| Summary: | This work describes a model of speech production based on the central role
exercised by a speaker's working memory. It is proposed that speakers make intensive
use of their working memory when planning, composing and uttering speech, and that a
speaker's working memory is guided in its composition processes by an array of co-occurring
cues, or constraints, which determine the selection of chunks of utterances in
memory. The constraints are: semantic activation, imagery (i.e. the activation of detailed
semantic, visual and spatial information), syntax, speech rhythm, prosody and sound
repetitions. Speakers are exposed to the perception of environmental information and to
others' speech, and these inputs determine the co-occurring activation and the selection
of mnemonic data according to the constraints outlined. Evidence for the model is drawn
from linguistic material, research on the cognitive psychology of oral literatures, and
studies in social psychology and cultural information transmission.
The model stems from criticism that I direct to the concept of language as it is
understood in modern linguistics. It will be shown that the assumptions on which current
theories of language rest are at odds with recent developments in philosophy and
communication studies. It will be argued that the proposed model is not only more
theoretically sound, but also more adequate to describe speech as it is produced by real
speakers. === Arts, Faculty of === English, Department of === Graduate
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