Speaking and Thinking: A Conversation with Victor Ferreira

Howard Burton

Okt. 2020 · Open Agenda Publishing

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This book is based on an in-depth filmed conversation between Howard Burton and Victor Ferreira, Professor of Psychology and Principal Investigator at the Language Production Lab at the University of California at San Diego. This extensive conversation explores Victor Ferreira’s research which is focused on language production and communication, especially with regard to grammar, lexical structure and speaker-hearer interaction, and his interests to incorporate computational and quantitative modelling of cognitive processing. 

Topics under discussion include key experimental results that change our view of what is actually going on when two people talk to each other, giving us new insight into the structure of language and also how many aspects of linguistics are related to our current understanding of how the brain and mind function.

This carefully-edited book includes an introduction, The Tip of the Tongue, and questions for discussion at the end of each chapter:

I. Linguistic Beginnings - In search of relevance

II. Minimizing Ambiguity - Finding a linguistic drosophila

III. Retrieval - Towards objective measurements

IV. The Division of Labour - Examining message formulation

V. Disambiguating Ambiguity - Linguistic vs. conceptual

VI. Probing with Pronouns - A future experiment

VII. Grammar - Examining its function

VIII. Monitoring - Speaking carefully

IX. In the Brain - Brain imaging and language

X. Philosophical Divertimento - Brain vs. Mind

XI. Language and Thought - The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

XII. Future Investigations - Environmental impacts and big data

XIII. Mind-Brain Redux - The debate continues….

About Ideas Roadshow Conversations: Presented in an accessible, conversational format, Ideas Roadshow books not only explore frontline academic research but also reveal the inspirations and personal journeys behind the research.