Emergence of Linguistic Abilities

Emergence of Linguistic Abilities
Author: Frédérique Gayraud
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
Total Pages: 295
Release: 2009-03-26
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1443806404

This book attempts to address an interrelated set of issues about the emergence of linguistic abilities in the child. The various chapters intend to shed light on a particular and critical period in language development: the first three years of life. It is generally assumed in the field of the ontogeny of language that the child's first years of life are particularly crucial. This period is even sometimes considered as predictive at least in the short term, of the later abilities to communicate. During these first three years, gestures, phonetico-phonological, lexical and morpho-syntactic skills chronologically emerge. The main goal of this book is to address the issue of continuity between the developments of the different language components, by the means of recent findings of experts in each domain. Furthermore, the originality of this selection of chapters is to broaden the scope of the discussion by including papers dealing with related phenomena but from different perspectives such as phylogeny, pathology and animal communication. This book primarily concerns graduate students and researchers in the field of language acquisition but the audience can also include scholars from evolution of language, language pathology, animal communication, ontogeny/phylogeny research fields.

Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior

Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior
Author: Charles J Fillmore
Publisher: Academic Press
Total Pages: 363
Release: 2014-05-10
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1483263207

Individual Differences in Language Ability and Language Behavior is a collection of papers that discusses differences at the center of the study of language, specifically, on the various dimensions of linguistic ability and behavior along which individuals can differ from each other. Papers also review the development of techniques that measure these dimensions in relation to biological, psychological, and cultural parameters. Some papers review individual differences in language study in terms of different perspectives: that of a psychometrician's, of an individualistic's vantage point, and of a psycholinguistic's. Other papers discuss how each individual accesses, uses, and judges his language through fluency, biases, spatial principles, or a linguistic-phonetic mode. Several papers examine individual differences in language acquisition, such as "profile analysis," strategies in acquisition of sounds, second language learning, and duplication of adult language system. A group of papers addresses the biological aspects of language variation. These biological aspects include selective disorders of syntax (agrammatism), selective disorders of lexical retrieval (anomia), and cerebral lateralization effects in language processing. Certain papers explain individual differences in languages using sociolinguistic analysis. The collection is well suited for linguists, ethnologists, psychologists, and researchers whose works involve linguistics, learning, communications, and syntax.

On Language

On Language
Author: Noam Chomsky
Publisher: The New Press
Total Pages: 498
Release: 2017-02-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1595587616

The two most popular titles by the noted linguist and critic in one volume—an ideal introduction to his work. On Language features some of Noam Chomsky’s most informal and highly accessible work. In Part I, Language and Responsibility, Chomsky presents a fascinating self-portrait of his political, moral, and linguistic thinking. In Part II, Reflections on Language, Chomsky explores the more general implications of the study of language and offers incisive analyses of the controversies among psychologists, philosophers, and linguists over fundamental questions of language. “Language and Responsibility is a well-organized, clearly written and comprehensive introduction to Chomsky’s thought.” —The New York Times Book Review “Language and Responsibility brings together in one readable volume Chomsky’s positions on issues ranging from politics and philosophy of science to recent advances in linguistic theory. . . . The clarity of presentation at times approaches that of Bertrand Russell in his political and more popular philosophical essays.” —Contemporary Psychology “Reflections on Language is profoundly satisfying and impressive. It is the clearest and most developed account of the case of universal grammar and of the relations between his theory of language and the innate faculties of mind responsible for language acquisition and use.” —Patrick Flanagan

Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure

Frequency and the Emergence of Linguistic Structure
Author: Joan L. Bybee
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 502
Release: 2001-10-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027298033

A mainstay of functional linguistics has been the claim that linguistic elements and patterns that are frequently used in discourse become conventionalized as grammar. This book addresses the two issues that are basic to this claim: first, the question of what types of elements are frequently used in discourse and second, the question of how frequency of use affects cognitive representations. Reporting on evidence from natural conversation, diachronic change, variability, child language acquisition and psycholinguistic experimentation the original articles in this book support two major principles. First, the content of people’s interactions consists of a preponderance of subjective, evaluative statements, dominated by the use of pronouns, copulas and intransitive clauses. Second, the frequency with which certain items and strings of items are used has a profound influence on the way language is broken up into chunks in memory storage, the way such chunks are related to other stored material and the ease with which they are accessed to produce new utterances.

The Way of the Linguist

The Way of the Linguist
Author: Steve Kaufmann
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Total Pages: 142
Release: 2005-11
Genre: Linguistics
ISBN: 1420873296

The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey. It is now a cliché that the world is a smaller place. We think nothing of jumping on a plane to travel to another country or continent. The most exotic locations are now destinations for mass tourism. Small business people are dealing across frontiers and language barriers like never before. The Internet brings different languages and cultures to our finger-tips. English, the hybrid language of an island at the western extremity of Europe seems to have an unrivalled position as an international medium of communication. But historically periods of cultural and economic domination have never lasted forever. Do we not lose something by relying on the wide spread use of English rather than discovering other languages and cultures? As citizens of this shrunken world, would we not be better off if we were able to speak a few languages other than our own? The answer is obviously yes. Certainly Steve Kaufmann thinks so, and in his busy life as a diplomat and businessman he managed to learn to speak nine languages fluently and observe first hand some of the dominant cultures of Europe and Asia. Why do not more people do the same? In his book The Way of The Linguist, A language learning odyssey, Steve offers some answers. Steve feels anyone can learn a language if they want to. He points out some of the obstacles that hold people back. Drawing on his adventures in Europe and Asia, as a student and businessman, he describes the rewards that come from knowing languages. He relates his evolution as a language learner, abroad and back in his native Canada and explains the kind of attitude that will enable others to achieve second language fluency. Many people have taken on the challenge of language learning but have been frustrated by their lack of success. This book offers detailed advice on the kind of study practices that will achieve language breakthroughs. Steve has developed a language learning system available online at: www.thelinguist.com.

Early Childhood Development

Early Childhood Development
Author: Information Resources Management Association
Publisher:
Total Pages:
Release: 2018
Genre: Child development
ISBN: 9781787852914

Early Childhood Development: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications is an innovative reference source for the latest research on the cognitive, socio-emotional, physical, and linguistic development of children in settings such as homes, community-based centers, health facilities, and school.

Constructing a Language

Constructing a Language
Author: Michael TOMASELLO
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 399
Release: 2009-06-30
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 0674044398

In this groundbreaking book, Tomasello presents a comprehensive usage-based theory of language acquisition. Drawing together a vast body of empirical research in cognitive science, linguistics, and developmental psychology, Tomasello demonstrates that we don't need a self-contained "language instinct" to explain how children learn language. Their linguistic ability is interwoven with other cognitive abilities.

Metalinguistic Development

Metalinguistic Development
Author: Jean Émile Gombert
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 1992-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780226302096

This book reviews and analyzes what is known about metacognitive processes in relation to language. Each of its seven chapters deals systematically with the relationship between the comprehension and production of the phonetic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and textual aspects of language. This material is then related to the metacognitive principles which govern reflective awareness. A concluding chapter deals with written language and metalinguistics. --From publisher's description.

Creating Language

Creating Language
Author: Morten H. Christiansen
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 345
Release: 2016-03-18
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 026203431X

A work that reveals the profound links between the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, and proposes a new integrative framework for the language sciences. Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through the processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales. Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure.

Bilingualism in Development

Bilingualism in Development
Author: Ellen Bialystok
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2001-04-16
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780521635073

Describes how intellectual development of bilingual children differs from that of monolingual children.