Denes Dr. Peter B. - The Speech Chain

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Text originally published in 1963 under the same title.

Pickle Partners Publishing 2016, all rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted by any means, electrical, mechanical or otherwise without the written permission of the copyright holder.

Publishers Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Authors original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern readers benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

THE SPEECH CHAIN:

The Physics and Biology of Spoken Language

BY

PETER B. DENES

AND

ELLIOT N. PINSON

Contents

A striking characteristic of our century is the rapid expansion of science. It is no longer possible for a person to have an up-to-date familiarity with all fields. New knowledge is being brought to lightand new fields exploredat a rate that makes it difficult for scientists and engineers to keep abreast of developments in their own fields, let alone those outside their immediate concern.

Inevitably, this creates problems for the men and women responsible for setting school curricula. The teaching time available is not sufficient to cover all subjects. The usual approach is to present formal courses on several broad disciplines, like physics, biology and history. Each subject is presented independently and there is little time to show their interrelation.

Of course, many subjects do not fall wholly within any one of the established categories. Communication by speech is such a subject. Its understanding requires a knowledge of anatomy, physiology, physics, psychology and linguistics. It provides an excellent illustration of the interrelation of concepts from a wide range of disciplines, and it shows to advantage what can be gained by using the points of view and methods of investigation of several disciplines.

Spoken communication is not only an interdisciplinary subject; it is also an extremely important human activity. It sets us apart from other animals and is closely related to our power of reasoning. In addition, it is the most commonly used form of communication and has influenced the way human societies have developed.

This bookpresenting a significant subject in an interdisciplinary mannershould be suitable for good high school students at the junior or senior grades and, perhaps, for certain college students as well. We hope that any student interested in spoken communication will find the text understandable and rewarding, whether his primary interest is physics, biology or the humanities. We have certainly tried to present the material in a way understandable to all, without requiring previous knowledge of the fields involved.

We do not give a detailed account of our subject. The selection of topics rested to a great extent on the particular interests of the authors and, of course, on what we thought was important.

Although this book is completely self-contained, it is a companion piece to several other educational aids that make up the Bell Systems science program on spoken communication. These include the film and classroom demonstration experiments that are described at the end of the text.

The authors are grateful to those who helped in the preparation of this book. We owe a special debt to D. H. Van Lenten, whose fine editing improved the readability of the book. His efforts to coordinate the work of the authors also were invaluable.

J. L. Flanagan and E. E. David read the entire manuscript and made many valuable suggestions. Others who have helped us on one or more chapters include L. D. Harmon, N. Guttman, W. van Bergeijk, M. Sondhi, Stefi Pinson, and Joan Miller, who programmed a computer to generate some of the illustrations.

We have rarely given credit in the body of the text to those scientists whose work we describe. We felt that annotations and footnotes would detract from the readability of our presentation. An annotated reading list is given at the end of the book, where the interested reader can find publications that go more deeply than we have into various aspects of spoken communication.

Peter B. Denes

Elliot N. Pinson

We usually take for granted our ability to produce and understand speech and give little thought to its nature and function, just as we are not particularly aware of the action of our hearts, brains, or other essential organs. It is not surprising, therefore, that many people overlook the great influence of speech on the development and normal functioning of human society.

Wherever human beings live together, they develop a system of talking to each other; even people in the most primitive societies use speech. Speech, in fact, is one of those few, basic abilitiestool making is anotherthat set us apart from animals and are closely connected with our ability to think abstractly.

Why is speech so important? One reason is that the development of human civilization is made possibleto a great extentby mans ability to share experiences, to exchange ideas and to transmit knowledge from one generation to another; in other words, his ability to communicate with other men. We can communicate with each other in many ways. The smoke signals of the Apache Indian, the starters pistol in a 100-yard dash, the finger signing language used by deaf people, the Morse Code and various systems of writing are just a few examples of the many different systems of communication developed by man. Unquestionably, however, speech is the system that man found to be far more efficient and convenient than any other.

You may think that writing is a more important means of communication. After all, the development of civilization and the output of printing presses seem to parallel each other, and the written word appears to be a more efficient and more durable means of transmitting intelligence. It must be remembered, however, that no matter how many books and newspapers are printed, the amount of intelligence exchanged by speech is still vastly greater. The widespread use of books and printed matter may very well be an indication of a highly developed civilization, but so is the greater use of telephone systems. Those areas of the world where civilization is most highly developed are also the areas with the greatest density of telephones; and countries bound by social and political ties are usually connected by a well-developed telephone system.

We can further bolster our argument that speech has a more fundamental influence than writing on the development of civilization by citing the many human societies that have developed and flourished without evolving a system of reading and writing. We know of no civilization, however, where speech was not available.

Perhaps the best example of the overwhelming importance of speech in human society is a comparison of the social attitudes of the blind to those of the deaf. Generally, blind people tend to get along with their fellow human beings despite their handicap. But the deaf, who can still read and write, often feel cut off from society. A deaf person, deprived of his primary means of communication, tends to withdraw from the world and live within himself.