It is impossible to enter into the separate action of these muscles by means of which the larynx as a whole is raised or lowered and the vocal cords tightened or relaxed. The whole subject of laryngeal and allied action has developed into the science of phonetics to which anatomy, physiology, medicine, physics and psychology contribute.
The Production of Laryngeal Sounds. — In general it may be said that (1) the membranous glottis with the vocal cords is the exclusive seat of voice production. Removal of the cords renders the production of overt speech impossible; (2) the vibra- tion of the air produced by the vocal cords starts in the glottis and is transmitted to the air lying above and below, to the chest Base of tongue Epiglottis— Vocal cord- Aryteno-epiglottic fold Sinus pyriformis Vocal process Cuneiform tubercle Tubercle of Santori Lateral glossoepiglottic fold Median glosso- epiglottic fold Epiglottis False vocal cord Ventricle of larynx Vocal cord Rima glottidis .Cuneiform tuberck Vocal process Tubercle of Santorini FIG. 62. — Interior of the larynx as seen with laryngoscope. A., with glottis widely open; B, closed. (From PiersoFs Human Anatomy.)
cavity on the one hand and to the throat and mouth on the other. These cavities act as resonators. The main source of modification of the sound consists of the parts lying above the vocal cords — the laryngeal vestibule, the pharynx, mouth and nose. In order to produce this Tesonance there must be a varying tension of the walls and alterations in the length, breadth and shape of this continuous cavity as well as upward and downward move- ments of the larynx, alterations of the tongue, soft palate, cheeks and lips. The sounds produced by the human voice are comprised in the interval of three and a half octaves. Few individuals ever >attain a range of three octaves. The effective range of even a well-developed singer rarely exceeds two octaves.
Effect of the Removal of the Larynx. — Articulate language, 316 PSYCHOLOGY • which is limited to man — and which is, as we have elsewhere tried to bring out, the main behavior difference between man and brute • — consists from the physical standpoint of a series of special expiratory and inspiratory sounds produced in the resonance cavity of the mouth, pharynx and nose. It need not be combined with laryngeal tones. In talking aloud, crying, or singing the laryngeal tones are combined with pharyngo-buccal sounds, but in whispering, that is, whispering without voice, there are no laryngeal tones. Since Czermak in 1858 improved the methods of laryngeal examination the larynx has been removed many times. Naturally the immediate effect of the removal of the larynx is to destroy the ability to speak aloud, since normal speech requires breath from the lungs acting upon the larynx, but so long as the air can pass from the lungs to the pharynx and mouth, faint whispered speech is possible. When the air passage is entirely closed between lungs and mouth, as happens when the windpipe is opened below the larynx and the patient has to breathe through an opening in the neck (tracheal cannula), all articulate speech even of the whispered sotto voce type disappears. But such individuals can and do still make all of the movements necessary for articulate speech. This is the answer to the criti- cisms which have been directed against the point of view that has been advocated throughout the text, namely, that thought is the action of language mechanisms.1 In our examination of the history of the cases where the larynx has been removed we have found nothing which would seriously discredit the view we have advocated. To destroy enough of the sensory motor mechanisms to make language organization and hence thought impossible would in all probability bring about the death of the patient. In view of the great importance from a theoretical standpoint of this subject it would seem worth while to make a thorough study of such individuals. So far the observation of these cases has been left to the surgeons who have little theoretical 1 It is aside from our present aims to point out that even those indi- viduals with the hreath cut off from the pharynx soon learn to speak by the formation of new language habits. Scripture and several other authors have described the process in detail.
EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS 317 interest in them and to speech specialists who are interested merely in teaching the patient how to talk again.
A. THE FORMATION OF EXPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS. Early Reflex and Instinctive Responses. — The birth cry be- gins the vocal career of the human child. This cry differs mark- edly in different babies. On the subject of early sounds in infants we quote Mrs. Blanton: The crying of one baby can be distinguished with some prac- tice from the cries of another even in a nursery of 25, the over- tones varying just as in older people. Subject M., first day, u (cut), nah (at) accent on last syllable, wah (at), wuh (cut), ha (at). The ' ' hunger cry ' ' has generally a well-marked rhythm, the first syl- lable of preliminary sound coming on the first part of the first beat, the second or accented syllable on the second part of the first beat and a quick intake of breath as the third beat. This measure is most often repeated in groups of 5 or 6, each slightly more forceful than the preceding ones until the fourth or fifth, the last one being softer. Thus also will the groups be repeated. Each measure is also a trifle higher in pitch than the one preceding.
Sounds Heard During the First Thirty Days. — Consonant sounds commonly heard are m in conjunction with a as ma (at), n as nga (nat), g as gah, h as in ha (at), w in wah (at), r as in rah (at), r as in burr, very slight sound, and y as in yak (at).
Vowel sounds are o as in owl, e as in feel, oo as in pool, a as in and and a as in father (relatively rare); The study which this author made on the vocal acts of infants was purely observational. No very satisfactory laboratory study has yet been made of the early instinctive vocal equipment of the infant. That it is vastly complex is admitted by every one. The extent to which the instinctive equipment varies in the different races is another interesting matter for speculation. The fact that a perfect speaking knowledge of a foreign language can be acquired only in early youth depends probably upon the struc- tural changes going on in the larynx, ossification of those struc- tures beginning about the twentieth year. It is sometimes as- serted, of course, that the reason a foreign language is hard to learn is due to the lack of the proper vocal instincts, to differences 318 PSYCHOLOGY • in the resonating mechanisms, and the like. There is probably little evidence for this.
Whether there are well-marked vocal instincts in the child corresponding to such instincts in other animals is not known with sureness. The popular view gives an affirmative answer here, namely, that there are distinct hunger cries, colic and pain cries and various other cries connected with emotional states, as the gurgle, coo, babble and many others. A good many of the articulate sounds that we make under strong emotional excite- ment may be the direct expression of vocal instincts, that is, they are not conventional speech words (or were not in origin) but direct instinctive responses such, for example, as oh! la! ha! ugh! Individual variations in vocal sounds are well marked in infants at the earliest ages. One learns quickly to name the child which is crying or performing other vocal acts.
Early Vocal Habits. — Serviceable studies of the formation of early vocal habits and language habits proper have not yet been made in the laboratory. It is well to draw distinction between a vocal habit and a language habit. By vocal habit is meant the mere sounding of words of the non-instinctive type. The word has to be learned, but it may be learned as the parrot learns it. It has not yet been connected up with other vocal action and with general bodily actions.
Ordinary observation shows that the earliest explicit word habits are of this type. These early word habits are formed in much the same way as are other explicit habits. The infant starts with his instinctive repertoire and the various word acts are fixed in the same way and by the same process that the successful act is fixed in any other habit. One additional factor seems to come in, namely, that of imitation. Imitation plays a very minor role in the acquisition of manual habits. In the laboratory we have tried many times to get children from ten to eighteen months to imitate simple movements, like putting the hand flat upon the table, putting the two hands together, but without much success. The same may be said with reference to putting a child through various bodily acts. Apparently imitation of hand and general body, movements cannot take place until the infant has already EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS 319 learned to make a large group of well-coordinated movements. In other words, imitation is not a process by means of which new (elementary) coordinations may be formed. In the case of vocal acts there seems to be a difference. Imitation seems to be a process directly connected with the establishment of the act. The parents, of course, watch every new instinctive sound that approximates articulate speech and they immediately speak the word that is nearest the child's own vocal efforts (for example, "ma," ''pa" — "da"). The imitation here may be more apparent than real. That is, the parents by repeating the sound constantly offer a stimulus for that which the infant's vocal mechanisms are just set to utter.2 Whether the parent's words can set the mechanism is doubtful. We may be accused here of fighting a straw man. Certainly imitation in the popular sense is the only way a new conventional word can be learned by the child until the elemen- tary laws of word formation are learned through reading and instruction.
Early Language Habits. — Vocal acts or habits, however numerous they may be, do not become language habits until they become associated with arm, hand and leg activities and substi- tutable for them. This probably accounts in a better way than any hypothetical change in brain structure for the relatively late putting on of language habits. As long as the child remains in its crib or in the arms of its mother, or has the whole household to wait upon it and anticipate its needs, there is no necessity for it to develop language. If we examine the bodily habits of any child just prior to the beginning of true language habits, we find that it can respond appropriately to hundreds of objects and situations, for example, to its doll, bottle, blocks, rattle and many other things. Its environment is becoming complex. Abbre- viated and short-circuited actions become a necessity if it is to hold its own in that environment and make progress.
Let us give a partially hypothetical illustration of the way true language habits grow up. We will suppose that for some reason or other a child's toys are laid away and covered up.
2Conradi has shown that the forms of the cries and songs of young- birds brought up by adults of a different species are greatly modified.
320 PSYCHOLOGY • What does he do in such a situation? Essentially what the ani- mal does when it is hungry. The child begins general restless movements among which are movements of the language struc- tures as shown by its making ' ' aimless" vocal sounds. His throat formation at that stage of growth is of such a character that a particular sound is uttered frequently (let us say "tat a" for illustrative purposes). He begins to utter this sound as he roams about. The attendant, knowing the child's range of toys and the frequency with which he plays with a certain one, predicts that an old rag doll is sought. She finds it, hands it to him and says, "Here's your tata. " Repeat this process long enough and "tata" will be always used for rag doll and will always be spoken whenever the doll is sought. This process is, of course, repeated again and again in the course of a day. The word gets tied up with the act of seeking the doll. In this way baby words grow up as the first genuine form of true language organization. A large number of these belong to the vocabulary of every child, such as the grunt or growl as a signal for attention to personal needs. The putting on of conventional speech habits is thus an illustration of conditioned reflex level of functioning (vocal habit) plus later associative connection of the word when learned with the bodily habits connected with the object for which the word stands (true language habits). To further illustrate our point we may give excerpts from an earlier statement: A stimulus to which a child often responds by opening and closing and putting objects into it is the box in which his toys are kept. The nurse, observing that the child reacts with his hands and fingers to the box begins at a suitable age to say "box" when the child is handed the box, "open box" when the child opens it, and "close box" when he closes it and "put blocks in box" when that act is executed. This is repeated over and over again until the conditioned reflexes are thoroughly established. In the course of time the box in front of him, which originally called out only bodily habits, now begins to call out word habits. He says "box" when it is handed to him, "open box" when he opens it. The sight of the box now becomes a stimulus capable of releasing either the bodily acts or the word acts, or both. A EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS 321 series of functional connections is established between vision and throat and laryngeal muscles which exists alongside of the already earlier established connections which run from the same receptor to the arm and leg muscles. When the box is presented now, which act will take place? Manual action or laryngeal action? It is at this point that the influence of the environment upon the shaping and forcing of language habits comes clearly to the front. There comes an occasion when the box can be seen but not reached. Action in the hand is blocked. He speaks ' ' box ' ' and may speak it persistently all over the house. The attendant, hearing the word box, hastens to put it in his hands. In view of the fact that this situation is repeated day in and day out, not only with respect to this object but to hundreds of others, the child learns that the uttered word is a sufficient stimulus to cause the attendant to hand him the objects he names without actually having to execute bodily movements with respect to them. There has been a sub- stitution of the language habit for a bodily habit — now by a word he can cause adults to move — his grunt or growl or infant toy word is law. The tyranny with which the youngster rules this newly acquired kingdom is equaled by that displayed in the reign of but a few crowned heads in history.
This roughly marks what we might call the genesis of a true language habit. It is a very inadequate account, but we are forced to be content with it until the process has been more care- fully studied in the laboratory. The formation of simple lan- guage habits has often been clothed with a good many high- sounding but rather meaningless phrases. For example, it is said that language is purely social and that words arise only by virtue of the fact that man is a social being. This is perfectly true in one respect, namely, that unless the child is surrounded by individuals who use conventional word forms he would never get the auditory and visual stimuli which would lead to such habit formation. On the other hand, they are no more social so far as the way in which they are acquired is concerned than are the bodily habits described in the last chapter.
Rapidity of Formation of Language Habits. — The growth of the vocabulary of the child is, of course, only a rough measure of 21 PSYCHOLOGY the growth of true language habits. It uses many words which belong to the conditioned reflex level of word activity rather than to the highly integrated and associated level of the adult. Chil- dren's vocabularies increase with astonishing rapidity. Drever has recently made a study of three children, two boys and one girl. The test was limited to 10 days. Paper and pencil were carried by the observer and every new word was noted. J. at 54 months had a vocabulary of 1712 words (of 2000 if proper names were included); months, 354 words. In view of the fact that many words could not be noted, Drever states that it seems fair to put down their respective vocabularies as consisting of 2000, 960, and 400 words. Bateman, working with a larger number of children, states that 9 infants at the age of one year possessed on the average a vocabulary of 9% words; Fig. 63 plotted from the data given in this paragraph (which is not suf- ficient for a true curve) gives a rough indication of the speed of word habit formation.
FIG. 63. — Curve showing grc of vocabulary in children. The ver- tical line gives the number of words; the horizontal, the age of the child.
B. IMPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS.
Gradual Transition from Explicit to Implicit Language.— At what point in their language organization children make the transition from overt to whispered and then to implicit language has been studied only incidentally. Possibly all three forms go on together from the start. The reason why children are so talk- EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS 323 ative probably is due to the fact that at an early age their envi- ronment does not force a rapid shift from explicit to implicit language (they are really thinking aloud. A good many so-called psycho-analytical factors also enter here). The shift is not complete even in the adult. This is clear from the observa- tion of individuals while they are reading and thinking. Many persons never get to the point where they can read without articu- lating the words sufficiently for the process to become overt —the lips- are moved in unison with the eyes (or rather they lag behind the eye as does the voice when reading aloud). A good lip reader can actually gather some of the words read by such an individual. While thinking many use articulate speech or even lip speech much as do the readers just described. Again, certain people who talk to themselves incessantly when alone or when in the presence of one greatly inferior never complete the transition stage. Our view is that overt language develops under social training. It is thus absorbed into and becomes a part of every total integration of the individual. Hence when he is mak- ing adjustments in the absence of other like beings language remains as a part of the process. But there is no stimulus for him to talk aloud when alone; as a matter of fact, talking aloud under such circumstances introduces conflicting stimuli, the au- ditory stimulus breaking in upon the otherwise silent room. Hence, silent talking takes place which rapidly improves by practice since it is exercised during every waking- and certainly during many sleeping moments. In the acquisition of general bodily acts of skill we have found by experimentation that every short-cut possible which would abbreviate action and increase speed and skill is finally hit upon by the individual in a trial and error way. Sometimes we note this improvement and phrase it in words, often we neither note nor phrase it until long after it has been learned. The same thing undoubtedly takes place in silent talking or thinking. Even if we could roll out the implicit processes and record them on a sensitive plate or phonograph cylinder it is possible that they would be so abbreviated, short- circuited and economized that they would be unrecognizable unless their formation had been watched from the transition 324 PSYCHOLOGY point where they are complete and social in character, to their final stage where they will serve for individual but not for so- cial adjustments.
Non-Language Forms of Thought. — From our standpoint it is not necessary to assume that all thought is laryngeal even if we use ' ' laryngeal ' ' to include the whole mechanism described on page 310. We have learned to write words, sentences and paragraphs, to draw objects and to trace them with the eyes, hands and fingers. We have done this so often that the process has become system- atized and substitutive. In other words, they come to serve as stimuli substitutable for the object seen, drawn, written or han- dled. These implicit processes may bring about a silent word (thought word), a spoken word (name of the object or associated word), or an appropriate bodily act. This form of implicit activ- ity is seen to best advantage in non-speaking individuals such as deaf mutes or blind deaf mutes. The author has carried out some correspondence with the constant companions of such individuals. These observers who have to communicate con- stantly with such defectives! state that if the mutes are closely watched the sign language corresponding to lip activity in the reading of normal persons can be observed quite often. But of course, even in such cases there is a very rapid transition from overt sign language to implicit sign language. The moment the overt slips into the implicit, instrumentation becomes necessary to bring the process out for observation.
It should be clear now that we would not abstract language, overt or implicit, or other implicit thought processes, from their general setting in bodily integration as a whole. The emphasis that we have placed upon it now and then may have led to that point of view. Our reason for such emphasis is that psychologists as a group have not connected up thought with the rest of the process of integration. They have separated it out and made it something toto ccdo, different from the organization processes with which we are now so familiar. Some writers make a com- plete mystery of it; something that we can talk about and discuss, something whose manifestations we may observe but whose essence we can never discover. Others have considered thought EXPLICIT AND IMPLICIT LANGUAGE HABITS 325 processes as a correlate of cortical activity (a common assump- tion). They assume that it is something, no one knows quite what, that can go on in the absence apparently of all muscular activity. If our view is correct, it is a constituent part of every adjustment process. It is not different in essence from tennis- playing1, swimming or any other overt activity except that it is hidden from ordinary observation and is more complex and at the same time more abbreviated so far as its parts are concerned than even the bravest of us could dream of.
Does this view rob us of anything in science, literature or art? Surely the putting of thought back upon reasonable and investigatable grounds robs us of nothing. Because the maiden thinks of her lover in words rather than in terms of some mys- terious process, does she become any less adorable to her lover, or does the subject of love in literature and art become degraded because we have to admit it? Do the beautiful thoughts of the idealist for mankind as a whole or of the mother for her child become less beautiful, less worthy themes of discourse in litera- ture and art, because psychologists now state that those thoughts are couched in words or their equivalent? It is rather curious that explicit bodily acts of justice, mercy, kindness and sym- pathy have no stigmata attached to them because they are bodily acts, yet many scientists balk at admitting that thoughts of jus- tice, mercy and sympathy belong in the same category. We have more than once pointed out that the real hesitancy in making thought highly integrated bodily activity and nothing more is due to the fact that historically * ' thought ' ' has always been con- nected with religion. While it would not be admitted, it is prob- ably, nevertheless, true that even now thought as it is generally conceived of by the scientific man is his pigeon-hole and scape- goat for religious tendencies which even he himself may deny having. To make thought a bodily process like any other act forces him to break away from an anchorage to which he has tied a good many of his adolescent boats. It is aside from our subject to point out here that the view we advocate need not rob such a one of his admitted or unadmitted religious views; when alchemy, healing by touch, astrology, the weaving of spells