Posted: Oct 29, 2021 4:17 am
1. Pragmatic Meaning and Cognition – Sophia S.A. Marmaridou
2. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany and Japan - Randall Hansen
3. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics – René Dirven and Marjolijn Verspoor (Eds.)
4. Age of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain – Phil Harrison
5. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating our Species and Making us Smarter – Joseph Henrich
6. Heroic Failure and the British - Stephanie Barczewski
7. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
8. Language Soup: A Taste of How Diverse People Around the World Communicate - Kathryn A. T. Knox
9. A Place for everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical order – Judith Flanders
10. Contrastive Analysis - Carl James
11. Impossible Languages- Andrea Moro
12. Languages in the World: How History, Culture and Politics Shape Language – Jukie tetel Andresen and Phillip M. Carter
13. HHhH - Laurent Binet (Translated from the French by Sam Taylor)
14. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offense – Jonathan Culpeper
15. Ethosyntax: Explorations in Grammar and Culture – N. J. Enfield (Ed.)
16. Second Language Speech Fluency: From Research to Practice – Parvaneh Tavakoli & Clare Wright.
17. At Day's Close: Night in Times Past – A. Roger Ekirch
18. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation – Michael Agar
19. Possessives in English: An Exploration in Cognitive Grammar - John R. Taylor
20. I saw the Dog: How Language Works – Alexandra Aikhenvald.
21. The German War: A Nation under Arms, 1939 – 1945 – Nicholas Stargardt
22. Civilizations – Laurent Binet
23. Adjective Classes: A Cross-linguistic Typology - R. M. W. Dixon & A. Aikhenvald (Eds.)
24. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time – Johanna Nichols
25. How to behave badly in Elizabethan England - Ruth Goodman
26. In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness and Genius – Arika Okrent
27. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
28. One Man and his Bike – Mike Carter
29. The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps – Edwards Brooke Hitching
30. Operation Mincemeat – Ben Macintyre
31. L2 interactional competence and development - J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann & S.P. Doehler, (Eds.)
32. A Natural History of negation – Laurence R. Horn
33. Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach
34. Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't RhymeAnd Other Oddities of the English Language – Arika Okrent
35. What Language Is: And What It Isn't and What It Could Be - John McWhorter
36. Inner Speech: new Voices Peter Langland-Hassan & Agustín Vicente (Eds.)
336. pp
A collection of chapters by a variety of authors on the nature of inner speech, the way in which we experience thinking on a day-to-day basis. This is a topic that has long fascinated me and there was plenty to sink my teeth into in this volume. Part 1 dealt with the nature of inner speech, it’s causes and contents, including some robust discussions on the auditory nature of inner speech (it does indeed seem to have an auditory component, despite being not in anyway connected to sound waves transmitted through the medium of air). Also ‘Inner speech can be produced with one’s own or someone else’s voice’ (p. 156) lending support to the auditory nature of the phenomenon. It also seems to be the case that inner speech takes place in specific language. That is, persons experience inner speech as taking place in a language. (p.81) This goes against the notion that the experience of inner speech is merely the surface and perceptible form of what can be referred to as ‘mentalese’…thought that does not occur in any specific language. Langland Hassan explains his view that ‘Inner speech is always keyed to a specific natural language’ making a subtle distinction between being 'keyed' to a language occurring 'in' a language. The point is explained in detail in the text.
The link between inner speech and physiology was described. ‘During rest, breathing is symmetrical, with inspiration and expiration phases displaying equal duration. In overt speech, the cycle is strongly asymmetrical, with a short inspiration and long expirtioin during which speech is emitted. Conrad and Schönle have shown that inner displays a slightly prolonged expiratory phase. They concluded that motor processes are at play during inner speech.' (p. 135)
There is also the speed of inner speech to consider. Experiments show that inner speech rates can reach up to 4,000 words per minute which is ‘unattainable in overt mode. These findings suggest that verbalization is condensed at the syntactic and lexical levels. [ …] These studies suggest that some of the phonological or articulatory involved in overt speech are absent in covert mode’. (p. 134).
Some people claim to not experience inner speech, although the claims are unverifiable and the ways in which people can delude themselves about the nature of their thoughts is given ample treatment in several chapters. Leaving the discussion of whether everyone experiences inner speech or not to one side, the sheer prevalence of inner speech in our daily lives is notable. ‘Heavey and Hurlburt (2008) estimate that around one fourth of people conscious waking life consists of inner speech. This frequency illustrates the importance of this cognitive activity, as inner speech serves a host of very important cognitive functions.’ (p.278)
I’ll leave off here with an extended quote from p. 179 which I thought would be of interest to the membership here, concerning the nature of delusion.
“A presupposition is a delusion, not merely an ignorance. Ignorance is simply lacking knowledge; delusion is believing that it is not necessary to know. Ignorance is lacking skill; delusion is believing that one’s current skill is good enough. Ignorance is a vacuum whose natural tendency is to be filled up; delusion is hyperbaric pressure whose natural tendency is to resist any new content. Ignorance is created by the universe- we are born ignorant. Delusion is self-created – it arises from some prior (but inadequate) skill acquisition. […] Delusion makes it seem like you already know what you don’t actually know; makes it seem like you don’t need to know what you actually need; makes it seem like you are more skillful than you are; makes the important seem trivial; makes the trivial seem important. Delusion always seems reasonable, seems intelligent, seems necessary, seems Right with a capital R, seems Good with a capital G, seems True, seems Virtuous.”
Telling words.
O tempora o mores.
2. Fire and Fury: The Allied Bombing of Germany and Japan - Randall Hansen
3. Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics – René Dirven and Marjolijn Verspoor (Eds.)
4. Age of Static: How TV Explains Modern Britain – Phil Harrison
5. The Secret of Our Success: How Culture is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating our Species and Making us Smarter – Joseph Henrich
6. Heroic Failure and the British - Stephanie Barczewski
7. Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain - Maryanne Wolf
8. Language Soup: A Taste of How Diverse People Around the World Communicate - Kathryn A. T. Knox
9. A Place for everything: The Curious History of Alphabetical order – Judith Flanders
10. Contrastive Analysis - Carl James
11. Impossible Languages- Andrea Moro
12. Languages in the World: How History, Culture and Politics Shape Language – Jukie tetel Andresen and Phillip M. Carter
13. HHhH - Laurent Binet (Translated from the French by Sam Taylor)
14. Impoliteness: Using Language to Cause Offense – Jonathan Culpeper
15. Ethosyntax: Explorations in Grammar and Culture – N. J. Enfield (Ed.)
16. Second Language Speech Fluency: From Research to Practice – Parvaneh Tavakoli & Clare Wright.
17. At Day's Close: Night in Times Past – A. Roger Ekirch
18. Language Shock: Understanding the Culture of Conversation – Michael Agar
19. Possessives in English: An Exploration in Cognitive Grammar - John R. Taylor
20. I saw the Dog: How Language Works – Alexandra Aikhenvald.
21. The German War: A Nation under Arms, 1939 – 1945 – Nicholas Stargardt
22. Civilizations – Laurent Binet
23. Adjective Classes: A Cross-linguistic Typology - R. M. W. Dixon & A. Aikhenvald (Eds.)
24. Linguistic Diversity in Space and Time – Johanna Nichols
25. How to behave badly in Elizabethan England - Ruth Goodman
26. In the Land of Invented Languages: Adventures in Linguistic Creativity, Madness and Genius – Arika Okrent
27. Foundation – Isaac Asimov
28. One Man and his Bike – Mike Carter
29. The Phantom Atlas: The Greatest Myths, Lies and Blunders on Maps – Edwards Brooke Hitching
30. Operation Mincemeat – Ben Macintyre
31. L2 interactional competence and development - J.K. Hall, J. Hellermann & S.P. Doehler, (Eds.)
32. A Natural History of negation – Laurence R. Horn
33. Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers – Mary Roach
34. Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don't RhymeAnd Other Oddities of the English Language – Arika Okrent
35. What Language Is: And What It Isn't and What It Could Be - John McWhorter
36. Inner Speech: new Voices Peter Langland-Hassan & Agustín Vicente (Eds.)
336. pp
A collection of chapters by a variety of authors on the nature of inner speech, the way in which we experience thinking on a day-to-day basis. This is a topic that has long fascinated me and there was plenty to sink my teeth into in this volume. Part 1 dealt with the nature of inner speech, it’s causes and contents, including some robust discussions on the auditory nature of inner speech (it does indeed seem to have an auditory component, despite being not in anyway connected to sound waves transmitted through the medium of air). Also ‘Inner speech can be produced with one’s own or someone else’s voice’ (p. 156) lending support to the auditory nature of the phenomenon. It also seems to be the case that inner speech takes place in specific language. That is, persons experience inner speech as taking place in a language. (p.81) This goes against the notion that the experience of inner speech is merely the surface and perceptible form of what can be referred to as ‘mentalese’…thought that does not occur in any specific language. Langland Hassan explains his view that ‘Inner speech is always keyed to a specific natural language’ making a subtle distinction between being 'keyed' to a language occurring 'in' a language. The point is explained in detail in the text.
The link between inner speech and physiology was described. ‘During rest, breathing is symmetrical, with inspiration and expiration phases displaying equal duration. In overt speech, the cycle is strongly asymmetrical, with a short inspiration and long expirtioin during which speech is emitted. Conrad and Schönle have shown that inner displays a slightly prolonged expiratory phase. They concluded that motor processes are at play during inner speech.' (p. 135)
There is also the speed of inner speech to consider. Experiments show that inner speech rates can reach up to 4,000 words per minute which is ‘unattainable in overt mode. These findings suggest that verbalization is condensed at the syntactic and lexical levels. [ …] These studies suggest that some of the phonological or articulatory involved in overt speech are absent in covert mode’. (p. 134).
Some people claim to not experience inner speech, although the claims are unverifiable and the ways in which people can delude themselves about the nature of their thoughts is given ample treatment in several chapters. Leaving the discussion of whether everyone experiences inner speech or not to one side, the sheer prevalence of inner speech in our daily lives is notable. ‘Heavey and Hurlburt (2008) estimate that around one fourth of people conscious waking life consists of inner speech. This frequency illustrates the importance of this cognitive activity, as inner speech serves a host of very important cognitive functions.’ (p.278)
I’ll leave off here with an extended quote from p. 179 which I thought would be of interest to the membership here, concerning the nature of delusion.
“A presupposition is a delusion, not merely an ignorance. Ignorance is simply lacking knowledge; delusion is believing that it is not necessary to know. Ignorance is lacking skill; delusion is believing that one’s current skill is good enough. Ignorance is a vacuum whose natural tendency is to be filled up; delusion is hyperbaric pressure whose natural tendency is to resist any new content. Ignorance is created by the universe- we are born ignorant. Delusion is self-created – it arises from some prior (but inadequate) skill acquisition. […] Delusion makes it seem like you already know what you don’t actually know; makes it seem like you don’t need to know what you actually need; makes it seem like you are more skillful than you are; makes the important seem trivial; makes the trivial seem important. Delusion always seems reasonable, seems intelligent, seems necessary, seems Right with a capital R, seems Good with a capital G, seems True, seems Virtuous.”
Telling words.
O tempora o mores.