Beyond Words is a book of big questions about language. What is language? Where did it come from? How do we learn our mother tongue? How do we learn other languages in addition to our mother tongue? How do we use and understand language? How do we lose language? Collectively, these topics fall under the umbrella of psycholinguistics. Psycholinguistics is the marriage of linguistics and psychology. It is a branch of language science that explores the relationship between language and the human mind. This is a book that takes us down many rabbit holes. It is filled with astonishing research and surprising discoveries. It is about fierce debate and contentious topics that have fascinated us since ancient times and continue to do so today. Language is weird, but also wonderful. Language is intricate and innovative, confusing and complex, mysterious and most of all, it is multifaceted. Language is beyond words.

What is the relation between rhythm and stuttering in speech production/perception? Stuttering is a neurodevelopmental speech disorder that has an impact on the timing and rhythmic flow of production. It is marked by several repetitions, blocks, or lengthening of sounds and syllables that unsettle the rhythm of speech. There is a lot of behavioral and imaging research on speech disruptions; however, the mechanism behind stuttering is still unclear. Speech timing is rhythmically structured. Children who stutter do not easily generate an internal rhythm; they have a worse rhythm discrimination ability than typically developing children. In this chapter we investigate how adults who stutter pace their speech. We illustrate evidence of rhythm perception/production dysfunctions, assessing the hypothesis that neurodevelopmental stuttering is associated with a deficit in temporal processing and rhythmic patterning. Speech rhythm has been quantified using rhythmic measures (especially the pairwise variability index = PVI).

I begin by narrowing down the realm of human ‘production’, the requirements it places on our faculties and why humans are essentially productive animals. I then move on to three philosophical accounts of human productivity: those of Aristotle, Marx and Gwen Bradford respectively. Aristotle’s account is marred by class prejudice, Marx’s by a hyper-focus on the conditions rather than the results of ‘labour’, and Bradford’s by an over-formal analysis of production that has too little to say about products. By contrast, I propose a comprehensive account that has substantive things to say about producers, processes of production and products. My account distinguishes two productive ‘poles’, namely: (1) those powers engaged in the producer (productive ‘inputs’); and (2) those powers engaged in the consumer (productive ‘outputs’). Production is good overall to the degree it protects and promotes the perfection of both producers’ and consumers’ powers. I round off Chapter 9 by tackling the ‘anti-work’ critique, arguing that it fails to show work as such is a bad. Indeed, production remains perfective of humans in virtue of their productive nature.

What Stradivarius and Steinway are to classical music, and Fender and Gibson are to rock and roll, the E-mu SP 1200 and AKAI MPC samplers are to hip-hop. As beat makers in the mid 1980s experimented with newly available digital samplers, E-mu Systems and AKAI introduced their all-in-one sampler. During the so-called Golden Era, the SP 1200 and MPC developed a reciprocal relationship with hip-hop music that saw the specifications of the machines in conversation with the aesthetics of the music. Through analyses of ‘South Bronx,’ ‘It Ain’t Hard to Tell,’ and ‘Unbelievable,’ the chapter addresses how these two machines became primary instruments of beat making. In addition, these examples reveal how each machine developed mythic legacies within hip-hop culture that have long survived their commonplace usage, and how these machines shape an aesthetic consideration of the “sound” of hip-hop beats to the present day.

Volume I offers a broad perspective on urban culture in the ancient European world. It begins with chronological overviews which paint in broad brushstrokes a picture that serves as a frame for the thematic chapters in the rest of the volume. Positioning ancient Europe within its wider context, it touches on Asia and Africa as regions that informed and were later influenced by urban development in Europe, with particular emphasis on the Mediterranean basin. Topics range from formal characteristics (including public space), water provision, waste disposal, urban maintenance, spaces for the dead, and border spaces; to ways of thinking about, visualising, and remembering cities in antiquity; to conflict within and between cities, economics, mobility and globalisation, intersectional urban experiences, slavery, political participation, and religion.

This chapter reviews current studies focusing on the production, comprehension, and processing of words and idiomatic expressions in neurotypical and neurodiverse Gaelic-speaking children and adults. The review of the literature highlights that the majority of studies on word learning have focused on primary school children attending Gaelic-medium education. This is not surprising given that the revitalisation of Gaelic is pursued through Gaelic-medium education (GME). The majority of new speakers, that is second language learners of Gaelic without prior cultural affiliation to Gaelic, are children or adults from non-Gaelic-speaking homes attending GME. The studies targeting lexical processing or asking how multiword expressions in the form of idioms are acquired highlight that many questions about Gaelic word learning and processing in the early years and across the lifespan are yet to be addressed. The chapter concludes by highlighting where the major research gaps are and by putting forward suggestions for future research.

Production rather than preferences should play the leading role in the theory of markets, as in the book’s analysis of volatility and policymaking. Production is not only the fount of social wealth, it is organized by firms whose decisions are guided by a clear ordering principle, their profitability. There is moreover an institution, the market, that can weed out the firms that fail to pursue profits effectively. But the purging of inefficiency by the market confronts policymakers with the dilemmas of Schumpeterian creative destruction. Policies that compensate firms and their owners for any declines in profitability will also dampen the threat of bankruptcy; the enforcement of productive efficiency can require unfettered competition. An application to international trade illustrates some of the challenges: For foreign competition to lead to productive efficiency, domestic prices must be aligned with world prices, which will push some firms into liquidation.

The problems that afflict Pareto efficiency can be overcome if the criterion is rebuilt on preference-free foundations. A policy change passes the ‘availability test’ if it allows agents to afford whatever they purchased originally: Agents might not then be better off but no one can legitimately object to the change. One way to pass the availability test is to give agents the right to repeat their original transactions; a reform of rent control serves as an example. A second strategy stabilizes prices for consumers while letting the prices that firms face promote efficiency in production. A deregulation of a public utility, for example, can preserve consumer prices while giving firms an incentive to innovate. These policy alternatives show how to resolve the Schumpeterian dilemma of creative destruction: They harness the progressive feature of capitalism, that it fosters technological change, while protecting the individuals who can be harmed by the same forces. Conventional laissez-faire policies are in contrast difficult to justify even from within the orbit of traditional economic theory and can generate bitter social conflict. An application to opening an economy to free trade shows how to combine the advantages of technological change while satisfying the availability test.

The concluding chapter of this book aims to remind the reader of the purpose of the book, which is to help BSL learners to improve their sign articulation accuracy, recognise the kinds of errors they are likely to make, and gain a better understanding of the visual nature of BSL. The importance of practice to enhance fluency is emphasised in Section 5.1, which also encourages the learner to make every effort to understand the cultural aspects of the social life and everyday lived experiences of Deaf people. Section 5.2 contains a good number of exercises that incorporate aspects of the previous three chapters so that you can continue working on the areas that you have identified for improvement. Each exercise contains a clear aim and provides activities with instructions that will help you to continue improving your sign articulation. This chapter emphasises the fact that the ability to recognise and correct your errors is an important part of the learning journey. It helps you to self-reflect and stay on track with the development of your BSL skills as you progress further on your journey to becoming a fluent BSL user.

Chapter 11 explores how German criminal procedure, in the same way as German substantive criminal law, builds on a main body of legislation that was drafted in the nineteenth century. While the German Code of Criminal Procedure has been amended numerous times – also with the intention to address digital transformation and the shift to an information society – the obtaining of digital evidence (in particular from service providers), its analysis and its transformation into evidence introduced in a criminal trial remain areas with many challenges, uncertainties of legal interpretation and need of legislative reform. This chapter aims to provide an overview of core themes of digital evidence in criminal justice and the cooperation of service providers in criminal matters in Germany – in particular those that seem of most relevance to an international audience.