Speech
hideSpeech is the vocalization form of human communication. It is based upon the syntactic combination of lexicals and names that are drawn from very large (usually >10,000 different words) vocabularies. Each spoken word is created out of the phonetic combination of a limited set of vowel and consonant speech sound units. These vocabularies, the syntax which structures them, and their set of speech sound units, differ creating the existence of many thousands of different types of mutually unintelligible human languages. Human speakers are often polyglot able to communicate in two or more of them. The vocal abilities that enable humans to produce speech also provide humans with the ability to sing.
A gestural form of human communication exists for the deaf in the form of sign language. Speech in some cultures has become the basis of a written language, often one that differs in its vocabulary, syntax and phonetics from its associated spoken one, a situation called diglossia. Speech in addition to its use in communication, it is suggested by some psychologists such as Vygotsky is internally used by mental processes to enhance and organize cognition in the form of an interior monologue.
Speech is researched in terms of the speech production and speech perception of the sounds used in spoken language. Several academic disciplines study these including acoustics, psychology, speech pathology, linguistics, cognitive science, communication studies, otolaryngology and computer science. Another area of research is how the human brain in its different areas such as the Broca's area and Wernicke's area underlies speech.
It is controversial how far human speech is unique in that other animals also communicate with vocalizations. While none in the wild uses syntax nor compatibly large vocabularies, research upon the nonverbal abilities of language trained apes such as Washoe and Kanzi raises the possibility that they might have these capabilities.
The origins of speech are unknown and subject to much debate and speculation.
For more information about Speech, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.
News tagged with speech
Orangutan's spontaneous whistling opens new chapter in study of evolution of speech
Biology /
Dec 11, 2008 |
4.8 / 5 (24) |
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Throughout history, human beings have used the whistle for everything from hailing a cab to carrying a tune. Now, an orangutan's spontaneous whistling is providing scientists at Great Ape Trust of Iowa new ...
Woman aquires new accent after stroke
Jul 03, 2008 |
4.6 / 5 (23) |
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A woman in southern Ontario is one of the first cases in Canada of a rare neurological syndrome in which a person starts speaking with a different accent, McMaster University researchers report in the July issue of the Canadian Jo ...
Researchers produce 'neural fingerprint' of speech recognition
Nov 10, 2008 |
4.2 / 5 (13) |
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Scientists from Maastricht University (Netherlands) have developed a method to look into the brain of a person and read out who has spoken to him or her and what was said. With the help of neuroimaging and data mining techniques ...
Music and speech based on human biology (w/ Video)
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Dec 03, 2009 |
4.6 / 5 (10) |
0
(PhysOrg.com) -- A pair of studies by Duke University neuroscientists shows powerful new evidence of a deep biological link between human music and speech.
Use it or lose it? Study suggests the brain can remember a 'forgotten' language
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Sep 24, 2009 |
4.9 / 5 (9) |
1
Many of us learn a foreign language when we are young, but in some cases, exposure to that language is brief and we never get to hear or practice it subsequently. Our subjective impression is often that the neglected language ...
A computer can pick out speech even amid cacophony
Technology / Computer Sciences
Nov 26, 2008 |
4.8 / 5 (9) |
1
(PhysOrg.com) -- Using a recent development in speech recognition, it is possible to search through television news programmes provided the recognition system has been trained beforehand. PhD candidate Marijn ...
Scientists reaching consensus on how brain processes speech
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
May 26, 2009 |
5 / 5 (8) |
0
Neuroscientists feel they are much closer to an accepted unified theory about how the brain processes speech and language, according to a scientist at Georgetown University Medical Center who first laid the ...
Measured -- The time it takes us to find the words we need
Medicine & Health / Psychology & Psychiatry
Nov 23, 2009 |
4.3 / 5 (8) |
1
(PhysOrg.com) -- The time it takes for our brains to search for and retrieve the word we want to say has been measured for the first time. The discovery is reported in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Ac ...
Reading the brain without poking it
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Jun 29, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (5) |
3
Experimental devices that read brain signals have helped paralyzed people use computers and may let amputees control bionic limbs. But existing devices use tiny electrodes that poke into the brain. Now, a ...
Why can we talk? 'Humanized' mice speak volumes
May 28, 2009 |
3.5 / 5 (6) |
9
Mice carrying a "humanized version" of a gene believed to influence speech and language may not actually talk, but they nonetheless do have a lot to say about our evolutionary past, according to a report in the May 29th issue ...
Psychologist identifies area of brain key to choosing words
Dec 24, 2008 |
5 / 5 (4) |
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New research by a Rice University psychologist clearly identifies the parts of the brain involved in the process of choosing appropriate words during speech.
Early brain activity sheds new light on the neural basis of reading
Medicine & Health / Neuroscience
Apr 27, 2009 |
5 / 5 (4) |
1
Most people are expert readers, but it is something of an enigma that our brain can achieve expertise in such a recent cultural invention, which lies at the interface between vision and language. Given that the first alphabetic ...
Disappearing vowels 'caught' on tape in US midwest
Oct 26, 2009 |
4.8 / 5 (4) |
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Try to pronounce the words "caught" and "cot." If you're a New Yorker by birth, the two words will sound as different as their spellings. But if you grew up in California, you probably pronounce them identically.
Apple sued for stifling iPod tricks
Apr 28, 2009 |
4.5 / 5 (4) |
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Internet rights champions have accused Apple of stifling free speech by bullying OdioWorks into ending online sharing of ways to get iPods to work with music websites other than iTunes.
New tool to assess speech development in infants, toddlers with hearing impairments
Sep 23, 2008 |
5 / 5 (3) |
0
The number of hearing impaired infants and toddlers who are successfully aided by technological devices, such as hearing aids and cochlear implants, continues to grow, but there are still unknowns about these children's speaking ...
