Native Listening―Language Experience and the Recognition of Spoken Words

Understanding speech in our native tongue seems natural and effortless; listening tospeech in a nonnative language is a different experience. In this book, Anne Cutler argues thatlistening to speech is a process of native listening because so much of it is exquisitely tailoredto the requirements of the native language. Her cross-linguistic study (drawing on experimental workin languages that range from English and Dutch to Chinese and Japanese) documents what is universaland what is language specific in the way we listen to spoken language. Cutler describes theformidable range of mental tasks we carry out, all at once, with astonishing speed and accuracy,when we listen. These include evaluating probabilities arising from the structure of the nativevocabulary, tracking information to locate the boundaries between words, paying attention to the waythe words are pronounced, and assessing not only the sounds of speech but prosodic information thatspans sequences of sounds. She describes infant speech perception, the consequences oflanguage-specific specialization for listening to other languages, the flexibility and adaptabilityof listening (to our native languages), and how language-specificity and universality fit togetherin our language processing system. Drawing on her four decades of work as a psycholinguist, Cutlerdocuments the recent growth in our knowledge about how spoken-word recognition works and the role oflanguage structure in this process. Her book is a significant contribution to a vibrant and rapidlydeveloping field.