Holistic phonological representations and their uses

The purpose of the workshop is to reintroduce the idea of holistic or ‘whole-word’ representations to an audience of experimental phoneticians and phonologists in the context of (i) specific models of production, (ii) data on word learning and (iii) cross-linguistic patterning in child and adult language. The argument is that, from a developmental perspective, holistic representations are more likely to have psychological reality than are representations composed of segments. The goal of the workshop is to elicit discussion about the merits and limitations of this argument, which is based largely on the functionalist assumption that both development and production are driven by the child’s/speaker’s desire to communicate. We also hope to elicit discussion as to why holistic representations never really competed with the structuralism of modern linguistics. Does this reflect the goals of the field? Perhaps it is time to consider an expansion of these goals.