Reviewed Work - Psycholinguistics - A New Approach by David McNeill

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Psycholinguistics: A New Approach by David McNeillReview by: Samuel FillenbaumLanguage, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Jun., 1990), pp. 388-392Published by: Linguistic Society of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/414898.

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2/6

LANGUAGE,

VOLUME

66,

NUMBER

2

(1990)ANGUAGE,

VOLUME

66,

NUMBER

2

(1990)

SIDMAN,

RICHARD,

and

MURRAY

SIDMAN.

1965.

Neuroanatomy:

A

programmed

text.

Boston:

Little,

Brown.

Program

in

Speech

and

Hearing

Sciences

[Received

20 November

1989.]

City University of New York

Box

365,

Graduate

Center

33

West 42nd Street

New

York,

NY 10036-8099

Psycholinguistics:

A

new

approach.

By

DAVID

MCNEILL.

New York:

Harper

&

Row,

1987.

Pp.

xi,

290.

Reviewed

by

SAMUEL

ILLENBAUM,

University of

North

Carolina

at

Chapel

Hill

'Psycholinguistics

s the science

of how

individual

hinking,

which is

private

and flows

continuously,

relates to

a

social

institution

that is

public

and

the

product

of

tradition-that

is,

language

tself

(2).

The task McNeill

sets himself

is to

lay

out

(what

he

regards

as)

the basics

of

that

science,

of the

dialectic

between individual

and

socially

constituted

sources

of value. This

synthesis

he

hopes

to

accomplish

by

bringing

together

a

synchronic

viewpoint

with

a

diachronic

one.

The

spontaneous

gestures

that

accompany speech

are to

be

the

principal

source of

information

bout

mental

processes

during

hinking

and

speaking.

In McN's

words,

'by

examininggesture production

we

can see in

comparativelypure, undistortedform, the mental operations of speakers as

they

utilize

the

linguistic

code'

(210).Indeed,

his account

of

speech-concurrent

gestures

and the

use of gesture

data

to

infer

'intrinsic

value' represents

what

is most

important

and

distinctive

about

this book.

Let me

say something

about

the general

ayout

of the book.

An

introductory

chapter

sketches out the

two approaches

to language

that

he proposes

to

unify-the

Saussurean

inguistic

paradigm

and the

Vygotskian

psychology

of

language

approach-and

indicates

the

crucial

role

that gesture

data

will

play

in

that endeavor. This

is followed

by a

chapter

on

the 'Linguistics

of

language',

which seeks 'to presentmodern inguisticsin termsof Saussure'sconception

of

language

as

a

synchronic-contrastive

etwork

of symbols'

(22). Then there

are

two

chapters

on the

'Context

of speaking',

responsive

to

the fact

that

what

is said is

always situated

and context-sensitive.

The

first of

these

deals with

the

social context of speaking,

and

considers

deas

originating

romphilosophy

and

sociology,

ranging

from

a consideration

of

aspects

of speech-act

theory

(in

particular

ookingat

the notion

of illocutionary

orce) to

an

account

of turn-

taking.

The

second

of

these chapters

deals

with the

informational

ontext

of

speaking

and is

principally

concerned

with

matters

of

cohesiveness

and

deixis

or

pointing,

where

'cohesiveness

connects

sentences

together,

whereas point-

ing connects sentences to a vantagepoint' (52). These first four chapterspro-

vide a

setting

for Ch.5,

'Producing

ndunderstanding

peech',

which,

together

with

Ch.

7, on

'Gestures

and

signs',

constitutes

the

maincontent

and

contri-

bution

of the

book.

I wantto

make

one or

two comments

on these

background

chapters.

While much that is presented

here

is of importance

n

its own

right

SIDMAN,

RICHARD,

and

MURRAY

SIDMAN.

1965.

Neuroanatomy:

A

programmed

text.

Boston:

Little,

Brown.

Program

in

Speech

and

Hearing

Sciences

[Received

20 November

1989.]

City University of New York

Box

365,

Graduate

Center

33

West 42nd Street

New

York,

NY 10036-8099

Psycholinguistics:

A

new

approach.

By

DAVID

MCNEILL.

New York:

Harper

&

Row,

1987.

Pp.

xi,

290.

Reviewed

by

SAMUEL

ILLENBAUM,

University of

North

Carolina

at

Chapel

Hill

'Psycholinguistics

s the science

of how

individual

hinking,

which is

private

and flows

continuously,

relates to

a

social

institution

that is

public

and

the

product

of

tradition-that

is,

language

tself

(2).

The task McNeill

sets himself

is to

lay

out

(what

he

regards

as)

the basics

of

that

science,

of the

dialectic

between individual

and

socially

constituted

sources

of value. This

synthesis

he

hopes

to

accomplish

by

bringing

together

a

synchronic

viewpoint

with

a

diachronic

one.

The

spontaneous

gestures

that

accompany speech

are to

be

the

principal

source of

information

bout

mental

processes

during

hinking

and

speaking.

In McN's

words,

'by

examininggesture production

we

can see in

comparativelypure, undistortedform, the mental operations of speakers as

they

utilize

the

linguistic

code'

(210).Indeed,

his account

of

speech-concurrent

gestures

and the

use of gesture

data

to

infer

'intrinsic

value' represents

what

is most

important

and

distinctive

about

this book.

Let me

say something

about

the general

ayout

of the book.

An

introductory

chapter

sketches out the

two approaches

to language

that

he proposes

to

unify-the

Saussurean

inguistic

paradigm

and the

Vygotskian

psychology

of

language

approach-and

indicates

the

crucial

role

that gesture

data

will

play

in

that endeavor. This

is followed

by a

chapter

on

the 'Linguistics

of

language',

which seeks 'to presentmodern inguisticsin termsof Saussure'sconception

of

language

as

a

synchronic-contrastive

etwork

of symbols'

(22). Then there

are

two

chapters

on the

'Context

of speaking',

responsive

to

the fact

that

what

is said is

always situated

and context-sensitive.

The

first of

these

deals with

the

social context of speaking,

and

considers

deas

originating

romphilosophy

and

sociology,

ranging

from

a consideration

of

aspects

of speech-act

theory

(in

particular

ookingat

the notion

of illocutionary

orce) to

an

account

of turn-

taking.

The

second

of

these chapters

deals

with the

informational

ontext

of

speaking

and is

principally

concerned

with

matters

of

cohesiveness

and

deixis

or

pointing,

where

'cohesiveness

connects

sentences

together,

whereas point-

ing connects sentences to a vantagepoint' (52). These first four chapterspro-

vide a

setting

for Ch.5,

'Producing

ndunderstanding

peech',

which,

together

with

Ch.

7, on

'Gestures

and

signs',

constitutes

the

maincontent

and

contri-

bution

of the

book.

I wantto

make

one or

two comments

on these

background

chapters.

While much that is presented

here

is of importance

n

its own

right

38888

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3/6

and

revealingly

and

pertinently

discussed-see,

e.g.,

the section on illocu-

tionary

orce orthediscussionof deixis-there is also muchthat s

very

difficult

and

mysterious, especially

in the

chapter

on the

'Linguistics

of

Language'

(Montaguegrammar, or instance, is presented in a page or so), or that is

unmotivated

at

least to

me);

see,

e.g.,

the

couple

of

pages

on

'experiments

on

pronoun interpretation'.Equally important,

could not see

any

close

connec-

tion

between

most

of what is discussed

in

these

chapters

and the

content of

the

central

chapters

(5

and

7),

to be considered

presently.

Ch. 6

('Linguistic

determinism:The Whorfian

hypothesis')

is a

fascinating

but

in

the end inconclusive

mix

of critical

analysis

of

experimental

work and

suggestions

as to conditionsthat need to be met for work

really

to be relevant

to the issue

(which

conditions

have

hardly

ever

been

met),

together

with

some

very open-ended speculations regarding'examples of linguistic forms that

(might)

embody

cultural

models'-where,

of

course,

the

critical word is

'might'.

All this comes with some brilliant

f

tangential

omments

using

a 'Goe-

thean

hypothesis'

to

try

to account for

the

sequence

of

color

categories

dis-

covered

by

Berlin &

Kay

(1969),

viz.,

that this

sequence 'corresponds

o how

the colors of

objects change

when the

intensity

of

light falling

on

them

changes'

(188). Notwithstanding

the

rationale

provided

in

the first

paragraph

of this

chapter,

I am

still not sure of

its

role or

place

in

the

book,

for all its

intrinsic

interest.

The last

chapter('Action, thought

and

language')asks, again, why linguistic

actions are carriedout simultaneouslywith two differentforms of thought:

'Why

is

imagistic thinkingupacked by syntactic thinking?' 251).

McN offers

a

numberof

suggestions

or

'reasons',

but

I think

the central

claim is that im-

agistic

and

syntactic thinking

must be

synthesized

so

as to make

thinking

n-

tersubjective

and thus to make

communication

possible.

The

linguistic

act is

a

synthesis

of

the

analogical(global

and

imagistic)and

the

synthetic (segmented

and

linear).

Ch.

5

asks how this

'synthesis

of indi-

vidually

constituted

(intrinsic)

and

socially

constituted

(pure inguistic)

values'

(84)

is

accomplished.

McN assumes

that,

with

regard

o 'internal

psychological

computations', production

and

understanding

nvolve

virtually

the

same

pro-

cesses

and

so can

be handled

together,

and that the

'referential

gestures

that

spontaneously

occur

with

speech' provide

critical

information

about the 'in-

ternal

structureof

linguistic

acts'.

As

mentioned

before, symbols

have

intrinsic value and

linguistic or con-

trastive

value;

in

addition,they

'are

affected

by

the

contextual

whole' of

which

they

are

part, and, centrally

for

McN, 'symbols

have

spontaneousgenerativ-

ity-the ability

to occur

without

inputs

that

trigger

them'

(84).

As he

puts it,

'spontaneity

of inner

speech symbols

is the

key

to

generativity,

the

ability of

surface sentences

to occur without

nputs. Thinking

s

not the

input

to some

other process that evokes the inner speech symbol. Rather, the symbols of

inner

speech

are

what, along

with

imagery,

CONSTITUTE

thinking'(100). In ap-

propriate environments,

the

'symbols

of

inner

speech appear

to be

self-acti-

vating',

it

is not a matterof

responses

to

inputs.

Words that are

self-activating

McN calls 'smart'

words:

'the

hypothesis

is that

smart

symbols

tend

to be

REVIEWS 389



4/6

LANGUAGE,

VOLUME

66,

NUMBER

2

(1990)

inner

speech symbols'

(100).

Smart

words

or

symbols

have

two critical

(and

defining)

properties:

a)

they

are

'self-activating

n

appropriate

nvironments',

which

requires

that

they

be sensitive to

thought

patterns

not

yet

linguistically

coded; and (b) they 'can select other symbols'. Smartsymbols thereforeare

doubly

context-sensitive-sensitive

'to the

evolving thought

environment

not

yet

coded

linguistically

and to the

potentiallinguistic

environment'

100).

Above I

have tried

to use McN's own

language

as much

as

possible

for

two

reasons.

First,

because

I think

that these ideas

regarding

he

spontaneity

of

inner

speech

symbols

and self

activation

and self

organization

n

speech

are

central to

his

account,

and

second,

because

I

am not secure

enough

in

my

understanding

of what he is

getting

at to

attempt any

substantial

rephrasing.

Of the

two

properties characterizing

smart'

words,

the

second-'sensitivity

to linguistic potentialand abilityto select otherwords'-has been considered

before

in

the frame

notion

(and

its

congeners),

as McN notes. But

the first-

'sensitivity

to not

yet categorized magistic

hinking'-which

is

also

absolutely

necessary

to his

account,

has not been

investigated,

at least in

any guise

that

I

know.

Indeed,

McN himself is hard

put

to

find

supporting

vidence,

and the

three

experiments

he does cite can

hardly

bear the

interpretive

burden

put

upon

them.

In

effect,

McN

has

two

difficult,

if

related,

tasks

before

him. He

needs

to

spell

out

much

more

fully

what he

means

by

'self

activating

in

ap-

propriate[nonlinguistic] nvironments',and, given

such an

elaborate

and en-

riched

account,

he needs to

indicatewhat

kindof

supporting

vidence is

already

available andespeciallywhat sorts of experimentsmightbe conductedto pro-

vide

further

relevant

evidence.

This

is

essential,

because the

notion of

'self

activating symbols'

is

central

to the

theoretical

analysis

he

offers of the

'various

majorphenomena

of

psy-

cholinguistics'.

It

is also

important, ritically,

because he

argues

that

the dom-

inant

class

of models in

current

psycholinguistics,viz., information-processing

models,

cannot

'explain

or even

formulateas a

problem spontaneousgenera-

tivity:

the

ability

of

linguistic

structuresto

take

shape

in

speech production

without

inputs

that

trigger

them'

(133).

In

McN's

words,

'Information-pro-

cessing

[IP]

models all

PRESUPPOSE

input

from

the

outside.

This

input is not

explained by

the

model

and, apart

from

triggering,

t

plays

no role

in

the op-

erations

of

the

model

(145)

... in

all

these

theories

there is

necessarily a

PRE-

SUPPOSED

ultimate

input

of

informational

or

cognitive phenomena, that is

meaning

or

thought' (146).

On

McN's

account, however,

there

is

no

sharp

separation

of

'computational perations

rom

interpretation'.

A

smart

symbol

'selects

and

classifies an

environment

f

thinking

not

yet linguistically

oded

...

it

also takes

in its

environment,

ltering

tself as it

alters he

environment

..

Whereas

an IP

input riggers

an

operation

but

does not

further

participate

n

it,

an

appropriate

nvironment

becomes

part

of

the

mental

operation

arried

out

by

the

symbol.

The

environment

s

the

setting n which

the

smart

symbol

self

activates,

but

in turn

the

environments alteredby the symbol and

the

symbol

is

altered

by

the

environment'

147).

McN is

surely exhibiting

a

basic

problem

hat

faces IP

models, namely, how

to

articulate he

computational

and

interpretiveaspects

of

the

theory (and the

nature

of the

latter).

But

his

own

solution,

which

denies

any such in-principle

390



5/6

REVIEWS

separation

or

distinction,

can

only provide

a viable alternative

f it can

spell

out much more

fully

what is entailed

by

thenotions of self activationand

mutual

interaction

between different orms of

thinking.

Finally, I turn to the issue of gestures (mainlypresentedin Ch. 7, but really

pervading

and

permeating

he

book).

Spontaneousgestures,

movements of

the

hands and

arms,

are

used

by

McN 'to

open

a second channel of

observation

onto mental

processes

(the

first

being speech

itself)',

allowing

us

to

'see,

in

comparatively

pure

undistorted

orm,

the mental

operations

of

speakers

as

they

utilize the

linguistic

code'

(210).

Why

this

privileged

status for

gestures?

McN

offers two

arguments.

First,

gestures

and

sentences 'share a

stage

of devel-

opment

before

speech

takes on

its

socially

constitutedform' and

contrastive

value-since

gestures synchronize

with

speech

and

anticipatespeech.

This is

to establish 'the likelihood that gestures and speech have a common mental

source'

(213).

Second and

crucially, 'gestures

exhibit

this

stage

without dis-

tortionbecause

they

lack direct social

regulation'

210)

.. The

'privileged

tatus

of

gestures

derives

from

the

absence of social standards

or

the

performance

of

gestures'

(213).

Why

should

gestures

be so

revealing

with

regard

o intrinsicvalue?

Because

'gestures

are

non-arbitrary

with a natural

basis

in

thinking

..

[Thus]

in

iconic

gestures

the hands are

nonarbitrary ymbols: shape

and movement

are

deter-

mined

by

the

meanings

the

hands

convey' (16),

and in

metaphorics gestures

exhibit

images

of

abstract

concepts

... a

picturable

vehicle

of

a

metaphor

or

the abstract meaning' (231) '... Not having a level of socially constituted pho-

nological

or

morphological tructure,

conic

gestures

can

directly

exhibit mental

operations' (214). Gestures,

while

concurrent with

speech,

show

something

different

from

speech; they convey meaning

in a

'fundamentally

different

form-global

and

synthetic

rather than linear

and

segmented'.

These

global

and

synthetic properties

are the

'properties

of

the

imagistic thinking

behind

gestures' (19).

Obviously

this is

playing

for

very high stakes,

and

McN

presents

a

rich,

valuable

typology

of

gesture types (this description

and

analysis

of

gestures is

followed

up

and

further

developed

in

McNeill et al.

1990.

Just

because the

stakes

are so

high,

a

number

of

questions

need

to be

raised. McN

claims that

gesture

data

provide

a

direct

access to the mental

operations

of

speakers,allow

us to

get

at

the

global imagisticunderlying

natureof

thought.

But

we

have no

other

independentaccess,

and

because of that

lack

there

is

always the danger

of

reading

back

or

translating

he data

of

gesture simply

into the

data

of un-

derlying analogical, imagisticthought. Second,

for the

moment

grantingMcN

his

argument,

he natural

question

is: what

do

gesture

data

reveal in

a

general

SYSTEMATIC

way

about the

nature

of mind and

intrinsic

value? While McN

discusses with

insight

a

(small)

numberof

examples,

he

does not

really

in

any

explicit way lay out the generalyield of the gesturalwork-if gestures provide

us

such a

wonderful

window,

what

is the

world like

when we

look

through hat

window?

Finally,

and

perhaps

most

important,

McN

argues that gestures can

provide

the

revealing illuminating

nondistorted

nformation

hey

do

'because

they

lack

direct social

regulation'.

But if

this is

so,

then

how

can the watcher

391



6/6

LANGUAGE,

VOLUME

66,

NUMBER2

(1990)ANGUAGE,

VOLUME

66,

NUMBER2

(1990)

or audience

decode, or,

better,

understand

hem?

(The

very inappropriateness

of

the term 'decode' here

signals

the

problem.)

While McN

deals

at

length

with

gestures

from the

point

of

view of the

speaker

or

actor,

he

says very

little

indeed on this from the perspective of the listener or watcher, and he says

almost

nothing

about how the latter

can

come to

interpretspeech-concurrent

gestures

appropriately.

This

problemdesperately

needs to be addressed.

This

book is

often

difficult,

even

opaque.

I

have reservations and concerns

about the

way

it

phrases problems

and the solutions it offers.

Nevertheless,

I

think it well worth while to

struggle

with

it,

because McNeill worries

in

dif-

ferent,

unique ways

about

basic,

important

matters,

such as the relation be-

tween

thinking

and

anguage,

and

because

he

looks

at

sources

of

evidence about

language

hatare

usually

neglected, particularly

estures.

He

forces

significant

issues to our attention n a provocativeway.

REFERENCES

BERLIN, BRENT,

and

PAUL

KAY. 1969. Basic color terms: Their

universality

and

evo-

lution.

Berkeley: University

of California

Press.

MCNEILL,

DAVID;

ELENA

T.

LEVY;

and LAURA

L.

PEDELTY.

1990.

Speech

and

gesture.

Advances in

Psychology:

Cerebral

control of

speech

and limb

movements,

ed.

by

Geoffrey

Hammond. New York:

Elsevier North

Holland,

to

appear.

L. L. Thurstone

PsychometricLaboratory [Received 12 January1990.]

CB #3270 Davie Hall

The University of North Carolina

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270

Informal ectures on

formal

semantics.

By

EMMONACH.State

University of

New York

Press,

1989.

Pp. x,

150. Cloth

$29.50, paper $9.95.

Reviewed

by

M. J.

CRESSWELL, niversity of Massachusetts and

Victoria University of Wellington

Those

of us who work

in

model-theoreticsemantics are sometimes

asked

what

we

do. Usually

a few

platitudes

will

quickly

halt

further

questioning,

but

for

a

serious

enquirer

one would like

a

little

book

that does

not demand

any

previous experienceof logic, linguistics,

or

philosophy. EmmonBach has writ-

ten such

a

book.

Within

ts

short

length

we

have

a

nontechnicalpresentation

of the

syntax

and semantics of the first-order

predicatecalculus,

an

indication

of how to

supplement

t

by

the addition

of

times and

possible worlds, gener-

alized

quantifiers

and

other such

devices;

and a

discussion of what

sorts of

entities are needed in

the semantics of

natural

anguage.

The book is based on a series

of lectures

given

at

Tianjin

Normal

University

in the

summer

of

1984.

The

first

lecture,

on the

semantics

of

standardpredicate

logic, will be quite straightforwardo those familiarwith the material.I suspect

that

someone without a

knowledge

of

logic who would like a good understand-

ing

of these matters

would

need

to look

at

a more technical introduction,but

Bach

is

pretty explicit

that the

purpose of

the

lectures is motivational,and I

or audience

decode, or,

better,

understand

hem?

(The

very inappropriateness

of

the term 'decode' here

signals

the

problem.)

While McN

deals

at

length

with

gestures

from the

point

of

view of the

speaker

or

actor,

he

says very

little

indeed on this from the perspective of the listener or watcher, and he says

almost

nothing

about how the latter

can

come to

interpretspeech-concurrent

gestures

appropriately.

This

problemdesperately

needs to be addressed.

This

book is

often

difficult,

even

opaque.

I

have reservations and concerns

about the

way

it

phrases problems

and the solutions it offers.

Nevertheless,

I

think it well worth while to

struggle

with

it,

because McNeill worries

in

dif-

ferent,

unique ways

about

basic,

important

matters,

such as the relation be-

tween

thinking

and

anguage,

and

because

he

looks

at

sources

of

evidence about

language

hatare

usually

neglected, particularly

estures.

He

forces

significant

issues to our attention n a provocativeway.

REFERENCES

BERLIN, BRENT,

and

PAUL

KAY. 1969. Basic color terms: Their

universality

and

evo-

lution.

Berkeley: University

of California

Press.

MCNEILL,

DAVID;

ELENA

T.

LEVY;

and LAURA

L.

PEDELTY.

1990.

Speech

and

gesture.

Advances in

Psychology:

Cerebral

control of

speech

and limb

movements,

ed.

by

Geoffrey

Hammond. New York:

Elsevier North

Holland,

to

appear.

L. L. Thurstone

PsychometricLaboratory [Received 12 January1990.]

CB #3270 Davie Hall

The University of North Carolina

Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3270

Informal ectures on

formal

semantics.

By

EMMONACH.State

University of

New York

Press,

1989.

Pp. x,

150. Cloth

$29.50, paper $9.95.

Reviewed

by

M. J.

CRESSWELL, niversity of Massachusetts and

Victoria University of Wellington

Those

of us who work

in

model-theoreticsemantics are sometimes

asked

what

we

do. Usually

a few

platitudes

will

quickly

halt

further

questioning,

but

for

a

serious

enquirer

one would like

a

little

book

that does

not demand

any

previous experienceof logic, linguistics,

or

philosophy. EmmonBach has writ-

ten such

a

book.

Within

ts

short

length

we

have

a

nontechnicalpresentation

of the

syntax

and semantics of the first-order

predicatecalculus,

an

indication

of how to

supplement

t

by

the addition

of

times and

possible worlds, gener-

alized

quantifiers

and

other such

devices;

and a

discussion of what

sorts of

entities are needed in

the semantics of

natural

anguage.

The book is based on a series

of lectures

given

at

Tianjin

Normal

University

in the

summer

of

1984.

The

first

lecture,

on the

semantics

of

standardpredicate

logic, will be quite straightforwardo those familiarwith the material.I suspect

that

someone without a

knowledge

of

logic who would like a good understand-

ing

of these matters

would

need

to look

at

a more technical introduction,but

Bach

is

pretty explicit

that the

purpose of

the

lectures is motivational,and I

39292


Documents

Reviewed Work - Psycholinguistics - A New Approach by David McNeill