The timing of acoustic events in relation to different levels of structure building is a fundamental task in both language and music. While in music the timing of sounds and their relation to an abstract metrical grid is often used to create aesthetic effects, timing relations in language are commonly grammaticalized for the conventional construction of different levels of meaning, leaving only a narrow margin for rhythmic preferences of other sorts. Our chapter reviews functions of timing, and, specifically, metrical structure, in both music and language, suggests a unified form of representation inspired by autosegmental-metrical phonology and thereby directs the attention to principles of time-related structure building that are relevant for both communicative sound systems.

The colonial period, roughly between 1600 and 1900, saw an unprecedented movement of speakers of English to locations overseas. The reasons for this movement vary considerably, from deportation of prisoners and political opponents to voluntary emigration by groups with economic motives, sometimes mixed with religious ones. The rise of first-language overseas varieties depends heavily on the founder generation and the sociolinguistic scenarios they found themselves in. In addition, many countries have second-language varieties which in general have arisen through an English-oriented educational system and, previously, through contact in colonies with English speakers.

In spoken communication, one can observe a near-constant presence of both communicative gestures and noncommunicative movements, involving the limbs for actions or locomotion. This suggests that the physical underpinning of spoken communication extends beyond the articulatory system. It may find its roots in breathing, a pivotal element that plays a crucial role in the control and rhythms of both speech and limb movement. This hypothesis has recently garnered attention in interdisciplinary research. Within this framework, this chapter examines evidence of the impact of breathing and limb movements on speech rhythms. First, it highlights breathing as a fundamental rhythm unique to speakers, acting as a conductor for the temporal organization of speech at various linguistic levels. The chapter then further explores the influence of co-speech gestures and noncommunicative motions on the temporal organization of speech. The intricate interplay between speech and breathing, as well as speech and motion, conceptualizes breathing as a potential bridge connecting speech and limb motions at different levels.

Music, like language, relies on listeners’ ability to extract information as it unfolds in time. One key difference between music and language is the strong rhythmic regularities of music relative to language. Despite a wealth of literature describing the rhythms of song as regular and the rhythms of speech as irregular, the acoustic features and neural processing of rhythmic regularity in song and (lack thereof) in speech are poorly understood. This chapter examines acoustic, behavioral, and neural indices of rhythmic regularity in speech and song. Our goal is to review which features induce rhythmic regularity and examine how regularity impacts attention, memory, and comprehension. This work has the potential to inform a wide range of areas, including clinical interventions for speech and reading, best practices for teaching and learning in the classroom, and how attention is captured in real-world scenarios.

Reading is not just a cognitive skill; it is neural training. It fine-tunes attentional focus, oculomotor coordination, and the coupling of deep-brain circuits with visual cortex regions. Moreover, the direction and complexity of writing systems shape spatial cognition and aesthetic preferences. This makes literacy a powerful cultural force that rewires ancient neural networks to enhance how we see, search, and attend to the world.

Melodic intonation therapy (MIT) is a prominent music-based treatment for people with nonfluent aphasia that has numerous potentially active treatment ingredients. These include a simplified, predictable rhythm, slow rate, and unison production of spoken language. Evidence supports the effectiveness of MIT for improving repetition ability but is more modest regarding improvements in functional communication. This chapter reviews MIT’s treatment ingredients, including how they are used and how they are thought to work. With these numerous ingredients, MIT is flexible and can be customized for a particular individual’s needs, but group-level studies using standardized treatment protocols may not allow for this. A treatment taxonomy specifying treatment targets, ingredients, and mechanisms of action is a promising tool to organize the existing evidence, further investigate MIT, and implement it in clinical practice. This approach will allow for a balance between customization and standardization of the treatment protocol.

The current chapter explores English in Japan from four perspectives: (i) Japan’s sociopolitical history, which explains how English first entered the country in the early seventeenth century; (ii) Japan’s history of English language education, which presents a vexed problem; (iii) English loanwords that have entered the Japanese lexicon and which are divided into “pure” and “creative” borrowings; and (iv) the English used by Japanese speakers. The conclusion draws attention to the creativity of L2 users.

Music rhythm and speech rhythm share acoustic, temporal and syntactic similarities, and neuroscience research has shown that similar areas and networks in the brain are recruited to process both types of signals. Rhythm is a core predictive element for both music and speech, allowing for facilitated processing of upcoming, predicted elements. The combined study of music and speech rhythm processing can be particularly insightful, considering the stronger regularity and predictability of musical rhythm. Although speech rhythm is less regular, it still contains regularities, notably at syllabic and prosodic levels. In this chapter, we outline different research lines investigating connections between music and speech rhythm processing, including the recently proposed processing rhythm in speech and music framework, as well as music rhythm interventions and stimulations that aim to improve speech signal processing both in the short term and the long term. Implications for developmental language disorders and future research perspectives are outlined.

Reading leads to the development of an extensive and sophisticated vocabulary, which increases the size, complexity, and interconnectivity of information stored in long-term memory. Frequent reading helps maintain this stored information and supports efficient retrieval. In addition, reading enhances short-term memory skills, particularly the ability to actively manipulate temporary information in working memory.

We present here the historical development of English across Micronesia, as well as a brief description of the Englishes spoken in the seven nations and territories that occupy this part of the Northern Pacific Ocean: the Federated States of Micronesia, Guam, Kiribati, the Marshall Islands, Nauru, the Northern Mariana Islands and Palau. The area has a complex colonial history, with Spain, Germany, Japan, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand all implicated at different times, in different places and in different ways. The impact of English, therefore, is variable across Micronesia. We begin, therefore, by plotting a history of English across the region before presenting descriptions of the phonology, morphosyntax and lexis of the Englishes of Micronesia, balancing a focus on individual varieties, on the one hand, with an attempt at a unified account on the other, considering what the varieties share and what keeps them distinct.

Infant-directed communication has been proposed to facilitate early language development, not only by providing infants with ample native language input but also by tailoring this input to infants’ individual developmental needs. In particular, extensive research has investigated prosodic and phonetic adaptations in caregivers’ infant-directed speech proposed to support early language acquisition, but more recently, research focus has shifted to the rhythmical properties of this register. This chapter reviews this recent evidence, and argues that rhythmic optimization is not limited to infants’ early speech input. Instead, it is present across the auditory, visual, and tactile domains of caregiver–infant communication. We will argue that infants enjoy access to optimized intersensory rhythmic input, which scaffolds their ability to segment the continuous speech signal into meaningful linguistic units, even when these units occur with weak regularity in naturally produced adult-directed speech.