Title: Constructing a Language: A Usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publication Date: 2003
Language: English
ISBN 10: 0674010302
ISBN 13: 9780674010307
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very Good
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

About this title

Synopsis

Drawing together a vast body of empirical research in cognitive science, linguistics, and developmental psychology, Michael 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. Tomasello argues that the essence of language is its symbolic dimension, which rests on the uniquely human ability to comprehend intention. Grammar emerges as the speakers of a language create linguistic constructions out of recurring sequences of symbols, children pick up these patterns in the buzz of words they hear around them. Constructing a Language offers a compellingly argued, psychologically sound new vision for the study of language acquisition.

About the Author

Michael Tomasello is Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. He is the author of First Verbs and The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (Harvard), and the coauthor of Primate Cognition.

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