This chapter is partly about how actions are executed and how the details of people’s behavioral performance should be explained. But it also introduces some classes of action that find no place within the standard belief-desire model. These include habitual actions as well as speeded skilled actions, including many speech actions. To the extent that philosophers have addressed these kinds of action at all, their theories have run the gamut from complete mindlessness to full-blown intellectualism. The chapter critiques some influential accounts of the latter sort, after emphasizing that skilled actions are as distinctively human as are our rational capacities.

How should a constitutional state – one that respects subjects’ basic rights – treat civil disobedients? This chapter presents and critically engages with some of the most prominent answers legal scholars, political theorists, and philosophers have given to this question. On what I call punitive approaches, which I present in section 1, civil disobedience is first and foremost an act of resistance that threatens the constitutional order, and thus a public wrong worthy of punishment. Theorists of civil disobedience have challenged this approach since the 1960s, especially by conceiving of civil disobedience as a kind of dissent, which liberal democratic societies ought to and can ‘make room’ for. Sections 2 and 3 examine these ‘constitutionalizing’ approaches, with section 2 focusing on the case for leniency, and section 3 on the case for broad accommodation. Section 4 examines the costs of constitutionalizing approaches and reclaims the understanding of civil disobedience as a kind of resistance, alongside its uncivil counterparts, that is sometimes justified and even necessary in constitutional democracies.

This chapter provides a comprehensive overview of the structural foundations of language in the human brain, tracing the development of localization theories from phrenology to modern neuroimaging. It introduces key anatomical terminology and landmarks, including major brain regions, gyri, and sulci. The chapter explores the evolution of language localization theories, highlighting influential figures like Broca and Wernicke, and the shift from single-region to network-based models of language processing. It discusses various approaches to brain mapping, including macroanatomical, microanatomical (cytoarchitectonic), and functional definitions. The chapter also covers important anatomical pathways, particularly the dorsal and ventral streams for speech processing, while noting that these simplified models may not fully capture the complexity of language networks. The chapter concludes by acknowledging the challenges in precisely labeling brain regions and the complementary nature of different naming conventions, setting the stage for deeper exploration of language neuroscience in subsequent chapters.

This chapter highlights several aspects of human communication that rely on brain regions outside the traditional fronto-temporal language network. Factors affecting the neural resources needed for communication include the task demands (including acoustic or linguistic aspects), and abilities of individual listeners. When speech is acoustically challenging, as may happen due to background noise or hearing loss, listeners must engage cognitive resources compared to those needed for understanding clear speech. The additional cognitive demands of acoustic challenge are seen most obviously through activity in prefrontal cortex. During conversations, talkers need to plan the content of what they are saying, as well as when to say it – processes that engage the left middle frontal gyrus. And the cerebellum, frequently overlooked in traditional neurobiological models of language, exhibits responses to processing both words and sentences. The chapter ends by concluding that many aspects of human communication rely on parts of the brain outside traditional “language regions,” and that the processes engaged depend a great deal on the specific task required and who is completing it.

This chapter reviews the brain processes underlying human speech production, centered on the idea that a talker wants to communicate through to the execution of a motor plan. Cortical regions associated with motor control –including premotor cortex, supplemental motor area, and pre-supplemental motor area – are routinely implicated in speech planning and execution, complemented by the cerebellum. In addition to generating speech sound waves, speech production relies on somatosensory and auditory feedback, associated with additional regions of the superior temporal gyri and somatosensory cortex. A special point of emphasis is the contribution of the left inferior frontal gyrus (including the area traditionally defined as “Broca’s area”) to fluent speech production. Additional points include speech prosody and sensory-motor feedback. Finally, the chapter concludes by reviewing several common challenges to speech production, including dysarthria, apraxia of speech, and stuttering.

This chapter introduces the idea of language as a means to communicate ideas to other people. The speech chain – following the path of language from the mind of the speaker through to an acoustic signal, eventually interpreted by the mind of the listener – is introduced as an organizational framework. Of special note, all of the stages between talker and listener can influence the effectiveness of communication. The chapter provides a summary of central challenges associated with spoken language, including categorical perception, time-constrained understanding, flexibility, and multimodal integration. It then introduces several “big picture” themes from the book: stability versus flexibility, the importance of context, bottom-up versus top-down processing, hierarchical organization, the role of task demands, and neuroanatomical considerations related to localization and lateralization.

This chapter provides an overview of how listeners’ brains process building blocks of speech: phonemes (that is, speech sounds) and word forms. Phonemes are processed bilaterally in posterior portions of the superior temporal sulcus. Compared to isolated phonemes, spoken words are acoustically more complex and associated with both grammatical status and meaning. Spoken word processing relies on bilateral temporal cortex, including portions of the superior temporal gyrus and middle temporal gyrus. The role of acoustic context on word recognition is also covered, including effects of speech rate and how listeners interpret speech sounds in relation to what surrounds them. Theoretical perspectives covered in the chapter include predictive coding (in which unpredicted sounds are associated with increased activity) and lexical competition (in which words with similar-sounding competitors are more difficult to understand). The hemispheric lateralization of these processes is also discussed, including the important historical development of the Wada test.

This chapter examines how poet, orator, and early speech therapist John Thelwall engages with embodied materialist models of involuntary, yet autonomous, utterance to support his lifelong belief in the necessity of free and active speech. It investigates how Thelwall’s work presents both politicised notions of the speaking body and a physiological and sometimes pathologised understanding of political silencing and argues that Thelwall’s later elocutionary work develops a concern with embodied speech already fundamental to his more overtly political writing, resulting in a theory of speech production and impediment which remains suggestive of a radical politics in its materialist conception of the human body’s operation and agency. Drawing on his unpublished ‘Derby Manuscript’, the chapter considers how Thelwall’s cross-disciplinary theory of ‘rhythmus’, which positions the elements of elocution as fundamental physical laws, rather than practical or cultural rules, gives credence to the notion of speech as a materially potent force.

Taking the notion of the ‘mechanic’ as its starting point, this chapter outlines how an interest in the mechanic and scientific aspects of speech production is a pervasive feature of Romantic-era treatments of spoken utterance. The chapter investigates the numerous contemporary senses of the term ‘mechanic’, to highlight these senses’ common concern with physical movement, whether of the human hands, a constructed machine, or the material world. It examines how Romantic innovations in the theory of speech production which present utterance as a form of motion – of bodies, of machines, and of matter itself – combine, engage with, and react to traditions of materialist philosophy and elocution teaching and explores how such studies of speech rely on blending knowledge-based fields of study with traditionally non-theoretical practices including medicine and elocution.

Through a case study of the ‘speaking machine’ constructed by doctor-poet Erasmus Darwin between 1770 and 1771, this chapter aims to demonstrate that Romantic-era projects on the mechanics of speech were both new and controversial in their potential to undermine the religious, political, and philosophical status quo. It explores how Darwin’s simultaneous investigations of anatomy and machinery are suggestive of a materialist approach to the human, and particularly the speaking, body and how his materialist model of speech production simultaneously allows and is allowed by Darwin’s dual identity as philosopher and physician which informs the interdisciplinarity of his thought and practice. The chapter concludes by making the case that Darwin’s multidisciplinary approach to speech underpins both politicised reactions to his work and his own account of the role that a materialist understanding of speech and the voice can play in the development and improvement of society.

This chapter investigates how Percy Shelley’s poetry of speech draws on a Darwinian materialist understanding of the body and can be read alongside John Thelwall’s theory of rhythmus in its figuring of speech as unstoppable action. Focussing on Shelley’s later works, including A Defence of Poetry, Julian and Maddalo, Prometheus Unbound, and The Mask of Anarchy, this chapter draws out the ways that materialist and embodied models of speech production underpin Shelley’s figuring of poetry as a force of change, and allow him to blur the boundaries between art and science, aesthetics and politics, the internal and the external. It examines how such understandings of the communicative power of voice as a physical and material force that can be felt as action or movement challenge the notion that Shelley’s later poems are indicative of the failure of both poetry as a means of communication and utterance as a means of effecting change.

This chapter offers a new reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which argues that Shelley draws on Darwin’s, Thelwall’s, and Percy Shelley’s depictions of materialist, active speech in the novel’s portrayal of speech production. This coda makes the case that Shelley’s novel posits speech production and acquisition as a thoroughly interdisciplinary project and suggests that the Romantic concerns with physicalised models of impressive vocal power, traced throughout this book, present a new way of reading the creature’s speech as a radical act of self-governance.

This chapter considers the syntax of Hopkins’s poems. It places Hopkins’s syntax in the context of his devotional and artistic life, showing how his sentences negotiate the conflicting pressures exerted by Catholic faith and poetic ambition, personal idiosyncrasy, and the desire to be ‘intelligible’. It also places the poems in the context of larger syntactical trends, showing how Hopkins’s phrasing works with and against the grain of nineteenth-century usage, and addressing Hopkins’s interest in and anticipation of developments in Victorian philology. The chapter pays particular attention to ‘Myself Unholy’, ‘The Wreck of the Deutschland’, and ‘Tom’s Garland’.

A study conducted in the United States found that people fear speaking in public to an unknown audience more than spiders, heights, going to the doctor, and thunder and lightning. If you are among the many people that become anxious at the thought of having to speak in front of others, you are not alone. However, public speaking and delivering oral presentations are skills that can be developed, refined and mastered.

This chapter explores the basic and advanced skills needed to deliver an effective oral presentation. We present various techniques you can use to improve your oral presentation skills to deliver successful academic and professional presentations, including ways of overcoming the ‘butterflies’ associated with public speaking.

The Automatic Selective Perception (ASP) model posits that listeners make use of selective perceptual routines (SPRs) that are fast and efficient for recovering lexical meaning. These SPRs serve as filters to accentuate relevant cues and minimize irrelevant information. Years of experience with the first language (L1) lead to fairly automatic L1 SPRs; consequently, few attentional resources are needed in processing L1 speech. In contrast, L2 SPRs are less automatic. Under difficult task or stimulus conditions, listeners fall back on more automatic processes, specifically L1 SPRs. And L2 speech perception suffers where there is a mismatch between the L1 and the L2 phonetics because L1 SPRs may not extract the important cues needed for identifying L2 phonemes. This chapter will present behavioral and neurophysiology evidence that supports the ASP model, but which also indicates the need for some modification. We offer suggestions for future directions in extending this model.

This chapter provides a cross-sectional overview of current neuroimaging techniques and signals used to investigate the processing of linguistically relevant speech units in the bilingual brain. These techniques are reviewed in the light of important contributions to the understanding of perceptual and production processes in different bilingual populations. The chapter is structured as follows. First, we discuss several non-invasive technologies that provide unique insights in the study of bilingual phonetics and phonology. This introductory section is followed by a brief review of the key brain regions and pathways that support the perception and production of speech units. Next, we discuss the neuromodulatory effects of different bilingual experiences on these brain regions from shorter to longer neural latencies and timescales. As we will show, bilingualism can significantly alter the time course, strength, and nature of the neural responses to speech, when compared with monolinguals.