4 Advanced Graduate Courses (500-level) 4 Linguistics Requirements for PhD students 5 Planning the PhD degree program of study 5 Pre-Qualifying 5 Qualifying for Advancement to Candidacy for PhD students 5 Timing 6 Teaching Assistantships 6 Sample Schedules for a Linguistics PhD 7 Sample Linguistics and Brain and Cognitive Sciences schedule 7 Sample Linguistics and Computer Science (LIN/CS) schedule. 8 Course Descriptions 9 Linguistics 9 Relevant Brain and Cognitive Science Graduate Courses 14 Relevant Computer Science Graduate Courses 16 1 The PhD program in Linguistics The PhD program in Linguistics The Department of Linguistics at the University of Rochester offers a fully-funded five year PhD program in Linguistics, focusing on cross-disciplinary training and collaboration. Students in this program have a primary affiliation in Linguistics, with secondary affiliation in an allied department. At Rochester, cross-disciplinary, collaborative work is the norm. The Linguistics faculty are grounded in the traditional fields of formal linguistics, employing empirical methodologies to examine data and topics in experimental syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics, laboratory phonology, and morphology in collaboration with faculty and students in allied fields. Our work incorporates contemporary issues and practices in these areas. Our principal allied fields are Brain and Cognitive Sciences and Computer Science, but we also have strong connections in related departments, such as Biomedical Engineering and departments at the Eastman School of Music.
    [Show full text]
  • 21 Chapter I Language Production 1.1 Introduction in This Chapter It Will Be
    Chapter I Language production 1.1 Introduction In this chapter it will be seen that both models of L1 production as well as accounts of L2 production can shed light on what happens with L2 performance. In particular, this chapter will aim to provide an answer to the following four questions: i) How is language produced? ii) How does L2 production differ from L1 production? iii) How do attention and memory mediate L2 production and development? iv) How can engaging in production potentially lead to second language development? In order to understand how L2 production works we first need to understand how L1 operates, and so L1 production will be considered in the first part of this chapter. Levelt’s (1989) L1 production model will be used as the main reference. Special emphasis will be placed on the areas of message generation, retrieval of lexical items, message formulation, and self-monitoring, with only a more limited consideration of articulation and speech comprehension. In the second part of the chapter, from a number of accounts of L2 production, those aspects that distinguish 21 it from L1 production will be pointed out, and lexical access, grammatical encoding, and self-monitoring will receive special attention. After that, the underlying constructs of attention and memory will be discussed. Regarding attention, the ideas of limited resources, selection, and capacity will be outlined, and the aspects most directly related to production will be underlined. The architecture and processes of memory will be presented, and the distinction between working memory (WM) and long-term memory (LTM) will be established.
    [Show full text]
  • Production Methods in Language Acquisition Research Sonja
    View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of Essex Research Repository Production methods in language acquisition research Sonja Eisenbeiss 1. Introduction Collecting and analyzing samples of spoken speech from learners has played a central role in acquisition research since its beginnings. Initially, such speech samples were mostly collected in naturalistic settings, where researchers recorded learners in spontaneous interactions with family members, friends or researchers. Many of these naturalistic or spontaneous speech samples are now freely available, typically in written form, i.e. as transcripts; and they continue to be used by (psycho)linguists with a wide range of research interests. Since the 1950s, acquisition researchers have supplemented naturalistic speech samples with production experiments. In these experiments, researchers systematically manipulate one or more variables and measure whether any changes with respect to these variables affect speakers‟ behavior. Other researchers have developed semi-structured elicitation techniques: they keep the communicative situation as natural as possible, but use interviewing techniques, videos or games to encourage the production of rich and comparable speech samples. In the following, I will discuss the rationale of naturalistic speech sampling, production experiments and semi-structured elicitation and show for which phenomena and learner types they are typically used. I will also give a brief overview of data collection and analysis procedures and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of different production methods. 2. Naturalistic studies 2.1 Rationale In naturalistic studies, researchers only interfere by audio/video-recording learners and other participants – sometimes without them even knowing that they are being recorded.
    [Show full text]
  • Neurolinguistics
    Neurolinguistics 1 What is neurolinguistics? Neurolinguistics studies the relation of language and communication to different aspects of brain function, i.e. it tries to explore how the brain understands and produces language and communication. This involves attempting to combine theory from neurology/neurophysiology (how the brain is structured and how it functions) with linguistic theory (how language is structured and how it functions). • "human language or communication (speech, hearing, reading, writing, or non-verbal modalities) related to any aspect of the brain or brain function" (Brain and Language: "Description") • The common problem area of relating aspects of language or communication to brain function in this dynamic formulation, is stated as a common question by Luria in "Basic problems in neurolinguistics": • "what are the real processes of formation of verbal communication and its comprehension, and what are the components of these processes and the conditions under which they take place" • (Luria, 1976, p.3) Interdisciplinary enterprise • linguistics,neuroanatomy, neurology, neurophysiology, philosophy, psychology, psychiatry, speech pathology and computer science, neurobiology, anthropology, chemistry, cognitive science and artificial intelligence. • Thus, the humanities, as well as medical, natural and social sciences, as well as technology are represented. Different views on the relation between brain and language • Localism tries to find locations or centers in the brain for different language functions. Associationism places language functions in the connections between different areas of the brain, making it possible to associate, for example, perceptions of different senses with words and/or “concepts”. • Dynamic localization of function assumes that functional systems of localized sub-functions perform language functions. Such systems are dynamic, so that they can be reorganized during language development or after a brain damage.
    [Show full text]
  • Phonetic Encoding in Utterance Production: a Review of Open Issues from 1989 to 2018
    Language, Cognition and Neuroscience ISSN: 2327-3798 (Print) 2327-3801 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/plcp21 Phonetic encoding in utterance production: a review of open issues from 1989 to 2018 Marina Laganaro To cite this article: Marina Laganaro (2019) Phonetic encoding in utterance production: a review of open issues from 1989 to 2018, Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 34:9, 1193-1201, DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2019.1599128 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1599128 Published online: 01 Apr 2019. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 349 View related articles View Crossmark data Citing articles: 5 View citing articles Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=plcp21 LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 2019, VOL. 34, NO. 9, 1193–1201 https://doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2019.1599128 REVIEW ARTICLE Phonetic encoding in utterance production: a review of open issues from 1989 to 2018 Marina Laganaro Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, University of Geneva ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY Phonetic encoding refers to the mapping of an abstract linguistic code of the utterance into motor Received 15 October 2018 programmes which guide speech articulation. The encoding of speech gestures involves complex Accepted 14 March 2019 cognitive-motor planning, which has received limited attention in the psycholinguistic literature on KEYWORDS language production relative to linguistic encoding processes. Here we will review some issues on Phonetic encoding; phonetic encoding and the related empirical results by integrating evidence from psycholinguistic, phonological; syllable; motor phonetic, neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies from the last 30 years.
    [Show full text]
  • Defining and Operationalizing the Construct of Pragmatic Competence: Review and Recommendations (ETS Research Report No
    Research Report ETS RR–15-06 Defining and Operationalizing the Construct of Pragmatic Competence: Review and Recommendations Veronika Timpe Laughlin Jennifer Wain Jonathan Schmidgall June 2015 ETS Research Report Series EIGNOR EXECUTIVE EDITOR James Carlson Principal Psychometrician ASSOCIATE EDITORS Beata Beigman Klebanov Donald Powers Research Scientist ManagingPrincipalResearchScientist Heather Buzick Gautam Puhan Research Scientist Principal Psychometrician Brent Bridgeman John Sabatini Distinguished Presidential Appointee ManagingPrincipalResearchScientist Keelan Evanini Matthias von Davier Managing Research Scientist Senior Research Director Marna Golub-Smith Rebecca Zwick Principal Psychometrician Distinguished Presidential Appointee Shelby Haberman Distinguished Presidential Appointee PRODUCTION EDITORS Kim Fryer Ayleen Stellhorn Manager, Editing Services Editor Since its 1947 founding, ETS has conducted and disseminated scientific research to support its products and services, and to advance the measurement and education fields. In keeping with these goals, ETS is committed to making its research freely available to the professional community and to the general public. Published accounts of ETS research, including papers in the ETS Research Report series, undergo a formal peer-review process by ETS staff to ensure that they meet established scientific and professional standards. All such ETS-conducted peer reviews are in addition to any reviews that outside organizations may provide as part of their own publication processes. Peer review notwithstanding, the positions expressed in the ETS Research Report series and other published accounts of ETS research are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the Officers and Trustees of Educational Testing Service. The Daniel Eignor Editorship is named in honor of Dr. Daniel R. Eignor, who from 2001 until 2011 served the Research and Development division as Editor for the ETS Research Report series.
    [Show full text]
  • Chapter 7 Morphology: the Structure of Words
    1 Chapter 7 Morphology: the structure of words Geert Booij Universiteit Leiden Morphology deals with the systematic correspondence between the form and meaning of words. The study of these regularities comprises the domains of inflection and word formation. Inflection concerns the expression of morphosyntactic properties, sometimes required by a specific syntactic context. Word formation deals with the creation of new (complex) words by various morphological mechanisms such as compounding, affixation, truncation, and segmental and tonal alternations. The role of morphology in the grammar of natural languages is subject to theoretical debate. First, there are various ideas about the format in which morphological regularities should be expressed (rules or schemas?) Second, there are various models of the position of morphology in the architecture of grammar which will be discussed. Important issues are the interface between morphology and phonology (how does morphological structure influence the pronunciation of complex words?), and the interface between morphology and syntax (demarcation of word versus phrase, lexical integrity, phrases as building blocks of words). Morphology plays an important role in theories of the acquisition of language and in theories of language change. Hence, language acquisition and language change will also be discussed in this chapter. Morphology is also very relevant for linguistic typology, which is partially morphology-based.. Therefore, this chapter will also discuss the morphological classification of languages (analytic, poly- synthetic, agglutinative languages, etc.). Keywords: word structure, inflection, word formation, language change, language acquisition, language processing, linguistic typology 1. Introduction Words are the basic building blocks of sentences.1 Most words are a pairing of sound and meaning, and the meaning of a sentence is computed on the basis of the meanings of the 1 The text of this section and of section 2 is partially based on the text of section 1 of Booij (to appear).
    [Show full text]
  • An Integrated Theory of Language Production and Comprehension
    BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES (2013) 36, 329–392 doi:10.1017/S0140525X12001495 An integrated theory of language production and comprehension Martin J. Pickering Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom [email protected] http://www.ppls.ed.ac.uk/people/martin-pickering Simon Garrod University of Glasgow, Institute of Neuroscience and Psychology, Glasgow G12 8QT, United Kingdom [email protected] http://staff.psy.gla.ac.uk/∼simon/ Abstract: Currently, production and comprehension are regarded as quite distinct in accounts of language processing. In rejecting this dichotomy, we instead assert that producing and understanding are interwoven, and that this interweaving is what enables people to predict themselves and each other. We start by noting that production and comprehension are forms of action and action perception. We then consider the evidence for interweaving in action, action perception, and joint action, and explain such evidence in terms of prediction. Specifically, we assume that actors construct forward models of their actions before they execute those actions, and that perceivers of others’ actions covertly imitate those actions, then construct forward models of those actions. We use these accounts of action, action perception, and joint action to develop accounts of production, comprehension, and interactive language. Importantly, they incorporate well-defined levels of linguistic representation (such as semantics, syntax, and phonology). We show (a) how speakers and comprehenders use covert imitation and forward modeling to make predictions at these levels of representation, (b) how they interweave production and comprehension processes, and (c) how they use these predictions to monitor the upcoming utterances.
    [Show full text]
  • A Brief Review of Methods of Studying Language Production
    Introduction: A Brief Review of Methods of Studying Language Production B. Butterworth University of Cambridge I. Introduction The properties of human nature that make talk possible have fascinated philosophers since the Enlightenment. For Descartes, animals and machines "could never use speech or other signs as we do when placing our thought on record for others" (1637, p. 116). "Magpies and parrots are able to utter words just like ourselves, and yet they cannot speak as we do, that is, so as to give evidence that they think of what they say" (p. 117); and a machine cannot arrange "its speech in various ways, in order to reply appropriately to everything that may be said in its presence, as even the lowest type of man can do" (p. 116). Thus literally thoughtful talk is incontestable evidence for a fundamental division between human beings and other sublunary creatures, namely, we have a rational soul, they do not. The role of speech as the medium through which thoughts are conveyed to oneself and to others, and hence a vital component in man's nature as a social, as well as a rational, animal, was recognized by Locke (1700). Man, though he have great variety of Thoughts, and such, from which others, as well as himself, might receive Profit and Delight; yet they are all within his own Breast, invisible, and hidden from others, nor can of themselves be made appear. The Comfort, and Advantage of Society, not being to be had without Communication of Thoughts, it was necessary, that Man should find out some external sensible Signs, whereby those invisible Ideas, which his thoughts are made of, might be made known to others.
    [Show full text]