Building and Maintaining the Bridges of Spoken Language Science

The multi-disciplinary nature of spoken language science is often taken for granted. Its analysis, promotion, and maintenance rarely gain centre stage in our minds. It is the thesis of this paper that a conscious focus on the overall shape of our scientific endeavours and their disciplinary ingredients is an important factor in maintaining good progress when exploiting the products, of many scientific traditions. Herein we explore the concepts of disciplines and their interaction. We review the history of the development of understanding of spoken language and the disciplinary foundations that have supported it. We very briefly survey the nature of the supporting disciplines before examining some of the more interesting cross-disciplinary linkages that have been spawned in order to fill out the texture of our current understanding. A brief focus on some key commodities that have been part of cross-disciplinary trade leads into an examination of some bridges that have been negotiated in the author’s experience and some of the maintenance issues for the whole field