Lip Reading

Lip reading, sometimes known also as speechreading, is a means of understanding speech visually. It is described as “seeing the sound of speech” because the lip reader relies on observations of the speaker’s lips, mouth and tongue to interpret speech. (Short et. al, 2012) It is a technique primarily used by individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. Even without the absence of auditory ability, lip reading has shown to be an integral part in conversations in everyday life. People with normally-functioning audio and visual skills tacitly use lip reading to understand speech. Using lip reading allows one to enhance or quicken his understanding of what is being said by observing the syllables of each word, rhythmic patterns and phrases which are articulated by the speaker through the movement of his lips.  Each phoneme in speech has a corresponding viseme (facial or mouth position). In general, people are able to identify a phoneme in the absence of audio cues, by paying close attention to the visual cues given. In any given language, lip reading alone is able to capture around 40-60% phonemes. (Schwartz et. al, 2010)

Words Have Images

It was first proposed by Engelkamp & Krumnacker (1980) that the gesture accompanying a particular word is linked to an image which already exists in the semantic inventory of the word. Through years of experimentation, neuroscientists and linguists have discovered the extent of the connection between the human body’s linguistic and motor systems, following the assumption that in every language, words have images associated with them. This accounts for the effectiveness in employing meaningful gestures to accompany words when teaching a foreign language. More on the neurological aspect of visual learning and word imagery may be found under the section on ‘impact of gestures on the Brain’