Being Human: Human Being

Here are some questions you may have always wondered about but never found an answer to. Why is it that a mother or nursemaid, with no education or even with mental retardation, can teach a baby to talk but it typically requires a more professionally educated person with greater effort to teach a child to read? Why is it that a person profoundly deaf from birth usually finds it harder to get a college or graduate education than a person who is blind since birth? Why did researchers fail to be able to slice up recorded human voice into sound segments (i.e., alphabetic units) and thereby synthesize speech, yet speech was easily synthesized recently by the manipulation of three sound variables? Why is it that one can be in an environment of loud sounds or noise and shouting yet be able to attend to and understand from the midst a soft quiet continuing voice? Why does stuttering happen in some persons with high levels of verbal intelligence? The responses I present to these questions are based partly upon the assumption that constructs are linked in only two ways: the symmetric and the asymmetric. With symmetric pairing one can have a connection from construct A to construct B, but the connection also allows the direction to be reversed, from construct B to construct A. With asymmetric pairing one can have a connection from construct A to construct B but the connection does not allow a movement back to construct A. Ordinarily, we think of symmetric pairings as having their strongest advantage in the right hemisphere, where representations of elements are assembled in contexts of space, math, or music. We ordinarily think of asymmetric pairings to have their strongest advantage in the left hemisphere, where sequences of action or thought are formed into hierarchical thinking or chains of behavior. Language is a complex phenomenon that involves both cerebral hemispheres and both types of construct pairings. To do language one might think of a chain of constructs, A to Z and so forth, and the importance of anticipating along that chain--“listening ahead,” so to speak. Then, one can think of each link in the chain as having its own set of symmetric linkages, creating a series of constellations of images and meanings at each link. We have traditionally viewed the anatomy of language primarily as semantics and syntax. Our relevant speech sounds were thought to be limited to consonants, vowels, phoneme assemblies, and syllable assemblies. We have thought of these as being assembled in the proper asymmetric linkage, from beginning to end to constitute spoken symbols that were recognizable. In turn, this symbol could have a symmetric pairing with another construct that we would call the referent or meaning of the symbol. Unfortunately, however, with the advances in sound technology that allows us to separate these sound events, we have found that they are of no value to us in producing recognizable speech. In speaking and listening we indeed have elements linked together in a chain, and we use this chain to “anticipate ahead” before sentences are finished, but it is not the phonemes or syllables that are chained. With this cul de sac, let us back up and envision teaching an infant to talk. Indeed we do have the relevant speech sounds arranged in our familiar asymmetric sequences: “Hel-lo Ba-BY!” “Say Dah-dee!” “Say Mom-MEE!” Perhaps we do this while the happy baby is producing his own vicarious asymmetric string of sounds (i.e., babble). Things are a long way from the baby saying “Daddy” when daddy’s face appears or “Mommy” when mommy’s face appears. What is indeed being taught, however, is the backbone on which speech learning is built. But the backbone is more than consonants, vowels, phoneme units, syllable units, and soon the word units. It is the total melody or rhythm of auditory inflections; changes in pitch, visual sequence of the mother’s facial appearance and lip movements, and possibly even the proprioceptive movements as the mother rocks the baby gently up and down with waxing and waning of the accents and intensity of speech. This asymmetric sequence of events across time is multisensory. Both teacher and pupil are advantaged by the redundant coordination of sound, sight, and feel. Before understanding the words, the baby begins to understand the “tune.” The baby is generating constructs to anticipate the next step in the tune before it occurs. The “tune” tells the baby if it is a greeting, question, declaration, adoration, or admonishment. With this initial step in learning, the infant can then begin the symmetric construct pairing. She can link the mother’s utterance “Mommy” to her own imitative utterance of “Mommy.” Then by successive events of presence vs. absence of the mother’s face the baby can link the spoken sound “mommy” to the presence of Mommy. Baby is on her way to saying words and knowing where they fit and what they mean. First the song. Then the symbols of sound. Then the referential meanings of the symbols. With these starting assemblies, the infant can then follow its teacher into the “mother tongue” and begin to assemble uttered words as they fit into the rhythm of the given language. It is like putting the flesh on the backbone. Have you ever listened to a person, in a phone conversation for example, speaking in some language you do not understand? It may be one such as Chinese or Norwegian or Italian. You do not know a single word, but you can hear the song. Each linguistic tongue has its own rhythm of course, and the speaker must master that rhythm. However, separate from that, there are aspects of the communication common to many, if not all, languages that reflect the topic being conveyed. You can tell when the person is asking a question, emphasizing a point, expressing sympathy and understanding, expressing surprise, expressing anger, sharing exciting news, bemoaning a frustration, or closing off the phone conversation. In no case need you understand a single word spoken, but you can read the rhythm. The asymmetric backbone is like a series of beads strung together so as to unfold only in a particular way. With an infant or adult learning a language a prerequisite seems to be to master the sequential rhythm--the string of beads. Then, separately, there are the symmetric construct pairings, where each bead, i.e., each word is discriminated from the string and has a constellation of referents and connotations. Since formal teaching of language typically focuses upon the vocabulary and its correct pronunciation and not upon the melodic backbone, a foreign speaker can readily be recognized for his or her broken asymmetric sequence even though the meanings of the words have been transmitted. Walking down a street in Bogota, Colombia, I asked a local for directions to the “drogueria.” He did not understand. Finally I gave up and asked for a “farmacia.” “Ah! Si! Farmacia!” He sent me down one more block to the drugstore. Then getting closer, I asked another local for the “farmacia.” He was puzzled and could not understand the word. Quickly I gave up and returned to “drogeuria.” “Ah! Si! Drogueria!” He points to the door. With one word and then the other, I had first pronounced the word with some unknown inflection that made it completely foreign and unrecognizable. I had the syllables but failed to grasp the melody. [Continued, Chapter 22]