Designing Effective Speech Interfaces

Chapter 4

The Nature of Language

“The limits of my language indicate the limits of my world.”

From Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

As humans, our capability to receive any form of communication is based on our sensory organs: the ears, eyes, skin, nose, and taste buds. The reception of communication through a single sensory organ is referred to as a modality. Each of us has five modalities, directly related to our senses. They are auditory/vocal, visual, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory. The study of how humans perceive communication through these sensory organs is called the science of semiotics. Specifically, semiotics provides a theoretical approach and related techniques for analyzing the structure of all forms and meanings of signals and signs in human communication received via these modalities.

Figure 4.1 shows the branches of semiotics and illustrates the relationship between our communication modalities. As human factors professionals, the more knowledge we have about each modality, the better we can design systems for our users. In the design of speech user interfaces we are primarily concerned with the auditory/vocal modality. A greater comprehension of this modality comes from understanding the process of verbal communication and the structure of language.

Figure 4.1 Aspects of semiotics.

Adapted from The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Cambridge ...