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Diana Sidtis

New York University, Communicative Sciences and Disorders, Emerita

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Professor emerita at New York University, Commun Sci and DisordersResearch Scientist at the Nathan Kline Institute, Orangeburg, NYStudies in linguistics, speech, language, speech and language disorders, voice, prosody, formulaic language

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University of Zagreb

Uppsala University

University of East London

University of Leicester

Gwen Robbins Schug

University of North Carolina at Greensboro

Gabriel Gutierrez-Alonso

University of Salamanca

Macquarie University

Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul

Swansea University

Jesper Hoffmeyer

University of Copenhagen

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Papers by Diana Sidtis

Perception of formulaic and novel expressions under acoustic degradation

The Mental Lexicon, 2017

Background: Formulaic expressions, including idioms and other fixed expressions, comprise a signi... more Background: Formulaic expressions, including idioms and other fixed expressions, comprise a significant proportion of discourse. Although much has been written about this topic, controversy remains about their psychological status. An important claim about formulaic expressions, that they are known to native speakers, has seldom been directly demonstrated. This study tested the hypothesis that formulaic expressions are known and stored as whole unit mental representations by performing three perceptual experiments.Method: Listeners transcribed two kinds of spectrally-degraded spoken sentences, half formulaic, and half novel, newly created expressions, matched for grammar and length. Two familiarity ratings, usage and exposure, were obtained from listeners for each expression. Text frequency data for the stimuli and their constituent words were obtained using a spoken corpus.Results: Participants transcribed formulaic more successfully than literal utterances. Usage and familiarity r...

Diana Sidtis (author). Foundations of familiar language: formulaic expressions, lexical bundles, and collocations at work and play

Foundations of familiar language, 2021

References for the book "Foundations of familiar language"

Publications Received for Review

Phonetica, 2015

who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about t... more who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about the expected length of the review as well as other technical details, and suggest a date for submitting the manuscripts. The time allotted for preparing reviews will on principle be kept as short as possible in order to enable Phonetica to fulfill its obligation of keeping its readers up to date with publications in the field of speech science. Readers are also welcome to suggest any other book in our field for review in Phonetica , over and above the ones named in the list of received publications. Professor Niebuhr will then take the necessary steps to obtain copies from the publishing firms.

Cortical-subcortical production of formulaic language: A review of linguistic, brain disorder, and functional imaging studies leading to a production model

Brain and Cognition

&NA; Formulaic language forms about one‐fourth of everyday talk. Formulaic (fixed expressions... more &NA; Formulaic language forms about one‐fourth of everyday talk. Formulaic (fixed expressions) and novel (grammatical language) differ in important characteristics. The features of idioms, slang, expletives, proverbs, aphorisms, conversational speech formulas, and other fixed expressions include ranges of length, flexible cohesion, memory storage, nonliteral and situation meaning, and affective content. Neurolinguistic observations in persons with focal brain damage or progressive neurological disease suggest that producing formulaic expressions can be achieved by interactions between the right hemisphere and subcortical structures. The known functional characteristics of these structures form a compatible substrate for production of formulaic expressions. Functional imaging using a performance‐based analysis supported a right hemisphere involvement in producing conversational speech formulas, while indicating that the pause fillers, uh and um, engage the left hemisphere and function like lexical items. Together these findings support a dual‐process model of language, whereby formulaic and grammatical language are modulated by different cerebral structures. HighlightsFormulaic language (stored utterances) is of interest across the language sciences.Linguistic and neurological evidence describe a unique role for formulaic expressions.A PET study of novel vs formulaic expressions utilized performance‐based analysis.A study of pause fillers (uh) revealed surprising details for a production model.Converging findings support a dual process brain model‐‐grammatical and formulaic.

Two-Track Mind: Formulaic and Novel Language Support a Dual-Process Model

Faust/The Handbook of the Neuropsychology of Language, 2012

This chapter presents a historical and critical survey of phraseology, the study of formulaic lan... more This chapter presents a historical and critical survey of phraseology, the study of formulaic language, in the context of analytic, experimental, and biological approaches. It begins with early reluctance to explore the topic in a scholarly way and follows a circuitous path through linguistic, psychological, and neurological studies, culminating in current views of formulaic language as an integral component of speech performance and language competence . Linguistic and psychological studies have grappled with the question of whether idioms (as a prime example of a formulaic expression) are best described as compositional, i.e., composed of constituent parts, or unitary, i.e., processed as whole units. The preponderance of the evidence supports a dual-process model of language, whereby novel expressions and formulaic expressions differ essentially in how they are learned or acquired, stored, and processed (Kempler &

Formulaic Language and Language Disorders

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 2012

The importance of formulaic language is recognized by many branches of the language sciences. Sec... more The importance of formulaic language is recognized by many branches of the language sciences. Second language learners acquire a language using a maturationally advanced neurological substrate, leading to a profile of formulaic language use and knowledge that differs from that of the prepuberty learner. Unlike the considerable interest in formulaic language seen in second language learning, attention paid to this theme in clinical communicative disorders has been limited. Historically, verbal expressions preserved in severe nonfluent aphasia, including counting, interjections, and memorized phrases, have been referred to as automatic speech. Closer examination of all forms of aphasic speech reveals a high proportion of formulaic expressions, while speech samples from persons with right hemisphere and subcortical damage show a significant impoverishment. These findings are supported by studies of persons with Alzheimer's disease, who have intact subcortical nuclei and abnormally ...

Disambiguation of Ditropic Sentences

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 1981

In a previous study, we demonstrated that listeners were highly successful in identifying the int... more In a previous study, we demonstrated that listeners were highly successful in identifying the intended meaning of spoken ditropic sentences (those which may carry either a literal or an idiomatic meaning) when speakers were instructed to convey the distinction. The present communication reports on acoustic and phonetic analyses carried out with the goal of identifying cues that distinguished the literal and idiomatic utterances. Certain prosodic differences were observed. Literal utterances were systematically longer than idioms. This was partly due to increased use of pauses, as well as to increased duration of major lexical items. Moreover, literal sentences were typically characterized by greater numbers of pitch contours (discernible rise-fall excursions of fundamental frequency) and open junctures than were idiomatic utterances. In addition to suprasegmental contrasts, articulatory distinctions—corresponding to lento-allegro phonological rules—were also observed. These distinct...

“Because It Sounds Right”: A Guiding Light of Speaker Knowledge

Studies in English Language Teaching

Approaches to second language teaching have included continuous exposure, grammar lessons, and a ... more Approaches to second language teaching have included continuous exposure, grammar lessons, and a various combinations of these methods. Recent studies highlight specific, detailed knowledge, in speakers of a language, of the phonetic and structural information of many kinds of phrases. These include formulaic expressions (idioms, proverbs, conversational speech formulas, expletives), lexical bundles (sentence stems, conventional expressions, discourse organizers), and collocations (a range of other unitary, multiword expressions). These exemplars share the feature of familiarity: they are known and recognized by speakers of a language, and stored in mental representation with their concomitant features of structure, phonetic and prosodic shape, meaning, and use. In addition, the linguistic sciences currently advance the perspective that language competence is constituted by knowledge of constructions at various levels of abstraction, implying a larger role of memory in language comp...

Cerebral processing of proper and common nouns: Perception and production following left hemisphere damage

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 2014

Formulaic language in Alzheimer's disease

Aphasiology, 2013

When novel sentences spoken or heard for the first time in the history of the universe are not enough1: toward a dual‐process model of language

… Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2004

Cortical-subcortical interaction in PD and normal speech View project studies in motor speech View project

Purpose: Advances in neurobiology are providing new opportunities to investigate the neurological... more Purpose: Advances in neurobiology are providing new opportunities to investigate the neurological systems underlying motor speech control. This study explores the perceptual characteristics of the speech of three genotypes of spino-cerebellar ataxia (SCA) as manifest in four different speech tasks. Methods: Speech samples from 26 speakers with SCA were perceptually rated by experienced listeners. The genotypes were: SCA1, SCA5, or SCA6. The speech tasks were: diadochokinesis, word repetition, sentence reading, and picture description. The speech samples were rated using two sets of dimensions characterized as primary (e.g., articulation, rate, and rhythm) or secondary (e.g., imprecise consonants, excess and equal stress, and harsh voice). Results: On primary dimensions, SCA6 was the most impaired generally. Articulation was the most severely affected dimension and the diadochokinesis task was most effective in revealing speech impairments. On secondary dimensions, picture descriptio...

Toward a dual processing model of language : Normal and neurologic studies

Most contemporary approaches to linguistic modeling, influenced by generative grammar theory, emp... more Most contemporary approaches to linguistic modeling, influenced by generative grammar theory, emphasize newly created, novel sentences. Nevertheless, there is a growing awareness of the importance of formulaic language, including formulas, idioms, expletives, memorized speech, slang, conventional expressions, sayings, clichés, and proverbs. Review of linguistic descriptions, psycholinguistic experiments, sociolinguistic studies, observations in aphasia, and functional brain imaging reveals differentiated roles for novel and nonnovel verbal functions. The generation of novel sentences from rules operating on lexical items, and the management of holistic, prefabricated expressions represent two legitimate and separable processes in language behavior. These essentially disparate processing modes each have unique attributes, achieve specialized goals in communication, and are highly integrated in normal language behavior. Interaction and synchronizing of these two processes contributes ...

Publications Received for Review

who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about t... more who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about the expected length of the review as well as other technical details, and suggest a date for submitting the manuscripts. The time allotted for preparing reviews will on principle be kept as short as possible in order to enable Phonetica to fulfill its obligation of keeping its readers up to date with publications in the field of speech science. Readers are also welcome to suggest any other book in our field for review in Phonetica, over and above the ones named in the list of received publications. Professor Niebuhr will then take the necessary steps to obtain copies from the publishing firms.

Defining and Measuring Voice Quality

Although voices provide listeners with significant information about speakers, defining and quant... more Although voices provide listeners with significant information about speakers, defining and quantifying voice quality remain elusive goals. The ANSI standard definition of quality (that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which a listener can judge that two sounds similarly presented and having the same loudness and pitch are dissimilar) is often criticized because it specifies what quality is not, rather than what it is. It has also proven difficult to devise measurement protocols for quality as specified in the ANSI definition. We argue that the ANSI definition is in fact appropriate, because it treats quality as the result of perceptual processes— interactions between listeners and signals in the context of specific perceptual goals. Application of speech synthesis in method-of-adjustment tasks allows measurement of quality psychoacoustically as those aspects of the signal that allow a listener to determine that two sounds of equal pitch and loudness are different, consis...

Publications Received for Review

who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about t... more who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about the expected length of the review as well as other technical details, and suggest a date for submitting the manuscripts. The time allotted for preparing reviews will on principle be kept as short as possible in order to enable Phonetica to fulfill its obligation of keeping its readers up to date with publications in the field of speech science. Readers are also welcome to suggest any other book in our field for review in Phonetica , over and above the ones named in the list of received publications. Professor Niebuhr will then take the necessary steps to obtain copies from the publishing firms.

Physical Characteristics and the Voice: Can we Hear What a Speaker Looks Like?

Foundations of Voice Studies

What’s in a Sociopolitical Pronoun? A Linguist Looks at Grammatical Gender in Gender Declaration

Studies in Linguistics and Literature

Language practices, whether global, national, or at the personal level, carry influence for both ... more Language practices, whether global, national, or at the personal level, carry influence for both good and ill. It is important that linguistic ventures into sociopolitical realms be well-informed. One such incursion has arisen from professors and administrators in university and government offices, who declare their pronoun choice, appending statements such as my pronouns are she, her, hers, at the end of their signature lines in letters and emails. While this assertion is straightforward in the English language, with its limited gender and case morphology, the linguistic landscape in other languages navigates a much greater challenge. Details of gender representation in the grammars of five other languages reveal a complexity not imaginable for English. Should the practice spread internationally, gender pronoun declarations will look very different.

Subcortical Effects on Voice and Fluency in Dysarthria: Observations from Subthalamic Nucleus Stimulation

Journal of Alzheimer's disease & Parkinsonism, 2017

Parkinson's disease (PD), caused by basal ganglia dysfunction, is associated with motor distu... more Parkinson's disease (PD), caused by basal ganglia dysfunction, is associated with motor disturbances including dysarthria. Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, a preferred treatment targeting basal ganglia function, improves features of the motor disorder, but has uncertain effects on speech.We studied speech during contrasting stimulation states to reveal subcortical effects on voice and articulation. Measures were made on selected samples of spontaneous and repeated speech. Persons with Parkinson's disease (PWP) who had undergone bilateral deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) provided spontaneous speech samples and then repeated portions of their monologue both on and off stimulation. Excerpts were presented in a listening protocol probing intelligibility. Also analysed were a continuous phrase repetition task and a second spontaneous speech sample. Fundamental frequency (F0), harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), jitter, shimmer and fluency were measure...

The Affective Nature of Formulaic Language: A Right-Hemisphere Subcortical Process

Frontiers in neurology, 2018

Formulaic expressions naturally convey affective content. The unique formal and functional charac... more Formulaic expressions naturally convey affective content. The unique formal and functional characteristics of idioms, slang, expletives, proverbs, conversational speech formulas, and the many other conventional expressions in this repertory have been well-described: these include unitary form, conventionalized and non-literal meanings, and reliance on social context. Less highlighted, but potent, is the intrinsic presence of affective meaning. Expletives, for example, signal strong emotion. Idioms, too, inherently communicate emotional connotations, and conversational speech formulas allow for empathetic bonding and humor. The built-in affective content of formulaic expressions, in combination with their other unique characteristics, is compatible with the proposal that brain structures other than those representing grammatical language are in play in producing formulaic expressions. Evidence is presented for a dual process model of language, whereby a right hemisphere-subcortical s...

Perception of formulaic and novel expressions under acoustic degradation

The Mental Lexicon, 2017

Background: Formulaic expressions, including idioms and other fixed expressions, comprise a signi... more Background: Formulaic expressions, including idioms and other fixed expressions, comprise a significant proportion of discourse. Although much has been written about this topic, controversy remains about their psychological status. An important claim about formulaic expressions, that they are known to native speakers, has seldom been directly demonstrated. This study tested the hypothesis that formulaic expressions are known and stored as whole unit mental representations by performing three perceptual experiments.Method: Listeners transcribed two kinds of spectrally-degraded spoken sentences, half formulaic, and half novel, newly created expressions, matched for grammar and length. Two familiarity ratings, usage and exposure, were obtained from listeners for each expression. Text frequency data for the stimuli and their constituent words were obtained using a spoken corpus.Results: Participants transcribed formulaic more successfully than literal utterances. Usage and familiarity r...

Diana Sidtis (author). Foundations of familiar language: formulaic expressions, lexical bundles, and collocations at work and play

Foundations of familiar language, 2021

References for the book "Foundations of familiar language"

Publications Received for Review

Phonetica, 2015

who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about t... more who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about the expected length of the review as well as other technical details, and suggest a date for submitting the manuscripts. The time allotted for preparing reviews will on principle be kept as short as possible in order to enable Phonetica to fulfill its obligation of keeping its readers up to date with publications in the field of speech science. Readers are also welcome to suggest any other book in our field for review in Phonetica , over and above the ones named in the list of received publications. Professor Niebuhr will then take the necessary steps to obtain copies from the publishing firms.

Cortical-subcortical production of formulaic language: A review of linguistic, brain disorder, and functional imaging studies leading to a production model

Brain and Cognition

&NA; Formulaic language forms about one‐fourth of everyday talk. Formulaic (fixed expressions... more &NA; Formulaic language forms about one‐fourth of everyday talk. Formulaic (fixed expressions) and novel (grammatical language) differ in important characteristics. The features of idioms, slang, expletives, proverbs, aphorisms, conversational speech formulas, and other fixed expressions include ranges of length, flexible cohesion, memory storage, nonliteral and situation meaning, and affective content. Neurolinguistic observations in persons with focal brain damage or progressive neurological disease suggest that producing formulaic expressions can be achieved by interactions between the right hemisphere and subcortical structures. The known functional characteristics of these structures form a compatible substrate for production of formulaic expressions. Functional imaging using a performance‐based analysis supported a right hemisphere involvement in producing conversational speech formulas, while indicating that the pause fillers, uh and um, engage the left hemisphere and function like lexical items. Together these findings support a dual‐process model of language, whereby formulaic and grammatical language are modulated by different cerebral structures. HighlightsFormulaic language (stored utterances) is of interest across the language sciences.Linguistic and neurological evidence describe a unique role for formulaic expressions.A PET study of novel vs formulaic expressions utilized performance‐based analysis.A study of pause fillers (uh) revealed surprising details for a production model.Converging findings support a dual process brain model‐‐grammatical and formulaic.

Two-Track Mind: Formulaic and Novel Language Support a Dual-Process Model

Faust/The Handbook of the Neuropsychology of Language, 2012

This chapter presents a historical and critical survey of phraseology, the study of formulaic lan... more This chapter presents a historical and critical survey of phraseology, the study of formulaic language, in the context of analytic, experimental, and biological approaches. It begins with early reluctance to explore the topic in a scholarly way and follows a circuitous path through linguistic, psychological, and neurological studies, culminating in current views of formulaic language as an integral component of speech performance and language competence . Linguistic and psychological studies have grappled with the question of whether idioms (as a prime example of a formulaic expression) are best described as compositional, i.e., composed of constituent parts, or unitary, i.e., processed as whole units. The preponderance of the evidence supports a dual-process model of language, whereby novel expressions and formulaic expressions differ essentially in how they are learned or acquired, stored, and processed (Kempler &

Formulaic Language and Language Disorders

Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 2012

The importance of formulaic language is recognized by many branches of the language sciences. Sec... more The importance of formulaic language is recognized by many branches of the language sciences. Second language learners acquire a language using a maturationally advanced neurological substrate, leading to a profile of formulaic language use and knowledge that differs from that of the prepuberty learner. Unlike the considerable interest in formulaic language seen in second language learning, attention paid to this theme in clinical communicative disorders has been limited. Historically, verbal expressions preserved in severe nonfluent aphasia, including counting, interjections, and memorized phrases, have been referred to as automatic speech. Closer examination of all forms of aphasic speech reveals a high proportion of formulaic expressions, while speech samples from persons with right hemisphere and subcortical damage show a significant impoverishment. These findings are supported by studies of persons with Alzheimer's disease, who have intact subcortical nuclei and abnormally ...

Disambiguation of Ditropic Sentences

Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 1981

In a previous study, we demonstrated that listeners were highly successful in identifying the int... more In a previous study, we demonstrated that listeners were highly successful in identifying the intended meaning of spoken ditropic sentences (those which may carry either a literal or an idiomatic meaning) when speakers were instructed to convey the distinction. The present communication reports on acoustic and phonetic analyses carried out with the goal of identifying cues that distinguished the literal and idiomatic utterances. Certain prosodic differences were observed. Literal utterances were systematically longer than idioms. This was partly due to increased use of pauses, as well as to increased duration of major lexical items. Moreover, literal sentences were typically characterized by greater numbers of pitch contours (discernible rise-fall excursions of fundamental frequency) and open junctures than were idiomatic utterances. In addition to suprasegmental contrasts, articulatory distinctions—corresponding to lento-allegro phonological rules—were also observed. These distinct...

“Because It Sounds Right”: A Guiding Light of Speaker Knowledge

Studies in English Language Teaching

Approaches to second language teaching have included continuous exposure, grammar lessons, and a ... more Approaches to second language teaching have included continuous exposure, grammar lessons, and a various combinations of these methods. Recent studies highlight specific, detailed knowledge, in speakers of a language, of the phonetic and structural information of many kinds of phrases. These include formulaic expressions (idioms, proverbs, conversational speech formulas, expletives), lexical bundles (sentence stems, conventional expressions, discourse organizers), and collocations (a range of other unitary, multiword expressions). These exemplars share the feature of familiarity: they are known and recognized by speakers of a language, and stored in mental representation with their concomitant features of structure, phonetic and prosodic shape, meaning, and use. In addition, the linguistic sciences currently advance the perspective that language competence is constituted by knowledge of constructions at various levels of abstraction, implying a larger role of memory in language comp...

Cerebral processing of proper and common nouns: Perception and production following left hemisphere damage

Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics, 2014

Formulaic language in Alzheimer's disease

Aphasiology, 2013

When novel sentences spoken or heard for the first time in the history of the universe are not enough1: toward a dual‐process model of language

… Journal of Language & Communication Disorders, 2004

Cortical-subcortical interaction in PD and normal speech View project studies in motor speech View project

Purpose: Advances in neurobiology are providing new opportunities to investigate the neurological... more Purpose: Advances in neurobiology are providing new opportunities to investigate the neurological systems underlying motor speech control. This study explores the perceptual characteristics of the speech of three genotypes of spino-cerebellar ataxia (SCA) as manifest in four different speech tasks. Methods: Speech samples from 26 speakers with SCA were perceptually rated by experienced listeners. The genotypes were: SCA1, SCA5, or SCA6. The speech tasks were: diadochokinesis, word repetition, sentence reading, and picture description. The speech samples were rated using two sets of dimensions characterized as primary (e.g., articulation, rate, and rhythm) or secondary (e.g., imprecise consonants, excess and equal stress, and harsh voice). Results: On primary dimensions, SCA6 was the most impaired generally. Articulation was the most severely affected dimension and the diadochokinesis task was most effective in revealing speech impairments. On secondary dimensions, picture descriptio...

Toward a dual processing model of language : Normal and neurologic studies

Most contemporary approaches to linguistic modeling, influenced by generative grammar theory, emp... more Most contemporary approaches to linguistic modeling, influenced by generative grammar theory, emphasize newly created, novel sentences. Nevertheless, there is a growing awareness of the importance of formulaic language, including formulas, idioms, expletives, memorized speech, slang, conventional expressions, sayings, clichés, and proverbs. Review of linguistic descriptions, psycholinguistic experiments, sociolinguistic studies, observations in aphasia, and functional brain imaging reveals differentiated roles for novel and nonnovel verbal functions. The generation of novel sentences from rules operating on lexical items, and the management of holistic, prefabricated expressions represent two legitimate and separable processes in language behavior. These essentially disparate processing modes each have unique attributes, achieve specialized goals in communication, and are highly integrated in normal language behavior. Interaction and synchronizing of these two processes contributes ...

Publications Received for Review

who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about t... more who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about the expected length of the review as well as other technical details, and suggest a date for submitting the manuscripts. The time allotted for preparing reviews will on principle be kept as short as possible in order to enable Phonetica to fulfill its obligation of keeping its readers up to date with publications in the field of speech science. Readers are also welcome to suggest any other book in our field for review in Phonetica, over and above the ones named in the list of received publications. Professor Niebuhr will then take the necessary steps to obtain copies from the publishing firms.

Defining and Measuring Voice Quality

Although voices provide listeners with significant information about speakers, defining and quant... more Although voices provide listeners with significant information about speakers, defining and quantifying voice quality remain elusive goals. The ANSI standard definition of quality (that attribute of auditory sensation in terms of which a listener can judge that two sounds similarly presented and having the same loudness and pitch are dissimilar) is often criticized because it specifies what quality is not, rather than what it is. It has also proven difficult to devise measurement protocols for quality as specified in the ANSI definition. We argue that the ANSI definition is in fact appropriate, because it treats quality as the result of perceptual processes— interactions between listeners and signals in the context of specific perceptual goals. Application of speech synthesis in method-of-adjustment tasks allows measurement of quality psychoacoustically as those aspects of the signal that allow a listener to determine that two sounds of equal pitch and loudness are different, consis...

Publications Received for Review

who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about t... more who will arrange for the copies to be sent to them. At the same time, he will inform them about the expected length of the review as well as other technical details, and suggest a date for submitting the manuscripts. The time allotted for preparing reviews will on principle be kept as short as possible in order to enable Phonetica to fulfill its obligation of keeping its readers up to date with publications in the field of speech science. Readers are also welcome to suggest any other book in our field for review in Phonetica , over and above the ones named in the list of received publications. Professor Niebuhr will then take the necessary steps to obtain copies from the publishing firms.

Physical Characteristics and the Voice: Can we Hear What a Speaker Looks Like?

Foundations of Voice Studies

What’s in a Sociopolitical Pronoun? A Linguist Looks at Grammatical Gender in Gender Declaration

Studies in Linguistics and Literature

Language practices, whether global, national, or at the personal level, carry influence for both ... more Language practices, whether global, national, or at the personal level, carry influence for both good and ill. It is important that linguistic ventures into sociopolitical realms be well-informed. One such incursion has arisen from professors and administrators in university and government offices, who declare their pronoun choice, appending statements such as my pronouns are she, her, hers, at the end of their signature lines in letters and emails. While this assertion is straightforward in the English language, with its limited gender and case morphology, the linguistic landscape in other languages navigates a much greater challenge. Details of gender representation in the grammars of five other languages reveal a complexity not imaginable for English. Should the practice spread internationally, gender pronoun declarations will look very different.

Subcortical Effects on Voice and Fluency in Dysarthria: Observations from Subthalamic Nucleus Stimulation

Journal of Alzheimer's disease & Parkinsonism, 2017

Parkinson's disease (PD), caused by basal ganglia dysfunction, is associated with motor distu... more Parkinson's disease (PD), caused by basal ganglia dysfunction, is associated with motor disturbances including dysarthria. Stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus, a preferred treatment targeting basal ganglia function, improves features of the motor disorder, but has uncertain effects on speech.We studied speech during contrasting stimulation states to reveal subcortical effects on voice and articulation. Measures were made on selected samples of spontaneous and repeated speech. Persons with Parkinson's disease (PWP) who had undergone bilateral deep brain stimulation of the subthalamic nucleus (DBS-STN) provided spontaneous speech samples and then repeated portions of their monologue both on and off stimulation. Excerpts were presented in a listening protocol probing intelligibility. Also analysed were a continuous phrase repetition task and a second spontaneous speech sample. Fundamental frequency (F0), harmonic-to-noise ratio (HNR), jitter, shimmer and fluency were measure...

The Affective Nature of Formulaic Language: A Right-Hemisphere Subcortical Process

Frontiers in neurology, 2018

Formulaic expressions naturally convey affective content. The unique formal and functional charac... more Formulaic expressions naturally convey affective content. The unique formal and functional characteristics of idioms, slang, expletives, proverbs, conversational speech formulas, and the many other conventional expressions in this repertory have been well-described: these include unitary form, conventionalized and non-literal meanings, and reliance on social context. Less highlighted, but potent, is the intrinsic presence of affective meaning. Expletives, for example, signal strong emotion. Idioms, too, inherently communicate emotional connotations, and conversational speech formulas allow for empathetic bonding and humor. The built-in affective content of formulaic expressions, in combination with their other unique characteristics, is compatible with the proposal that brain structures other than those representing grammatical language are in play in producing formulaic expressions. Evidence is presented for a dual process model of language, whereby a right hemisphere-subcortical s...

Carefully read the entire proof and mark all corrections in the appropriate place, using the Adob... more Carefully read the entire proof and mark all corrections in the appropriate place, using the Adobe Reader editing tools (Adobe Help), alternatively provide them in the Discussion Forum indicating the line number of the proof. Do not forget to reply to the queries. We do not accept corrections in the form of edited manuscripts. In order to ensure the timely publication of your article, please submit the corrections within 48 hours.

Book Cover Frontand Back

Foundations of familiar language: formulaic expressions, lexical bundles, and collocations at work and play

Thorough review of classification, description, psycholinguistic research and neurological models... more Thorough review of classification, description, psycholinguistic research and neurological models of familiar language. The dual model of novel and familiar language posits disparate systems of processing in the brain. Psychiatric and neurologic conditions are described with copious graphic representations.

Foundations of familiar language: Formulaic expressions, lexical bundles, and collocations at work and play

Willey-Blackwell, 2021

Foundations of Familiar Language is a new contribution to the study of conversational speech form... more Foundations of Familiar Language is a new contribution to the study of conversational speech formulas, idioms, proverbs, expletives collocations, and an array of other conventional phrases, which make up nearly one fourth of our verbal communication together and are known to speakers of a language community. Examples from everyday talk, the media, and literature highlight the importance and constant presence of these familiar expressions. The coverage in the book offers includes the role of fixed expressions in education, social sciences, cognitive psychology, and brain science, and presents new research on the neurological and psychiatric foundations of familiar language drawn from clinical observations and experimental studies in stroke, dementia, schizophrenia, and Parkinson’s disease.