The Status of the Concept of 'Phoneme' in Psycholinguistics
(2010) In Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 39(5). p.429-442- Abstract
- The notion of the phoneme counts as a break-through of modern theoretical linguistics in the early twentieth century. It paved the way for descriptions of distinctive features at different levels in linguistics. Although it has since then had a turbulent existence across altering theoretical positions, it remains a powerful concept of a fundamental unit in spoken language. At the same time, its conceptual status remains highly unclear. The present article aims to clarify the status of the concept of 'phoneme' in psycholinguistics, based on the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. Theoretical linguistics has provided mainly descriptions. The ideas underlying this article are, first, that these descriptions may... (More)
- The notion of the phoneme counts as a break-through of modern theoretical linguistics in the early twentieth century. It paved the way for descriptions of distinctive features at different levels in linguistics. Although it has since then had a turbulent existence across altering theoretical positions, it remains a powerful concept of a fundamental unit in spoken language. At the same time, its conceptual status remains highly unclear. The present article aims to clarify the status of the concept of 'phoneme' in psycholinguistics, based on the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. Theoretical linguistics has provided mainly descriptions. The ideas underlying this article are, first, that these descriptions may not be directly relevant to psycholinguistics and, second, that psycholinguistics in this sense is not a sub-discipline of theoretical linguistics. Rather, these two disciplines operate with different sets of features and with different orientations when it comes to the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1727021
- author
- Uppstad, Per Henning LU and Tonnessen, Finn Egil
- organization
- publishing date
- 2010
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Functional linguistics, Connectionism, Linguistic sign, Arbitrariness
- in
- Journal of Psycholinguistic Research
- volume
- 39
- issue
- 5
- pages
- 429 - 442
- publisher
- Springer
- external identifiers
-
- wos:000282326900004
- scopus:77957261757
- pmid:20238252
- ISSN
- 0090-6905
- DOI
- 10.1007/s10936-010-9149-8
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 8c6212a0-3fe5-4e32-99f1-85e4893a3588 (old id 1727021)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 10:17:17
- date last changed
- 2023-08-30 22:55:36
@article{8c6212a0-3fe5-4e32-99f1-85e4893a3588,
abstract = {{The notion of the phoneme counts as a break-through of modern theoretical linguistics in the early twentieth century. It paved the way for descriptions of distinctive features at different levels in linguistics. Although it has since then had a turbulent existence across altering theoretical positions, it remains a powerful concept of a fundamental unit in spoken language. At the same time, its conceptual status remains highly unclear. The present article aims to clarify the status of the concept of 'phoneme' in psycholinguistics, based on the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation. Theoretical linguistics has provided mainly descriptions. The ideas underlying this article are, first, that these descriptions may not be directly relevant to psycholinguistics and, second, that psycholinguistics in this sense is not a sub-discipline of theoretical linguistics. Rather, these two disciplines operate with different sets of features and with different orientations when it comes to the scientific concepts of description, understanding and explanation.}},
author = {{Uppstad, Per Henning and Tonnessen, Finn Egil}},
issn = {{0090-6905}},
keywords = {{Functional linguistics; Connectionism; Linguistic sign; Arbitrariness}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{5}},
pages = {{429--442}},
publisher = {{Springer}},
series = {{Journal of Psycholinguistic Research}},
title = {{The Status of the Concept of 'Phoneme' in Psycholinguistics}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10936-010-9149-8}},
doi = {{10.1007/s10936-010-9149-8}},
volume = {{39}},
year = {{2010}},
}