Approaches to researching speech
5.3 Theory-driven, positional, or ideas-based approaches to researching speaking
All research is about theory and ideas, however in some work the ques-tioning of the theory or the discussion of a possible alternative theory is
Quote 5.2 An example of a CA interpretation of interactive behaviour For an Anglo-Australian, the acknowledging response . . . seems to occur so late as to lack relevance, yet here it is treated as unproblematic. The falling terminal intonation contour suggests perhaps that this Mh hm is proffered as a sequence closing device, rather than as a continuer. . . . This is supported by Daphne’s overt termination of the sequence in the very next turn with barriwa, a form which is conventionally used to finish a sequence. This extract is thus a nice example of the ordinariness of long silences in this interaction.
(Mushin and Gardner, 2009: 2047)
the primary focus of the study. These studies are interesting because they can question how an aspect of speaking is conceptualised and researched and, if they lead to challenging debate about their strengths and weak-nesses among other scholars, they are extremely influential. Liberman (1998) ‘When theories of speech meet the real world’ is an example of what is known as a ‘position paper’. This means that the research text in ques-tion (they are generally journal articles) encapsulates an academic’s stance on a broad topic and they generally deal with an issue that is open to debate. These can be difficult to write as there is a need to understand the ideas being criticised, summarise the relevant arguments and present a coherent alternative to them.
The idea under attack in Liberman (1998) is that the stream of speech is made up of individual segments of sound that are in turn decoded by the brain into comprehensible discourse. The whole article revolves around a single underlying question: why is it so much easier to learn to speak than it is to learn to write? The more subtle point that Liberman is making is the following: if there really is a rough parity between arbitrary symbols that make up writing systems and arbitrary sounds which make up speech, why is speech not as cognitively challenging as writing? Quote 5.3 sum-marises the question.
Quote 5.3 Liberman’s main research question
What did evolution do for speech that gave it such a biological advantage over writing/reading? A theory of speech – or more broadly, language – can avoid that question, as most do, but it cannot avoid implying an answer; and if that answer does not sit comfortably with the priority of speech, then the scientists should consider that they have got hold of the wrong theory.
(Liberman, 1998: 112)
Theoretical research questions very often begin life as ‘what if . . . ?’
thoughts, and in a ‘position paper’ these can, and are often intended to, present fundamental challenges to existing paradigms. It should be noted, however, that even the most robust theoretical thinkers are selective in what they present as ‘given’ and what is challenged. Liberman, for example, does not question his own fundamental assumption that speaking really is easier than writing. Nor does he address the issue of the extent and quality of the differences in the two learning processes that are involved. It could be argued, for instance, that it takes several years practising for ten or more hours a day for the child to become a fluent, grammatically standard (within the norms of their own social or family group) speaker.
Nonetheless, by framing a question which sums up his position so com-pletely (the ‘why is speaking easier than writing?’ question), Liberman is able to develop a coherent line of thought which contrasts the inadequa-cies of conventional theory and generative phonology in the first half of the paper against the satisfactory nature of his less generally accepted stance presented in the second half (see Research summary).
Research summary: The structure of Liberman’s elaboration of his research question regarding the biological advantage of speech over writing
Conventional theories of speech sounds suggest that they are not intrinsi-cally any different from any other sounds in the world, but are the vehicles of meaningful segments of sound roughly equating to visual segments in a writing system.
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If there is no biological basis for speech sounds ‘how is it that people who cannot spell a single word – lacking even the awareness that words can be spelled – nevertheless find, each time they speak, that producing perfectly spelled phonetic structures is dead easy?’
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Conventional theories also suggest that speech perception is a two-stage process in which the primary sounds are translated into phonetic elements by the brain. ‘. . . [T]he two processes are exactly parallel, requiring the same kind of cognitive step to endow their ordinary auditory and visual percepts with phonetic significance. Why, then, should the one be so much easier and more natural than the other?’
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If ease of perception of discrete elements is the key to language, then the oral/aural channel is in fact less suitable than the visual/motoric.
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We are asked to conclude that language as it evolved merely appropriated sounds to put them to the use of the language system. Existing theory has difficulty answering his initial question: what exactly was it that evolved?
In the rest of the paper Liberman proposes a ‘phonetic module’ which deals directly with the sounds of speech and which requires no intervening processing or translation of these into any other form. These ‘articulatory gestures of the vocal tract’ are, he argues, the product of an evolutionary
process rather than being standard sounds appropriated for the use of language. In discussions of Liberman’s work his position has often been referred to by an acronym ‘SiS’ (speech is special). A powerfully influential theory frequently has a very elegant basic idea such as this which assists with its understanding and acceptance by people in a range of contexts, whether or not they agree with it.
Liberman’s discussion here also shows the way a questioning technique can be used as the basis of both a critical evaluation of a theory, and a framework for presenting that evaluation. By taking a step back from the data a theoretical approach can ask questions at a very universal or general level (some might argue too general and abstract) and provide a clear framework for others to use or to challenge. His work was widely cited, was contentious as soon as it was published, and yet has proved to cast a very long shadow. In the first decade of the twenty-first century debate about the ‘Motor theory’ of speech remains ongoing and sometimes heated (for example, Fowler (2008) ). Liberman’s work has also influenced, and is still cited as a key source in, the scholarly ‘landscape’ in the emerg-ing studies of speech processemerg-ing usemerg-ing magnetic resonance imagemerg-ing (Lotto et al., 2008). Outside speech processing, his ideas are regarded as relevant (and often still controversial) in fields as diverse as the study of dyslexia (Uppstad and Tønnessen, 2007, see also Quote 5.4) and the evolution of language (Fitch et al., 2005).
Quote 5.4 The lasting resonance of a theory-driven paper
As a consequence, we have a situation where the phoneme is both rejected and accepted, which naturally only enhances the confusions. The inductive character of theory-building is especially clearly seen in the writings of Alvin and Isabel Liberman (Liberman, 1997, 1999; Liberman et al., 1989), where dogmatic arguments are deployed against features of theoretical positions which are not at all compatible with the authors’ own position. While this kind of controversy is of course not unusual in science, the proportion of argu-ments belonging to the dogmatic category is alarming. These arguargu-ments are clearly not sufficient to prove A. M. Liberman’s claim about the relationship between spoken and written language. In our view, dogmatic positions should be avoided in order to maintain high standards of empirical science. This can be done by studying behaviour in written and spoken language, without a priori assumptions of causal relationships.
(Uppstad and Tønnessen, 2007: 163)