Unifying speech and language in a developmentally sensitive model of production

Abstract

Speaking is an intentional activity. It is also a complex motor skill; one that exhibits protracted development and the fully automatic character of an overlearned behavior. Together these observations suggest an analogy with skilled behavior in the non-language domain. This analogy is used here to argue for a model of production that is grounded in the activity of speaking and structured during language acquisition. The focus is on the plan that controls the execution of fluent speech; specifically, on the units that are activated during the production of an intonational phrase. These units are schemas: temporally structured sequences of remembered actions and their sensory outcomes. Schemas are activated and inhibited via associated goals, which are linked to specific meanings. Schemas may fuse together over developmental time with repeated use to form larger units, thereby affecting the relative timing of sequential action in participating schemas. In this way, the hierarchical structure of the speech plan and ensuing rhythm patterns of speech are a product of development. Individual schemas may also become differentiated during development, but only if subsequences are associated with meaning. The necessary association of action and meaning gives rise to assumptions about the primacy of certain linguistic forms in the production process. Overall, schema representations connect usage-based theories of language to the action of speaking.

The representation and execution of articulatory timing in first and second language acquisition

“…It is also in keeping with the general view that language acquisition interacts with speech motor development (A. Smith & Goffman, 2004; Nip et al, 2009; Goffman, 2010; Redford, 2015). …”

“…This explanation depends on the assumption that production stability indexes automaticity (see, e.g., A. Smith & Zelaznik, 2004) and on the assumption that production units increase in size over developmental time with speech motor practice (Redford, 2015; Tilsen, 2016). Given these assumptions, the explanation for the interaction between age and word length on temporal variability is that children have robust representations of monosyllabic word forms as units of production, and execute these automatically (i.e., without feedback control), but their representation of production units decreases in strength with increasing length, and thus so too does the automaticity with which longer words are executed.…”

Phonological encoding in speech-sound disorder: evidence from a cross-modal priming experiment

“…Moreover, any complete model of adults’ production processes must also be able to model pronunciation variation seen in children. Ultimately, we agree with Redford () that experimental studies of children's speech production, including those of children with SSD, must be central in the formulation of any model of production. Such a model could potentially provide a substantial improvement in the taxonomies of SSD, as well as in the assessment and treatment of this disorder.…”

Learning words and learning sounds: Advances in language development

“…Once the child begins to produce his or her own word forms with specific targets, the same implicit mechanisms (distributional learning of sequences and patterns, self‐organization of exemplars) can be assumed to operate in combination on the new database formed from the child's own words. The increasing numbers of representations of forms the child is producing, albeit with a good deal of variability, will at some point generally become robust enough – in combination with the relatively slow pace of advances in neuromotor control and speech‐planning (cf., e.g., Payne, Post, Astruc, Prieto, & Vanrell, ; Redford, ) – to give rise to one or more templates, although individual differences in child ‘tolerance for variability’ (Kamhi, Catts, & Davis, ), or willingness to attempt challenging targets, will determine the extent of adaptation to templatic patterns (Vihman, ). As the child shifts from a primarily outward‐ to a primarily inward‐oriented model for production, we see the regression in accuracy described above along with an increase in the numbers of different word types produced.…”

“…Before beginning on a review of developmental studies, it will be useful to briefly characterize phonological structure, an essential part of the systematic knowledge that underlies fluent native language use in adult speakers. Consider two prominent contrasting views of adult phonology: The formalist view takes the segment or phoneme (or the bundle of distinctive features that make up the segment or phoneme) to be basic to linguistic structure (Blevins, 2004;Chomsky & Halle, 1968;Halle, 1971); the functionalist view sees units linked to meaning and communication (whole-word forms) as basic to both phonological structure (e.g., Pierrehumbert, 2001Pierrehumbert, , 2003Port, 2007;Vihman & Croft, 2007) and speech production (Redford, 2015). Although phonemic oppositions *Correspondence should be addressed to Marilyn M. Vihman, Language and Linguistic Science, University of York, Heslington, York YO10 5DD, UK (email: marilyn.vihman@york.ac.uk). undeniably play an important role in distinguishing linguistic units in any language, phonemes, the 'minimal units of distinctive sound function, forming a unitary inventory within a language and concatenated with one another in an additive way to form words' (Anderson, 1985, 292), are not the only key elements of phonology.…”