Since in performing the gymnastics speakers do not pause at the end of each word, the words in the utterance run into one another. The gymnastics results in an acoustic signal that both the speaker and the interlocutors hear. They then perform a special kind of gymnastics with their speech organs or articulators, i.e., with the tongue, lips, velum, and larynx. Speakers select from their memories the words they wish to say. SpeakingĪ plausible account of an act of speaking might run as follows. And the reason we do not hear words when spoken to in a foreign language is that we have not learned them, we do not have them in our linguistic memory, i.e., in the part of our memory dedicated to language. ![]() When we learn a word we store in our memory information that allows us both to say the word and to recognize it when said by someone else. Knowing the words is not sufficient, but it surely is necessary. Everybody who has studied a foreign language knows that learning the words is a major part of mastering the language. Knowledge of language is therefore crucial. Similarly, when we hear a string of nonsense syllables, we cannot tell whether it is composed of one or of several words. Why should that be so?Ī clue is provided by the fact that in order for us to hear the words, the utterance must be in a language we know in utterances in a language we do not know we do not hear the words. Yet in spite of this we still hear utterances as composed of discrete words. In normal discourse, however, we do not separate-the-words-by-short-pauses, but rather run one word into the next. ![]() When we speak we say words and when spoken to we hear words.
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