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Speech

Speech

One might be looking for the academic discipline of communications. ---- Speech can be described as an act of producing voice through the use of the vocal cords or other means, such as sign language, to create linguistic acts in the form of language that communicate information from an initiator to a recipient. In more colloquial terms, speech can be described in several different ways: #A linguistic act designed to convey information.
#Various types of linguistic acts where the audience consists of more than one individual, including public speaking, oration, and quotation.
#The physical act of speaking, primarily through the use of vocal chords to produce voice. See phonology and linguistics for more detailed information on the physical act of speaking. However, speech can also take place inside one's head, known as intrapersonal communication, for example, when one thinks or utters sounds of approval or disapproval. At a deeper level, one could even consider subconscious processes, including dreams where aspects of oneself communicate with each other (see Sigmund Freud), as part of intrapersonal communication, even though most human beings do not seem to have direct access to such communication.

Problems

There are several factors that can affect the quality of speech as such. Among these are: #Diseases and disorders of the lungs or the vocal cords, including paralysis, respiratory infections, and cancers of the lungs and throat.
#Diseases and disorders of the brain, including alogia, aphasias and speech processing disorders, where impaired perception of the message (as opposed to the actual sound) leads to poor speech production.
#Articulatory problems, such as stuttering, lisping, cleft palate, ataxia, or nerve damage leading to problems in articulation. Tourette syndrome and nervous tics can also affect speech.
#Problems in the perception of sound and auditory information can affect speech. In addition to aphasias, anomia and certain types of dyslexia can impede the quality of auditory perception, and therefore, expression. Hearing impairments and deafness can be considered to fall into this category. Thus, it is clear that speech has both expressive and receptive elements. The purpose of speech can be to convey meaning or to increase social bonds between individuals and/or groups (it is often both). For the latter, shallowness is not a problem. The success of a speech act depends on numerous factors, including the presence or absence of a variety of speech disorders, the ability of the speaker to express the intended message, and the ability and willingness of the audience to play the role of recipient. Glossophobia is the fear of public speaking.

Academic discipline

This is a list of academic disciplines (and academic fields). An academic discipline is a branch of knowledge which is formally taught, either at the university, or via some other such method. Functionally, disciplines are usually defined and recognised by the academic journals in which research is published, and the learned societies to which their practitioners belong. Each discipline usually has several sub-disciplines or branches and distinguishing lines are often both arbitrary and ambiguous. Historically (in medieval Europe) there where only four faculties in a university: Theology, Medicine, Jurisprudence and Arts, with the last one having a somewhat lower status than the other three. Today's disciplines have their roots in the mid- to late-19th century secularization of universities, when the traditional curriculum was supplemented by non-classical languages and literatures, physics, chemistry, biology, and engineering. In the opening decades of the 20th century, education, sociology, and psychology took their place in the university curriculum. A "
- " denotes a field whose academic status is debated.

Natural sciences

Astronomy

- Astrophysics
- Cosmogony
- Cosmology

Behavioral science

Mathematics and computer science

Mathematics

- Algebra
- Analysis
- Calculus
- Game theory
- Geometry
- Information theory
- Number theory
- Probability theory
- Statistics
- Topology
- For a more extensive list, see list of mathematical topics, and list of lists of mathematical topics.

Computer science

- Algorithms
- Artificial intelligence
- Computer security
- Computing
- Complexity theory
- Cryptography
- Distributed systems
- Hardware
- Programming (see List of programming languages)
- Formal methods
- Information systems
- Robotics
- Visual Analytics See also: ACM [http://www.acm.org/class/ Computing Classification System]

Social sciences

Anthropology

- Biological anthropology
- Primate behavior
- Human evolution
- Population genetics
- Forensic anthropology
- Anthropological linguistics
- Synchronic linguistics (or Descriptive linguistics)
- Diachronic linguistics (or Historical linguistics)
- Educational
- Ethnolinguistics
- Sociolinguistics
- Archeology
- Cultural anthropology
- Anthropology of religion
- Anthropology of technology
- Economic anthropology
- Ethnography
- Ethnohistory
- Ethnology
- Ethnomusicology
- Human behavioral ecology
- Mythology
- Political anthropology
- Psychological anthropology
- Urban anthropology
- Historical anthropology

Archaeology

Communications

- Animal communications
- Information theory
- Interpersonal communications
- Marketing
- Propaganda
- Public affairs
- Public diplomacy
- Public relations
- Technical Writing
- Nonverbal communications
- Speech communications
- Telecommunications
- Computer-mediated communications
- Telecommunications Systems Management

Economics

- Econometrics
- Game theory
- Human development theory
- Labour economics
- Microeconomics
- Macroeconomics

Ethnic Studies

- Asian American Studies
- Black Studies or African American Studies
- Latino/Latina Studies
- Native American Studies

Ethnology

- Ethnomusicology
- Folklore

History

- Ancient history
- Diplomatic history
- European history
- Military history
- Modern history

Geography

- Cultural geography
- Economic geography
- Environmental geography
- Human geography
- Physical geography

Linguistics

- Historical linguistics
- Interlinguistics
- Morphology
- Phonetics
- Phonology
- Semantics
- Sociolinguistics
- Syntax

Political science

- Civics
- International relations
- Political philosophy
- Psephology
- Public policy

Psychology

- Astropsychology
-
- Behavioural psychology
- Cognitive psychology
- Cognitive science
- Differential psychology
- Developmental psychology
- Evolutionary psychology
- Experimental psychology
- Intrapersonal communications
- Neuropsychology
- Organisational psychology
- Psychology of work
- Parapsychology
-
- Psychoanalysis
- Social psychology

Semiotics

- Vexillology
-

Sociology

- Collective behavior
- Computational sociology
- Environmental sociology
- Interactionism
- Economic development
- Economic sociology
- Feminist sociology
- Functionalism
- Future studies
- Human ecology
- Industrial sociology
- Media Sociology
- Medical sociology
- Political sociology
- Program evaluation
- Public sociology
- Pure sociology
- Rural Sociology
- Science studies
- Science and technology studies
- Social change
- Social demography
- Social inequality
- Social movements
- Social Theory
- Sociology of culture
- Sociology of conflict
- Sociology of deviance
- Sociology of disaster
- Sociology of the family
- Sociology of markets
- Sociology of religion
- Sociology of sport
- Urban studies or Urban sociology
- Visual sociology

Humanities and arts

Area studies (sometimes called cultural studies)

- American studies
- African studies
- Asian Studies
- Catholic studies
- Chinese studies
- Eastern European studies
- Esperanto studies
- German studies
- International Studies
- Japanese studies
- Latin American studies
- Irish studies
- Islamic studies
- Jewish studies
- Russian studies

Art

- Art history
- Studio art

Classics

Creative writing

- Poetry composition
- Fiction writing
- Non-fiction writing and literary journalism

Dance

- Choreography
- Dance analysis
- Dance notation
- Dance studies
- Ethnochoreology
- History of dance
- Performance, somatic practice

English literature

also see Literature
- American literature
- African American literature
- Southern literature
- Australian literature
- British literature (literature outside England may be written in Celtic languages)
- English literature
- Northern Ireland literature
- Scottish literature
- Welsh literature
- Canadian literature (a significant amount of Canadian literature is also written in French)
- Irish literature
- New Zealand literature

Film studies and film criticism

- Animation

Folklore

History

- Ancient history
- Diplomatic history
- Ethnohistory
- European history
- History of science and technology
- Military history
- Modern history

Linguistics

see entry under social sciences

Literature and cultural studies

- English studies
- Comparative literature

Literatures

- English literature
- African American literature
- American literature
- British literature
- Indian literature
- Irish literature
- French literature
- Gaelic literature
- German literature
- Hindi literature
- Modern Hebrew Literature
- Portuguese & Brazilian literature
- Spanish literature
- Yiddish literature
- other languages' and cultures' literatures

Methods and topics

- Literary criticism
- Literary theory
- Media studies
- New media
- Poetics

Music

- Accompanying
- Arts leadership
- Chamber music
- Church music
- Musical composition
- Conducting
- Choral conducting
- Orchestral conducting
- Wind ensemble conducting
- Early music
- Jazz studies and new media
- Music education
- Music theory pedagodgy
- Music history
- Music theory
- Musicology
- Ethnomusicology
- Performance and literature
- Organ and historical keyboards
- Piano
- Strings, harp, and guitar
- Voice
- Woodwinds, brass, and percussion
- Orchestral studies

Museology

Mythology

Philology

Philosophy

- Aesthetics
- Continental philosophy
- Eastern philosophy
- Epistemology
- Ethics
- Hermeneutics
- History of philosophy
- Logic
- Metaphysics
- Philosophy of language
- Philosophy of mathematics
- Philosophy of mind
- Philosophy of religion
- Philosophy of science

Religious studies

- Canon law
- Catholic studies
- Comparative religious studies
- Islamic studies
- Hadith
- Islamic history
- Islamic jurisprudence
- Qur'an
- Jewish Studies
- Bible
- Halacha
- Jewish history
- Jewish philosophy
- Jewish literature
- Mythology
- Theology
- Astrology
-
- Christology
- Kabbalah
- Midrash
- Moral theology
- Mystical theology
- Numerology
-
- Spirituality
- Talmud

Theatre

- History
- Acting
- Directing
- Design
- Dramaturgy

Women's studies and gender studies

- Queer studies

Professions / Applied sciences

Design

- city planning, urban planning
- industrial design, product design
- graphic design
- architecture
- interior design (also see family and consumer science below)
- landscape architecture

Business

- Accounting scholarship
- Business ethics
- Finance
- Industrial and labor relations
- Collective bargaining
- Human resources
- Organizational Behavior
- International and comparative labor
- Labor economics
- Labor history
- Labor statistics
- Information systems
- Management
- Marketing
- Manufacturing

Education

- Curriculum and instruction
- Elementary Education (Primary education & Intermediate education)
- Middle school education
- Secondary education
- Higher education
- Physical Education
- Educational administration
- Educational psychology
- Educational technology

Engineering

- Acoustic engineering
- Agricultural engineering
- Architectural engineering
- Bioengineering
- Biomaterials engineering
- Biomedical engineering
- Chemical engineering
- Civil engineering
- Combat engineering
- Computer engineering
- Control systems engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Electronic engineering
- Microelectronics and semiconductor engineering
- Environmental engineering
- Industrial engineering
- Materials engineering
- Ceramic engineering
- Metallurgical engineering
- Polymer engineering
- Mechanical engineering
- Mining engineering
- Nuclear engineering
- Ocean engineering
- Optical engineering
- Quality assurance engineering
- Petroleum engineering
- Robotics
- Safety engineering
- Telecommunications engineering
- Transportation engineering
- Aerospace engineering
- Automotive systems engineering
- Naval engineering
- Marine engineering
- Naval architecture

Ergonomics

Agriculture

- Animal science
- Agrology
- Agricultural economics
- Aquaculture
- Beekeeping (Apiculture)
- Horticulture
- Plant science

Forestry

- Forestry organisation
- Silviculture

Family and consumer science

- Foodservice management
- Hotel administration
- Consumer education
- Housing
- Interior design (also see architecture and environmental design above)
- Nutrition (also see medical sciences below)
- Textiles

Journalism and mass communications

- Advertising
- Film
- Journalism
- Broadcast journalism
- New media journalism
- Print journalism
- Public relations
- List of journalists

Law

- Canon law
- Comparative law
- Constitutional law
- Civil law
- Accounting law
- Admiralty law
- Corporations
- Civil procedure
- Contracts
- Environmental law
- International law
- Labor law
- Property law
- Tax law
- Torts
- Criminal law
- Criminal procedure
- Criminal justice (also see Public Affairs and Community Service below)
- Police science
- Forensics
- Islamic law
- Jewish law
- Jurisprudence
- Philosophy of law

Library and information science

Health sciences

- Medical Sciences
- Dentistry
- Dental hygiene and Epidemiology
- Dental surgery
- Restorative dentistry and Endodontics
- Orthodontics
- Oral and maxillofacial surgery
- Pedodontics (Pediatric dentistry)
- Periodontics
- Prosthodontics
- Implantology
- Human medicine
- Cardiology
- Endocrinology and diabetology
- Epidemiology
- Forensics
- Geriatrics
- Hematology
- Internal medicine
- Health science
- Nephrology
- Neurology
- Neurosurgery
- Pathology
- Pediatrics
- Psychiatry (see also: Anti-psychiatry
- )
- Rheumatology
- Surgery
- Midwifery
- Nursing
- Veterinary medicine
- Nutrition (also see family and consumer science above)
- Optometry
- Pharmacy
- Physiotherapy
- Public health

Military science

- Artillery
- Air force studies
- Campaigning
- Combat engineering
- Comparative military systems
- Doctrine
- Force planning
- Game theory (also see economics above)
- Generalship
- Joint warfare studies
- Leadership
- Logistics
- Military ethics
- Military history
- Military intelligence
- Military law
- Military medicine
- Naval science
- Naval engineering
- Naval tactics
- Naval architecture
- Weapons systems
- Special operations and low intensity conflict
- Strategy
- Tactics
- Naval tactics

Public affairs and community service

- Criminal justice (also see Law above)
- Corrections
- Nonprofit administration
- Parks and recreation management
- Public administration
- Industrial and labor relations (also see Business above)
- Social work
- Gerontology

Communications

The term communications is used in a number of disciplines:
- Communications, also known as communication studies is the academic discipline which studies communication. See also: generaly seen as a mixture between Media studies and linguistics.
- In geography, communications are the physical routes (roads, rivers, canals, railways, etc.) travelled by people in order to interact with each other. See also: transportation.
- In telecommunication, the term communications has the following meanings:
- # Information transfer, among users or processes, according to agreed conventions (see communications protocol).
- # The branch of technology concerned with the representation, transfer, interpretation, and processing of data among persons, places, and machines also known as information systems.

Voice

The word "voice" can be used to refer to:
- Sound:
- The human voice.
- A section of a choir or other musical ensemble that sings or plays the same part.
- The register of a line of counterpoint, including soprano, alto, tenor, bass. These terms come from the section of the choir to which a line would be given (the soprano voice would have been given to the soprano voices).
- In synthesis, a section of components or code producing a monophonic signal. For polyphony, several voices are needed.
- In phonetics and phonology, a phone or phoneme is said to be voiced if it is produced with the vocal folds vibrating. See phonation, voiced consonant.
- Auditory hallucinations: hearing voices
- Literature and language:
- The tone of a piece of writing, influenced by its point of view.
- In grammar, voice is a verb-form that indicates the relationship between the subject and the action expressed by the verb. See grammatical voice
- Popular culture (chronologically):
- Voice, a plot element of the Dune universe
- Voices was the Hall & Oates album released in 1980. One of its singles was the number-one hit "Kiss on My List", and it is considered by many to be the starting point of the duo's major success in the 1980s.
- "Voices" is the theme song from the 1994 anime series Macross Plus, performed by Yoko Kanno and Akino Arai.
- The Voice was Ireland's winning song at the Eurovision Song Contest 1996
- "Voices" is a song from the album The Sickness (2000) by hard rock band Disturbed.
- "Voices" is a song from the album Only in Amerika (2004) by hardcore punk band (hed) p.e..
- "VOICES" is a Bangalore based NGO. VOICES stands for 'Voices of Individuals and Communities Empowering Society through Vehicles of Information and Communication Enabling Social Change'
- The Voice is a story starring The Shadow
- "The Voice" is a reference to several singers, such as Garth Brooks, Jackson Browne and Mariah Carey, as in "The Return of The Voice"
- Miscellaneous:
- The Voice is a British weekly paper serving the black community
- The Voice Magazine
- The Voice (Norway)
- The Voice is a newspaper for the Winnipeg Labour Party
- In voting, see voice vote.
- In Human Resource Management and Industrial relations, see Employee voice ja:声

Vocal cords

The vocal cords, also known as vocal folds, are composed of twin infoldings of mucous membrane stretched horizontally across the human larynx. They vibrate, modulating the flow of air being expelled from the lungs during phonation. Open during breathing, the folds are controlled via the arytenoid cartilages for speech or singing. They are white because of poor blood circulation. The folds vibrate when they are closed to obstruct the airflow through the glottis, the space between the folds: they are forced open by increased air pressure in the lungs, and closed again as the air rushes past the folds, lowering the pressure (Bernoulli's principle). A person's voice pitch is determined by the resonant frequency of the vocal folds. In an adult male this frequency averages about 125 Hz, adult females around 210, in children the frequency is over 300 Hz.

Sign language

A sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses manual communication instead of sound to convey meaning - simultaneously combining handshapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to fluidly express a speaker's thoughts. Sign languages develop in deaf communities, which can include interpreters and friends and families of deaf people as well as people who are deaf or hearing-impaired themselves. When people using different signed languages meet communication is significantly easier than when people of different spoken languages meet. Sign language in this respect gives access to an international deaf community. However, contrary to popular belief, sign language is not universal. Wherever communities of deaf people exist, sign languages develop, but as with spoken languages, these vary from region to region. They are not based on the spoken language in the country of origin; in fact their complex spatial grammars are markedly different. However, various signed "modes" of spoken languages have been developed, such as Signed English and Walpiri Sign Language. Hundreds of sign languages are in use around the world and are at the core of local Deaf cultures.

Geographic distribution of Sign languages

In principle, and without too much error, one could state that each spoken language has a sign language counterpart in as much as each linguistic population will contain deaf members who will generate a sign language. In much the same way that geographical or cultural forces will isolate populations and lead to the generation of different and distinct spoken languages, the same forces operate on sign languages and so they tend to maintain their identities through time in roughly the same areas of influence as the local spoken tongues. This occurs even though sign languages have no relation to the spoken languages of the lands in which they arise. There are notable exceptions to this pattern, however, as some geographic regions sharing a spoken language have multiple, unrelated signed languages. Variations within a 'national' sign language can usually be correlated to the geographic location of (residential) schools for the deaf. An invented "international sign language" Gestuno is used for international Deaf events such as the Deaflympics and World Federation of the Deaf. It is analogous to its spoken language counterpart, Esperanto, which is also an invented language designed to be easy-to-learn and neutral.

Use of Signs in Hearing Communities

Gesture is a typical component of spoken languages. More elaborate systems of manual communication have developed in situations where speech is not practical or permitted, such as cloistered religious communities, scuba diving, television recording studios, loud workplaces, while hunting (see Kalahari bushmen) or in the game Charades. On occasion, where the prevalence of deaf people is high enough, a deaf sign language has been taken up by an entire local community. Famous examples of this include Martha's Vineyard Sign Language in the USA, Kata Kolok in a village in Bali, Adamorobe Sign Language in Ghana and Yucatec Maya sign language in Mexico. It is interesting to note that deaf people in such communities are not socially disadvantaged. Many Australian Aboriginal sign languages arose in a context of extensive speech taboos, such as during mourning and initiation rites. They are or were especially highly developed among the Warlpiri, Warumungu, Dieri, Kaytetye, Arrente, Warlmanpa. However, these are manually coded versions of the spoken languages, and are not used by the deaf. A pidgin sign language arose among tribes of American Indians in the Great Plains region of North America (see Plains Indians). It was used to communicate among tribes with different spoken languages. There are especially users today among the Crow, Cheyenne, and Arapaho. Unlike other sign languages developed by hearing people, it shares the spatial grammar of deaf sign languages.

Linguistics of sign

In linguistic terms, sign languages are as rich and complex as any oral language, despite the common misconception that they are not "real languages". Professional linguists have studied many sign languages and found them to have every linguistic component required to be classed as true languages. Sign languages are not pantomime, and they are not a visual rendition of an oral language. They have rich, complex grammars of their own, and can be used to discuss any topic, from the simple and concrete to the lofty and abstract. Sign languages, like oral languages, organize elementary, meaningless units (phonemes; once called cheremes in the case of sign languages) into meaningful semantic units. The elements of a sign are Handshape (or Handform), Orientation (or Palm Orientation), Location (or Place of Articulation), Movement, and Non-manual markers (or Facial Expression), summarised in the acronym HOLME. Common linguistic features of deaf sign languages are extensive use of classifiers, a high degree of inflection, and a topic-comment syntax. Many unique linguistic features emerge from sign languages' ability to produce meaning in different parts of the visual field simultaneously. For example, the recipient of a signed message can read meanings carried by the hands, the facial expression and the body posture in the same moment. This is in contrast to oral languages, where the sounds that comprise words are mostly sequential (tone being an exception).

Sign languages' relationships with oral languages

A common misconception is that sign languages are somehow dependent on oral languages, that is, that they are oral language spelled out in gesture, or that they were invented by hearing people. Hearing teachers of deaf schools, such as Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet, are often incorrectly referred to as inventors of sign language. Fingerspelling is used in sign languages, mostly for proper names. The use of fingerspelling was once taken as evidence that sign languages are simplified versions of oral languages, but in fact it is merely one tool among many. Fingerspelling can sometimes be a source of new signs, which are called lexicalized signs. On the whole, deaf sign languages are independent of oral languages and follow their own paths of developmental. For example, British Sign Language and American Sign Language are quite different and mutually unintelligible, even though the hearing people of Britain and America share the same oral language. Similarly, countries which use a single oral language throughout may have two or more sign languages; whereas an area that contains more than one oral language might use only one sign language.

Spatial grammar and Simultaneity

Sign languages exploit the unique features of the visual medium. Oral language is linear. Only one sound can be made or received at a time. Sign language, on the other hand, is visual; hence a whole scene can be taken in at once. Information can be loaded into several channels and expressed simultaneously. As an illustration, in English one could utter the phrase, "I drove here". To add information about the drive, one would have to make a longer phrase or even add a second, such as, "I drove here along a winding road," or "I drove here. It was a nice drive." However, in American Sign Language, information about the shape of the road or the pleasing nature of the drive can be conveyed simultaneously with the verb 'drive' by inflecting the motion of the hand, or by taking advantage of non-manual signals such as body posture and facial expression, at the same time that the verb 'drive' is being signed. Therefore, whereas in English the phrase "I drove here and it was very pleasant" is longer than "I drove here", in American Sign Language the two may be the same length.

Written forms of Sign Languages

Sign language differs from oral language in its relation to writing. The phonemic systems of oral languages are primarily sequential: that is, the majority of phonemes are produced in a sequence one after another, although many languages also have non-sequential aspects such as tone. As a consequence, traditional phonemic writing systems are also sequential, with at best diacritics for non-sequential aspects such as stress and tone. Sign languages have a higher non-sequential component, with many phonemes produced simultaneously. For example, signs may involve fingers, hands, and face moving simultaneously, or the two hands moving in different directions. Traditional writing systems are not designed to deal with this level of complexity. Partially because of this, sign languages are not often written. Most deaf signers read and write the oral language of their country. However, there have been several attempts at developing scripts for sign language. These have included both phonetic systems, such as [http://www.sign-lang.uni-hamburg.de/Projects/HamNoSys.html HamNoSys] (the Hamburg Notational System) and SignWriting, which can be used for any sign language, and phonemic systems such as the one used by William Stokoe in his 1965 Dictionary of American Sign Language, which are designed for a specific language. The only one of these writing systems that has been actually used by deaf people to write is SignWriting, which was devised by a dancer rather than a linguist. These systems are based on iconic symbols. Some, such as SignWriting and HamNoSys, are pictographic, being conventionalized pictures of the hands, face, and body; others, such as the Stokoe notation, are more iconic. Stokoe used letters of the Latin alphabet and Hindu numerals to indicate the handshapes used in fingerspelling, such as 'A' for a closed fist, 'B' for a flat hand, and '5' for a spread hand; but non-alphabetic symbols for location and movement, such as '[]' for the trunk of the body, '×' for contact, and '^' for an upward movement. Lloyd Anderson has gone further and attempted to write ASL using only the Latin alphabet, but has not published his work. SignWriting, being pictographic, is able to represent simultaneous elements in a single sign. The Stokoe notation, on the other hand, is sequential, with a conventionalized order of a symbol for the location of the sign, then one for the hand shape, and finally one (or more) for the movement. The orientation of the hand is indicated with an optional diacritic before the hand shape. When two movements occur simultaneously, they are written on atop the other; when sequential, they are written one after the other. Neither the Stokoe nor HamNoSys scripts are designed to represent facial expressions or non-manual movements, both of which SignWriting accommodates easily, although this is being gradually corrected in HamNoSys.

Home sign

:See main article: Home sign Sign systems are sometimes developed within a single family. For instance, when hearing parents with no sign language skills have a deaf child, an informal system of signs will naturally develop, unless repressed by the parents. The term for these mini-languages is home sign (sometimes homesign or kitchen sign). Home sign arises due to the absence of any other way to communicate. Within the span of a single lifetime and without the support or feedback of a community, the child is forced to invent signals to facilitate the meeting of his or her communication needs. Although this kind of system is grossly inadequate for the intellectual development of a child and it comes nowhere near meeting the standards linguists use to describe a complete language, it is a common occurrence.

Media

External links

- [http://www.bu.edu/asllrp/publications.html Publications of the American Sign Language Linguistics Research Project]
- [http://www.handspeak.com/ HandSpeak: a resource on ASL, Baby Sign, International Sign, Gestures, and more.]
- [http://deafness.about.com/od/learningsignlanguage/a/whylearnsign.htm Why Learn Sign Language]
- [http://gebaren.ugent.be/ Dictionary of the Flemish Sign Language - Woordenboek Vlaamse Gebarentaal]
- [http://www.g-home.hu/hallatlan_new/index.php?lang=ENG Dictionary of Hungarian Sign Language (with English Translation)]
- [http://www.johnlubotsky.com/deafcinema/ Deaf Cinema List] Films in ASL and other sign languages
- [http://college.hmco.com/history/readerscomp/naind/html/na_036000_signlanguage.htm Plains Indian Sign Language]
- [http://www.ciolek.com/SPEC/kendon.html Publications by Adam Kendon] (field data, research techniques and theory of gesture and sign languages)
- [http://listserv.linguistlist.org/archives/slling-l.html List Serv for Sign Language Linguistics]
- [http://www.deaf247.co.uk Deaf 24/7] Internet resource for all British Sign Language and deafness related information especially in United Kingdom.
- [http://commtechlab.msu.edu/sites/aslweb/browser.htm ASL Browser] (video of thousands of ASL signs)

Language

A language is a system of symbols, generally known as lexemes and the rules by which they are manipulated. The word language is also used to refer to the whole phenomenon of language, i.e., the common properties of languages. Though language is commonly used for communication, it is not synonymous with it. Human language is a natural phenomenon, and language learning is instinctive in childhood. In their natural form, human languages use patterns of sound or gesture for the symbols in order to communicate with others through the senses. Though there are thousands of human languages, they all share a number of properties from which there are no known deviations. Humans have also invented (or arguably in some cases discovered) many other languages, including constructed human languages such as Esperanto or Klingon, programming languages such as Python or Ruby, and various mathematical formalisms. These languages are not restricted to the properties shared by natural human languages.

Properties of language

Languages are not just sets of symbols. They also contain a grammar, or system of rules, used to manipulate the symbols. While a set of symbols may be used for expression or communication, it is primitive and relatively unexpressive, because there are no clear or regular relationships between the symbols. Because a language also has a grammar, it can manipulate its symbols to express clear and regular relationships between them. For example, imagine going on a walk with a person who only knew individual symbols, or words. If you saw a dog, he might say, "Dog scare" or "Scare Dog". Although any English speaker would have some notion of what he was talking about, the relationship between the words is unclear. Is he scared of dogs? Or just that dog? Or does he want to scare the dog off? Does he think the dog is scared? But if you respond, "I’m not scared of dogs," the relationship between dog and scare is quite apparent and hence the meaning of the utterance. Another important property of language is the arbitrariness of the symbols. Any symbol can be mapped onto any concept (or even onto one of the rules of the grammar). For instance, there is nothing about the Spanish word nada itself that forces Spanish speakers to use it to mean nothing. That is the meaning all Spanish speakers have memorized for that sound pattern. But for Croatian speakers nada means hope. However, it must be understood that just because in principle the symbols are arbitrary does not mean that a language cannot have symbols that are iconic of what they stand for. Words such as meow sound similar to what they represent, but they could be replaced with words such as jarn, and as long as everyone memorized the new word, the same concepts could be expressed with it.

Human languages

Human languages are usually referred to as natural languages, and the science studying them is linguistics. Making a principled distinction between one language and another is usually impossible. For example, the boundaries between named language groups are in effect arbitrary due to blending between populations (the dialect continuum). For instance, there are dialects of German very similar to Dutch which are not mutually intelligible with other dialects of (what Germans call) German. Some like to make parallels with biology, where it is not always possible to make a well-defined distinction between one species and the next. In either case, the ultimate difficulty may stem from the interactions between languages and populations. (See Dialect or August Schleicher for a longer discussion.) The concepts of Ausbausprache, Abstandsprache, and Dachsprache are used to make finer distinctions about the degrees of difference between languages or dialects.

Origins of human language

Scientists do not yet agree on when language was first used by humans (or their ancestors). Estimates range from about two million (2,000,000) years ago, during the time of Homo habilis, to as recently as forty thousand (40,000) years ago, during the time of Cro-Magnon man. The nature of speech means that there is almost no data on which to base conclusions on the subject.

Language taxonomy

The classification of natural languages can be performed on the basis of different underlying principles (different closeness notions, respecting different properties and relations between languages); important directions of present classifications are:
- paying attention to the historical evolution of languages results in a genetic classification of languages—which is based on genetic relatedness of languages,
- paying attention to the internal structure of languages (grammar) results in a typological classification of languages—which is based on similarity of one or more components of the language’s grammar across languages,
- and respecting geographical closeness and contacts between language-speaking communities results in areal groupings of languages. The different classifications do not match each other and are not expected to, but the correlation between them is an important point for many linguistic research works. (There is a parallel to the classification of species in biological phylogenetics here: consider monophyletic vs. polyphyletic groups of species.) The task of genetic classification belongs to the field of historical-comparative linguistics, of typological—to linguistic typology. See also: Taxonomy, Taxonomic classification—for the general idea of classification and taxonomies.

Genetic classification

The world’s languages have been grouped into families of languages that are believed to have common ancestors. Some of the major families are the Indo-European languages, the Afro-Asiatic languages, the Austronesian languages, and the Sino-Tibetan languages. The shared features of languages from one family can be due to shared ancestry. (Compare with homology in biology.)

Typological classification

An example of a typological classification is the classification of languages on the basis of the basic order of the verb, the subject and the object in a sentence into several types: SVO, SOV, VSO, and so on, languages. (, for instance, belongs to the SVO language type.) The shared features of languages of one type (= from one typological class) may have arisen completely independently. (Compare with analogy in biology.) Their cooccurence might be due to the universal laws governing the structure of natural languages—language universals.

Areal classification

The following language groupings can serve as some linguistically significant examples of areal linguistic units, or sprachbunds: Balkan linguistic union, or the bigger group of European languages; Caucasian languages. Although the members of each group are not closely genetically related, there is a reason for them to share similar features, namely: their speakers have been in contact for a long time within a common community and the languages converged in the course of the history. These are called areal features. NB. One should be careful about the underlying classification principle for groups of languages which have apparently a geographical name: besides areal linguistic units, the taxa of the genetic classification (language families) are often given names which themselves or parts of which refer to geographical areas.
Constructed languages
One prominent artificial language, called Esperanto, was created by L. L. Zamenhof. It is a compilation of various elements of different languages, and it is intended to be an easy-to-learn language. Another prominent artificial language, called Ido, is intended to be reformed Esperanto. Other constructed languages strive to be more logical than natural languages; a prominent example of this is Lojban. Other writers, such as J. R. R. Tolkien, have created fantasy languages, for literary, artistic, or personal reasons. One of Tolkien’s languages is called Quenya, which is a form of Elvish. It has its own alphabet, and its phonology and syntax are modelled on Finnish. Linguist Mark Okrand has devised Klingon and Vulcan for Star Trek, which have since been developed into full languages.
The study of language
The oldest surviving written grammar for any language is believed to be the Tolkāppiyam (தொல்காப்பியம்), a book on the grammar of the Tamil language, written around 200 BCE by Tolkāppiyar. Its classification of the alphabet into consonants and vowel was a breakthrough. The historical record of the study of language begins in North India with Pāṇini, the 5th century BCE grammarian who formulated 3,959 rules of Sanskrit morphology, known as the (अष्टाध्यायी). grammar is highly systematized and technical. Inherent in its analytic approach are the concepts of the phoneme, the morpheme, and the root; the phoneme was only recognized by Western linguists some two millennia later. In the Middle East, the Persian linguist Sibawayh made a detailed and professional description of Arabic in 760 CE in his monumental work, Al-kitab fi an-nahw (الكتاب في النحو, The Book on Grammar), bringing many linguistic aspects of language to light. In his book he distinguished phonetics from phonology. Later in the West, the success of science, mathematics, and other formal systems in the 20th century led many to attempt a formalization of the study of language as a "semantic code". This resulted in the academic discipline of linguistics, the founding of which is attributed to Ferdinand de Saussure.
Animal (nonhuman) language
While the term animal languages is widely used, most researchers agree that they are not as complex or expressive as human language; a more accurate term is animal communication. Some researchers argue that there are significant differences separating human language from the communication of other animals, and that the underlying principles are not related. In several widely publicised instances, animals have been trained to mimic certain features of human language. For example, chimpanzees and gorillas have been taught hand signs based on American Sign Language; however, they have never been taught its grammar. There was also a case in 2003 of Kanzi, a captive bonobo chimpanzee allegedly independently creating some words to mean certain concepts. While animal communication has debated levels of semantics, it has not been shown to have syntax in the sense that human languages do. Some researchers argue that a continuum exists among the communication methods of all social animals, pointing to the fundamental requirements of group behaviour and the existence of "mirror cells" in primates. This, however, may not be a scientific question, but is perhaps more one of definition. What exactly is the definition of the word "language"? Most researchers agree that, although human and more primitive languages have analogous features, they are not homologous.
Formal languages
Mathematics and computer science use artificial entities called formal languages (including programming languages and markup languages, but also some that are far more theoretical in nature). These often take the form of character strings, produced by some combination of formal grammar and semantics of arbitrary complexity.
See also

- Common phrases in different languages
- Computer-assisted language learning (a historical perspective)
- Deception
- Ethnologue, which provides a fairly complete list of languages, locations, population and genetic affiliation
- Extinct language
- FOXP2 (Language gene)
- ILR scale (defines five levels of language proficiency)
- ISO 639 (2- and 3-letter codes for language names)
- Language education
- Language reform
- Language policy
- Language school
- Linguistic protectionism
- Linguistics basic topics
- List of language academies
- List of languages
- List of official languages
- Naming
- Non-verbal communication
- Non-sexist language
- Official language
- Orthography
- Philology and Historical linguistics
- Philosophy of language
- Profanity
- Psycholinguistics
- Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis
- Slang
- Symbolic communication
- Speech therapy
- Terminology
- Tongue-twister
- Translation
- Whistled language
References

- Crystal, David (1997). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Crystal, David (2001). The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
- Katzner, K. (1999). The Languages of the World. New York, Routledge.
- McArthur, T. (1996). The Concise Companion to the English Language. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
- Kandel, Jessel, and Schwartz (1991). Principles of Neural Science. McGraw Hill (esp. p. 1173).
External links

- [http://www.zompist.com/ Mark Rosenfelder’s Metaverse] provides a useful listing of 5000 languages and dialects (grouped by their relationships), where the numbers one to ten in each language may be found
- [http://www.geocities.com/agihard/mohl/mohl_languages.html Museum of Languages]
- The [http://www.ethnologue.com/ Ethnologue], a catalog of the world’s languages
- [http://www.language-capitals.com Language Capitals] Guide to 8 major languages of the world with facts, characteristics and varieties
- [http://www.vistawide.com/languages/ World Languages and Cultures] — Practical information and resources on languages and language learning
- [http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/ballc/animals/animals.html Animal sounds in different languages]
- [http://www.netz-tipp.de/languages.html Distribution of languages on the Internet]
- [http://classweb.gmu.edu/accent/ Speech accent archive]
- [http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/G_Kunkel/homepage.htm a collection of bird songs] provides many kinds of bird songs
- [http://acp.eugraph.com The Animal Communication Project]
- [http://reference.allrefer.com/encyclopedia/categories/lang.html Language Articles]
- [http://www.primitivism.com/language.htm Language: Origin and Meaning by John Zerzan] Category:Technology als:Sprache zh-min-nan:Gí-giân ko:언어 ms:Bahasa nb:Språk ja:言語 simple:Language th:ภาษา

Public speaking

Public speaking is speaking to a group of people in a structured, deliberate manner. It is a form of communication that adds to the knowledge and wisdom of listeners, or that influences their attitudes or behavior. In public speaking, as in any form of communication, there are five basic elements, often expressed as "who is saying what to whom utilizing what medium with what effects?" Public speaking is almost as ancient as speech itself. The first textbook on the subject was written over 2400 years ago, and the principles elaborated within it were drawn from the practices and experience of orators in ancient Greece. These basic principles have undergone modification as societies and cultures have changed, yet remained surprisingly uniform. Effective public speaking can be developed by joining a club such as Rostrum, Toastmasters International, or International Training in Communication in which members are assigned exercises to improve their speaking skills. Members learn by observation and practice, and hone their skills by listening to constructive suggestions followed by new public speaking exercises. The fear of public speaking is called glossophobia. It is believed to be the single most common phobia, affecting as much as 75% of all people. One prominent place for public speaking nowadays is Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London. On Sundays, everyone can take a "soap box", stand on it, and talk about God and the world.

External links

- [http://www.nsaspeaker.org National Speakers Association (NSA)]
- [http://www.funonthenet.in/content/view/180/31/ Public Speaking tips]
- [http://www.rhetorik-online.de/index_eng.html Institute of Rhetoric and Communication - Germany's leading Rhetoric Institute]
- [http://www.academyforprofessionalspeaking.org/ Academy for Professional Speaking]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1996-4/taking.htm Taking Personal and Professional Contexts into Account in the Basic Public Speaking Course]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-923/speaking.htm Assessing Listening and Speaking Skills]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/1992-2/civic.htm The Connections between Language Education and Civic Education]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/pre-926/quiet.htm Communication Apprehension: The Quiet Student in Your Classroom]
- [http://www.saxton.com.au/ Saxton Speakers Bureau: Australia's leading public speaking bureau]
- [http://www.debating.net/flynn/ World Debate Website]
- [http://www.the-asc.org.uk/ Association of Speakers Clubs]

Quotation

:This article is about quoting. For information about the punctuation mark, see Quotation mark A quotation is a fragment of a human expression that has been inserted into another human expression. It is most often a written or oral fragment and in such cases it is also called a quote. This latter type of quotation is almost always taken from literature, though speech transcripts, film dialogues, and song lyrics are also common and valid sources. Besides this, a quotation can also refer to the use of a piece of other artistic works —elements of a painting, scenes from a movie or sections from a musical composition— into another one. The rest of this article will deal only with written or oral quotations.

Quotation classification

A typical, and perhaps ideal, quotation is usually short, concise and commonly only one sentence long. There are two broad categories which most quotations fall into, beauty and truth, although some quotations fit equally well into both these groups. 'Beautiful' quotations are words remembered for their aesthetically pleasing use of language, whereas many other quotations are remembered because they are thought to express some universal truth. These latter quotations are often called maxims or aphorisms and they are highly regarded for being pithy renderings of ideas that most people have but most have not been able to express so clearly. A third type of quotation may be any line which merely reminds the person who quotes it of a particularly memorable work, sometimes making a subtle comparison to the situation or topic at hand.

Reasons for using quotations

Quotations are used for a variety of reasons: to enrich, illuminate the meaning or support the arguments of the work it is being quoted in, to pay homage to the original work or author, to make the user of the quotation seem well-read and even to ridicule the original author.

Common quotation sources

Chiefly for reference and accuracy, famous quotations are frequently collected in books that are sometimes called quotation dictionaries or treasuries. On the other hand, diaries and calendars often include quotations for entertainment or inspirational purposes, and small, dedicated sections in newspapers and weekly magazines —with recent quotations by leading personalities on current topics— have also become commonplace. Finally, as explained below, chiefly through the World Wide Web, the Internet has become the world's main quotation repository.

Misquotations

The art of quotation is fraught with difficulties. If the source of a quotation is not given it can lead readers to think that the author using the quotation originated the thought or that he is being dishonest. Some people are thought to have said certain things but there is no evidence of these words in any of their surviving writings, when this is the case the words have to merely be attributed to them. Many quotations are routinely incorrect or attributed to the wrong authors, and quotations from obscure writers are often attributed to far more famous writers by lax quoters. Good examples of this are Winston Churchill, to whom many political quotations of uncertain origin are attributed, and Oscar Wilde, who has said far more witty things than he possibly could. Deliberate misquotation is very common either because the misquotation is better known than the original or simply because the misquotation fits the situation better. Possibly worse than misquotation is deliberate misinterpretation, where an author's words are taken out of context and are used to support a position or idea that the author would never have agreed with and was not the author's intention. This can be especially problematic with playwrights and authors of fiction who do not necessarily agree with the sentiments of their characters

Quotations and the Internet

Chiefly a text medium in the beginning, the World Wide Web gave rise to any number of personal quotation collections that continue to flourish, even though very few of them seem to facilitate accurate information or correct citation. In June 27, 2003, a sister project of the Wikimedia Foundation called Wikiquote was created as a free online encyclopedia of quotations in every language and it is now the biggest single quote collection in the world. Interestingly, the increase of written means of informal communication brought about by the Internet has produced the practice of using quotations as personal flags, as in one's own signature block. This is most commonly seen in email messages and Usenet posts, while is almost never seen in

Speech

Problems

See also

Academic discipline

Natural sciences

Mathematics and computer science

Social sciences

Humanities and arts

Area studies (sometimes called cultural studies)

Film studies and film criticism

Literature and cultural studies

Literatures

Methods and topics

Women's studies and gender studies

Professions / Applied sciences

Journalism and mass communications

Health sciences

Public affairs and community service

See also

Communications

See also

Voice

Vocal cords

See also

Sign language

Geographic distribution of Sign languages

Use of Signs in Hearing Communities

Linguistics of sign

Sign languages' relationships with oral languages

Spatial grammar and Simultaneity

Written forms of Sign Languages

Home sign

Media

See also

External links

Further reading

Language

Properties of language

Human languages

Origins of human language

Language taxonomy

Genetic classification

Typological classification

Areal classification

Constructed languages

The study of language

Animal (nonhuman) language

Formal languages

See also

References

External links

Public speaking

See also

External links

Quotation

Quotation classification

Reasons for using quotations

Common quotation sources

Misquotations

Quotations and the Internet