Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. Questions of Ontology: Writing and the Speech-Language Divide
1. How we are Introduced to the Study of Spoken Language
2. The Modality-Independence Argument and Storylines of the Origin of Symbolic Language
3. The Recent History of Attempts to Ground Orthographic Concepts of Language Theory
Part II. Questions of Epistemology: The Role of Instrumental Observations
4. Recognizing the Bias
5. (Re-) Defining the Writing Bias, and the Essential Role of Instrumental Invalidation
Part III. The Structure of Speech Acts:
6. Utterances as Communicative Acts
7. Relating to Basic Units: Syllable-Like Cycles
8. Relating Neural Oscillations to Syllable Cycles and Chunks
9. Breath-Units of Speech and their Structural Effects
Part IV. The Processing of Speech Meaning:
10. The Neural Coding of Semantics
11. Processes of Utterance Interpretation: For a Neuropragmatics
Index.

"For many readers of the present work, the notion that language is separate from speech (or that language competence is separate from performance) will likely have been acquired in an introductory course to language study. This notion can have a major influence on how language is conceptualized, and presents a central tenet in the field. In examining introductory texts used by generations of students (e.g. the multiple editions of Akmajian, Demers, Farmer et al., 2010; Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams, 2013, and others), one finds typical arguments for distinguishing speech from language. These arguments serve to specify not only the object of study, but also how to study it. However, all these arguments, it should be pointed out once more, involve written material"-- Provided by publisher.