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A History of Communications advances a theory of media that explains the origins and impact of different forms of communication - speech, writing, print, electronic devices and the Internet - on human history in the long term. New media are 'pulled' into widespread use by broad historical trends and these media, once in widespread use, 'push' social institutions and beliefs in predictable directions. This view allows us to see for the first time what is truly new about the Internet, what is not, and where it is taking us.

This volume contains studies presented at the 4th International Workshop on the History of Speech Communication Research (HSCR 2021). The series of workshops was initiated in Dresden in 2015. The current workshop took place in Prague at the Institute of Phonetics, Charles University, amid the ever-changing pandemic circumstances – for the first time in a hybrid form. There are nine contributions, written by 12 authors from six countries. The contributions analyze the contextual background of particular personalities or investigate how specific research practices developed over time. Moreover, each contribution demonstrates a significant connection between various aspects of speech communication research and the wider social context. A special theme of this workshop was the link in linguistic signs between the form (sound) and the meaning (sense). The phonetic endeavour was often claimed to concern only the form, while meaning was delegated to someone else. This is not only one-sided, but also difficult to integrate into the large body of scientific knowledge, as the opening keynote emphasized.

"Communications and Humanity advances a new theory of media that explains the origins and impact of different forms of communication - speech, writing, print, electronic devices, and the Internet - on human history in the long term. New media are "pulled" into widespread use by broad historical trends and these media, once in widespread use, "push" social institutions and beliefs in predictable directions. This view allows us to see for the first time what is truly new about the Internet, what is not, and where it is taking us"--Provided by publisher.

Originally published in 1963, The Speech Chain has been regarded as the classic, easy-to-read introduction to the fundamentals and complexities of speech communication. It provides a foundation for understanding the essential aspects of linguistics, acoustics and anatomy, and explores research and development into digital processing of speech and the use of computers for the generation of artificial speech and speech recognition. This interdisciplinary account will prove invaluable to students with little or no previous exposure to the study of language.