ing his own language, and are therefore dropped. The remaining sounds are made to conform to rigid conventional patterns which then interfere with the formation of other patterns. When the ear-voice reflexes have been established the parent begins to teach the child to name the things which are present to sense. For example, the parent says "penny." The child responds with the sounds in his vocabulary which represent the nearest approach to those in the word "penny." This is operating on the level of step two. The parent then shows the child the penny as he pronounces the word. If this is done often enough, the visual stimulus is substituted for the auditory stimulus by a process of secondary conditioning, and very soon the child learns to respond to the sight of the penny by calling out the word. Thus, he comes to respond to the objects about him with specific types of vocalization fitted to these respective objects, and conditioned by them. We should not omit from our discussion here the very great influence which parents and nurses exercise in fixating certain responses which occur more or less accidentally. For example, one of the vocal sounds very easy to produce and one which occurs early in the child's vocalization is a: (as in father). Now let us suppose that the child is prolonging this sound. While he is doing this he brings his lips together abruptly, opens them again, and then repeats the process. He now is saying ma: ma: If his mother happens to be present, she seizes upon this accidental combination of sounds, and by pleasant ministrations fixates the vocal habit in the child. Now suppose that the child is again prolonging the same sound, and this time interrupts it not only by bringing his lips together, but also by raising the soft palate in such a way as to close off the nasal passages. This action produces "pa: pa:" The father now contributes to the satisfaction of the infant and fixates this response. It is possible of course that the visual stimulus of a doll may produce gestures which are effective in satisfying his wants without any vocalization. If this is the case, the child may be retarded in his learning of language by having parents and nurses who are so solicitous about his comfort and satisfaction that he does not need to use articulate language. IV. SPEECH AND THOUGHT It should be observed now that not only the sound of the word, but any stimulus in the group of those which have acted upon the child while he was experiencing in any way the object for which the word stands may be substituted for the visual stimulus. Any of the activities which the child has gone through in wanting the doll, getting it, or reacting to it, may cause him to speak the word which has come to stand for it. When this stage has been reached the true intellectual life of the child has begun. We have already said that thinking is carried on largely, if not wholly, in terms of these articulate language symbols. When the child reaches this level of achievement, the way is open for the acquiring of sounds which are representative of relationships essential to abstract thinking. EXERCISES Give a brief talk on one of the following topics, striving to be just as clear and interesting as possible. 1. Speech and the Biological Urges of the Human Being 2. Some Important Differences Between the Animate and the Inanimate 3. A Human Being's Means of Contact with the Outside World 4. Habit Formation 5. Some Instances of Conditioning 6. Instinct and the Development of Speech 7. The Speech of a Five-year-old Child as Contrasted with that of an Adult 8. The Speech of a Very Ignorant Man as Contrasted with that of a Very Highly Educated Man 9. The Principle of Economy in Human Behavior 10. Instances of Infantile Speech Reactions Among Grown-ups II. An Early Environment Favorable to the Development of Good Speech PART II THE MECHANICS OF SPEECH CHAPTER IV MENTAL PROCESSES I. MENTAL PROCESSES II. EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR A. Nature of Emotional Behavior B. Importance of Emotional Behavior in Speech 1. Origin of speech 2. Action in speech C. Types of Emotional Behavior Harmful to the Speaker a. Negativism b. Compensation 2. Repression 3. Sentimentalism D. Types of Emotional Behavior Helpful to the Speaker 1. Confidence 2. Sympathy 3. Differentiation III. INTELLECTUAL BEHAVIOR A. Nature of Intellectual Behavior 1. Controlled and Localized Activity B. Responding to Stimulation 1. Kinds of Stimuli 2. Satisfactory Response C. Recalling Experience D. Imagining E. Believing 1. Convictions I. MENTAL PROCESSES By the term "mental processes" we mean those response activities which reach a relatively high degree of integration and complexity. There is no difference between the simpler reflex responses and the elaborate adjustments which are ordinarily called "abstract thinking," except in the number of receptors, central neurones, and effectors involved. There is room in this description of mental processes for those complex responses to which consciousness is attached as well as for those other complex responses in which consciousness is not a factor. If one asks how complex must the mechanism of response be before we call it mental, the only possible answer is that any line must be shadowy, uncertain, or arbitrary. At the extremes, the situation is quite clear. For example, when the response is exceedingly simple, as it is in the case of the winking reflex, we should certainly not think of applying the term "mental" to it. When the response is complicated, it is in the case of attempting to understand what you are now reading, we recognize the appropriateness of the descriptive term "mental." It is hardly safe to refer to the simpler types of reaction as being physical, because the more complex processes may be physical also. As we have seen in one of the earlier chapters, the language habits, which form so large a portion of our speech activity, are mental processes of a very high order. As we are using the term "mental," it properly includes both emotional behavior and intellectual behavior. We shall now proceed to examine briefly the role of these two types of mental activity in the work of the speaker. as II. EMOTIONAL BEHAVIOR A. Nature of Emotional Behavior. - Perhaps it would be well to begin here with some definitions from authorities in the field of psychology. Watson divides inherited modes of response into two classes - instinctive and emotional. He says: "We should define instinct as an hereditary pattern reaction, the separate elements of which are movements 1 John B. Watson, Psychology from the Standpoint of the Behaviorist, p. 231. J. B. Lippincott Company. particularly of the striped muscles." (The striped muscles are the voluntary muscles.) He defines an emotion as follows: "An emotion is an hereditary 'pattern reaction' involving profound changes in the bodily mechanism as a whole, but particularly of the visceral and glandular systems." (The musculature of these visceral organs is typically unstriped or involuntary.) Allport's definition of an emotion is: "A diffused pattern of response, invading both the somatic, skeletal, striped, or voluntary muscles and the visceral regions involving principally unstriped or involuntary muscles of the body . . . accompanied by sensory awareness of the bodily movements and changes involved." The James-Lange theory of emotion, which has been prominent in all discussions of emotional response since it was announced about forty years ago, is perhaps best explained in the following quotations from Professor James: "Common-sense says, we lose our fortune, are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are frightened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are angry and strike. . . . The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry because we strike, afraid because we tremble."4 "Everybody knows how panic is increased by flight, and how the giving way to the symptoms of grief or anger increases the passions themselves. . . . In rage, it is notorious how we 'work ourselves up' to a climax by repeated outbursts of expression. Refuse to express the passion and it dies. Count ten before venting your anger, and its occasion seems ridiculous. Whistling to keep up courage is no mere figure of speech. On the other hand, sit all day in a moping posture, sigh, and reply to everything with a dismal voice, and your melancholy lingers. There is no more valuable precept in moral education than this, as all who have experience know; if we wish to conquer undesirable emotional tendencies in ourselves, we must assiduously, and in the first instance cold-bloodedly, go through the outward movements of 2 John B. Watson, Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviorist, p. 195. 3 F. H. Allport, Social Psychology, p. 84. James, Briefer Course, p. 375. Henry Holt and Company. |