Linguistic Processing

This chapter focuses on the linguistic decoding processes that are the basis of listening. The chapter:

outlines the phonological procedures involved in perceiving speech;

delineates the process of word recognition;

illustrates the kind of phonotactic rules that a listener must acquire;

explains the process of parsing, or applying grammatical rules, while listening;

describes the basic unit of speech processing—the pause unit—and shows how it helps the listener manage incoming speech;

shows how prosodic features assist the listener in understanding speech;

summarizes the non-verbal cues available to the listener.