Language and the Learning Curve: A New Theory of Syntactic Development - Softcover

Ninio, Anat

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019929982X ISBN 13: 9780199299829

Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A., 2006

Synopsis

Language development remains one of the most hotly debated topics in the cognitive sciences. In recent years we have seen contributions to the debate from researchers in psychology, linguistics, artificial intelligence, and philosophy, though there have been surprisingly few interdisciplinary attempts at unifying the various theories. In Language and the Learning Curve, a leading researcher in the field offers a radical new view of language development. Drawing on formal linguistic theory (the Minimalist Program, Dependency Grammars), cognitive psychology (Skill Learning) computational linguistics (Zipf curves), and Complexity Theory (networks), it takes the view that syntactic development is a simple process and that syntax can be learned just like any other cognitive or motor skill.In a thought provoking and accessible style, it develops a learning theory of the acquisition of syntax that builds on the contribution of the different source theories in a detailed and explicit manner. Each chapter starts by laying the relevant theoretical background, before examining empirical data on child language acquisition. The result is a bold new theory of the acquisition of syntax, unusual in its combination of Chomskian linguistics and learning theory. Language and the Learning Curve is an important new work that challenges many of our usual assumptions about syntactic development.

About this title

About the Author

Anat Ninio received a BA in Statistics & English Linguistics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1965 and a second BA in Psychology in 1969, followed by an MA in 1970 and a PhD in 1974, the latter two under the supervision of Professor Daniel Kahneman, specializing in Cognitive Psychology. She spent a year of post-doctoral studies with Professor Jerome Bruner at Oxford, studying early language development. Since 1970 she has been on the faculty of the Hebrew University. She has been a Visiting Scholar/Professor at Duke University, New School for Social Research, New York University, University of Quebec, Harvard University, Macquarie University and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.

She served as chair of the Graduate Developmental Program, the Dept of Psychology and the Sturman Human Development Center, and is currently serving as Chair of the Martin and Vivian Levin Center for the Normal and Psychopathological Development of the Child & Adolescent at the Hebrew University. She is an Associate of Behavioural and Brain Sciences and member of the Unesco Institute for Education Exchange Network on Functional Literacy in Industrialized Countries.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press, U.S.A.
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019929982X
• ISBN 13: 9780199299829
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 224