Review of Dynamic Approaches to Phonological Processing

Abstract

Dynamic Approaches to Phonological Processing by Hunter Hatfield (2023) explores phonological processing from a dynamic psychological perspective, which is beneficial for the study of language attrition in the elderly population. Hatfield integrates insights from psycholinguistics, cognitive science, and dynamic systems theory to argue that phonological representations are fluid and continuously updated during speech perception and production, emphasizing the importance of temporally sensitive methods, such as eye-tracking and electrophysiology, to better capture the real-time unfolding of phonological processes. Topics addressed include lexical activation, gradient phonological representations, articulatory planning, and multimodal integration. Hatfield advocates for methodological and theoretical shifts in the study of phonology, encouraging a move away from rigid models toward approaches that reflect the complexity and variability of spoken language use.