Introduction

The main business of this chapter is to consider issues in the processing of the language signal: but, since it is also the first chapter in part II, it is also the place to set out the framework within which these issues will be set, and indeed those of the subsequent chapters.

Preview

We start, therefore, with a brief overview of the field of language processing, from the level of the signal up to message structure (4.1.2), before turning to signal processing, beginning with speech perception (4.2): this is the largest section, since it reflects a research field that has addressed such fundamental issues as the distinction between speech and non-speech signal processing in great detail. We then consider visual perception of written language (4.3). Sections 4.4 and 4.5 deal with production, in articulatory processes and in the organisation of handwriting and typewriting.

The components of language processing

What we can provide at this stage of the exposition is not so much a model, as a schematic route map. (See fig. 4.1.) The map basically indicates ways of getting from a message to be linguistically communicated to the signal that represents it, and vice versa. Two routes are provided: one, via the lexicon, carries the information flow for that part of utterance meaning and form which is represented in terms of constituent words; while the other, via syntax, does so for the constituent relations between words in utterances.