[irviss]

> If you also sense the lips, tongue articulators, and jaw, then general English decoding becomes possible with high accuracy

A bit OT but I see this frequently and I'm curious. Why do you English speakers (or just a US phenomenon?) tend to use the word "English" instead of "language", "linguistic" or one of its related words to refer to a general concept?

[x1798DE]

Not OP, but as a native English speaker and former scientist (though not in this area), I would interpret "x does y on English tasks" to mean "we tested this in English and don't know if the effect generalizes to other languages".

[thaumasiotes]

In this case we do know if the effect generalizes to other languages. It cannot fail to; the larynx, lips, tongue, and jaw are almost all there is. For example, vowels are conventionally defined by jaw position ("height"), tongue position ("frontness"), and lip configuration ("rounded" or not).

You might miss some things like creaky voice or ejectives, you'll probably miss aspiration, but all that does is give you a worst-case scenario analogous to a native speaker trying to understand someone with a foreign accent. Extremely high accuracy will be possible.

[roenxi]

I'd speculate English speakers are used to being part of a society where non-English speakers are present and politically important. It is polite not to assume that English = language. Even on the British Isles English isn't a universal thing. Let alone somewhere like America where it isn't even native.

"Language" just doesn't mean "English". In Australia if someone is talking about "language" on its own I'd assume they're Aboriginal advocates.

[AlecSchueler]

> Even on the British Isles English isn't a universal thing. Let alone somewhere like America where it isn't even native.

English isn't native to all of those isles either only Great Britain.

[khazhoux]

This is your misperception.

In the instances where a person says "English" in this kind of context, it catches your attention and you infer that the person is an English-speaker, and possibly American.

But when a person uses the generic word "language", you don't notice it.

This leads you to believe that English speakers "tend to use the word English," when that's not the case necessarily.

I don't know what this perceptual fallacy is called, but there's probably a word. In English :-)

[atopal]

There are about 6000 spoken languages around the world with an extreme variety in how they produce meaning. How could you make sweeping statements about all of them?

[johnisgood]

I have not noticed this. I just assume that they are specifically talking about a language, in this case: English.