The Audiovisual Deficit in Cartesian Linguistics

A host of new phenomena rising out of the new audio- & videographic media challenge the prevailing "Cartesian" approach in linguistics which, because of its solipsistic intuition & cognition, does not address the orderliness of spoken speech. The new technical media have made it possible to capture reliable & authentic samples of spoken speech. It has also provided more tools for analyzing the data collected: the ability to slow it down for realistic & synchronized syntactic, prosodic, & phonetic transcription; repeated & controlled observation; & perhaps even an ability to capture what Ferdinand de Saussure conceptualized as langue & parole. A new field, ethnomethodological conversation analysis, has emerged as a result of the capabilities of the new technical media. 57 References. Adapted from the source document