Search

An argument that the way we listen to speech is shaped by our experience with our native language. Understanding speech in our native tongue seems natural and effortless; listening to speech in a nonnative language is a different experience. In this book, Anne Cutler argues that listening to speech is a process of native listening because so much of it is exquisitely tailored to the requirements of the native language. Her cross-linguistic study (drawing on experimental work in languages that range from English and Dutch to Chinese and Japanese) documents what is universal and what is language specific in the way we listen to spoken language. Cutler describes the formidable range of mental tasks we carry out, all at once, with astonishing speed and accuracy, when we listen. These include evaluating probabilities arising from the structure of the native vocabulary, tracking information to locate the boundaries between words, paying attention to the way the words are pronounced, and assessing not only the sounds of speech but prosodic information that spans sequences of sounds. She describes infant speech perception, the consequences of language-specific specialization for listening to other languages, the flexibility and adaptability of listening (to our native languages), and how language-specificity and universality fit together in our language processing system. Drawing on her four decades of work as a psycholinguist, Cutler documents the recent growth in our knowledge about how spoken-word recognition works and the role of language structure in this process. Her book is a significant contribution to a vibrant and rapidly developing field.

Versprechen und Verlesen (1895) is distinguished more by observational accuracy than by theoretical sophistication; but it is exactly this characteristic which has proved its lasting value. It is a scrupulously collected, usefully organized, and very large corpus of errors, providing material on which hypotheses can be tested and generalisations made. Others before Meringer had speculated about what speech errors might demonstrate; he was the first to attempt to find out. In this Meringer made a worthy and lasting contribution to linguistic and psychological study.This fac simile edition is preceded by an Introductory article by Anne Cutler and David Fay.

Proceedings of the 20th annual conference for the Australasian Association for Engineering Education, held at the University of Adelaide in December 2009. Papers were presented by Australian and international delegates. The conference was focused on the engineering curriculum in higher education.