Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development

Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development PDF Author: Melissa Bowerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521593588
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

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Book Description
Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of how children learn to think and speak. In this volume, leading scholars from these rapidly evolving fields of research examine the relationship between child language acquisition and cognitive development. At first sight, advances in the two areas seem to have moved in opposing directions: the study of language acquisition has been especially concerned with diversity, explaining how children learn languages of widely different types, while the study of cognitive development has focused on uniformity, clarifying how children build on fundamental, presumably universal concepts. This book brings these two vital strands of investigation into close dialogue, suggesting a synthesis in which the process of language acquisition may interact with early cognitive development. It provides empirical contributions based on a variety of languages, populations and ages, and theoretical discussions that cut across the disciplines of psychology, linguistics and anthropology.

Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development

Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development PDF Author: Melissa Bowerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521593588
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 276

Get Book Here

Book Description
Recent years have seen a revolution in our knowledge of how children learn to think and speak. In this volume, leading scholars from these rapidly evolving fields of research examine the relationship between child language acquisition and cognitive development. At first sight, advances in the two areas seem to have moved in opposing directions: the study of language acquisition has been especially concerned with diversity, explaining how children learn languages of widely different types, while the study of cognitive development has focused on uniformity, clarifying how children build on fundamental, presumably universal concepts. This book brings these two vital strands of investigation into close dialogue, suggesting a synthesis in which the process of language acquisition may interact with early cognitive development. It provides empirical contributions based on a variety of languages, populations and ages, and theoretical discussions that cut across the disciplines of psychology, linguistics and anthropology.

Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development

Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development PDF Author: Melissa Bowerman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521593588
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 620

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Book Description
Leading scholars examine the relationship between child language acquisition and cognitive development.

Language Acquisition

Language Acquisition PDF Author: Susan Foster-Cohen
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 023024078X
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
This book provides a snapshot of the field of language acquisition at the beginning of the 21st Century. It represents the multiplicity of approaches that characterize the field and provides a review of current topics and debates, as well as addressing some of the connections between sub-fields and possible future directions for research.

Learnability and Cognition, new edition

Learnability and Cognition, new edition PDF Author: Steven Pinker
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262314282
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 509

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Book Description
A classic book about language acquisition and conceptual structure, with a new preface by the author, "The Secret Life of Verbs." Before Steven Pinker wrote bestsellers on language and human nature, he wrote several technical monographs on language acquisition that have become classics in cognitive science. Learnability and Cognition, first published in 1989, brought together two big topics: how do children learn their mother tongue, and how does the mind represent basic categories of meaning such as space, time, causality, agency, and goals? The stage for this synthesis was set by the fact that when children learn a language, they come to make surprisingly subtle distinctions: pour water into the glass and fill the glass with water sound natural, but pour the glass with water and fill water into the glass sound odd. How can this happen, given that children are not reliably corrected for uttering odd sentences, and they don't just parrot back the correct ones they hear from their parents? Pinker resolves this paradox with a theory of how children acquire the meaning and uses of verbs, and explores that theory's implications for language, thought, and the relationship between them. As Pinker writes in a new preface, "The Secret Life of Verbs," the phenomena and ideas he explored in this book inspired his 2007 bestseller The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. These technical discussions, he notes, provide insight not just into language acquisition but into literary metaphor, scientific understanding, political discourse, and even the conceptions of sexuality that go into obscenity.

Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition

Current Perspectives on Child Language Acquisition PDF Author: Caroline F. Rowland
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027261008
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
In recent years the field has seen an increasing realisation that the full complexity of language acquisition demands theories that (a) explain how children integrate information from multiple sources in the environment, (b) build linguistic representations at a number of different levels, and (c) learn how to combine these representations in order to communicate effectively. These new findings have stimulated new theoretical perspectives that are more centered on explaining learning as a complex dynamic interaction between the child and her environment. This book is the first attempt to bring some of these new perspectives together in one place. It is a collection of essays written by a group of researchers who all take an approach centered on child-environment interaction, and all of whom have been influenced by the work of Elena Lieven, to whom this collection is dedicated.

Words, Thoughts, and Theories

Words, Thoughts, and Theories PDF Author: Alison Gopnik
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262571269
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Words, Thoughts, and Theories articulates and defends the "theory theory" of cognitive and semantic development, the idea that infants and young children, like scientists, learn about the world by forming and revising theories, a view of the origins of knowledge and meaning that has broad implications for cognitive science. Gopnik and Meltzoff interweave philosophical arguments and empirical data from their own and other's research. Both the philosophy and the psychology, the arguments and the data, address the same fundamental epistemological question: How do we come to understand the world around us? Recently, the theory theory has led to much interesting research. However, this is the first book to look at the theory in extensive detail and to systematically contrast it with other theories. It is also the first to apply the theory to infancy and early childhood, to use the theory to provide a framework for understanding semantic development, and to demonstrate that language acquisition influences theory change in children.The authors show that children just beginning to talk are engaged in profound restructurings of several domains of knowledge. These restructurings are similar to theory changes in science, and they influence children's early semantic development, since children's cognitive concerns shape and motivate their use of very early words. But, in addition, children pay attention to the language they hear around them and this too reshapes their cognition, and causes them to reorganize their theories.

How Children Learn the Meanings of Words

How Children Learn the Meanings of Words PDF Author: Paul Bloom
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262523295
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
How do children learn that the word "dog" refers not to all four-legged animals, and not just to Ralph, but to all members of a particular species? How do they learn the meanings of verbs like "think," adjectives like "good," and words for abstract entities such as "mortgage" and "story"? The acquisition of word meaning is one of the fundamental issues in the study of mind. According to Paul Bloom, children learn words through sophisticated cognitive abilities that exist for other purposes. These include the ability to infer others' intentions, the ability to acquire concepts, an appreciation of syntactic structure, and certain general learning and memory abilities. Although other researchers have associated word learning with some of these capacities, Bloom is the first to show how a complete explanation requires all of them. The acquisition of even simple nouns requires rich conceptual, social, and linguistic capacities interacting in complex ways. This book requires no background in psychology or linguistics and is written in a clear, engaging style. Topics include the effects of language on spatial reasoning, the origin of essentialist beliefs, and the young child's understanding of representational art. The book should appeal to general readers interested in language and cognition as well as to researchers in the field.

Language Acquisition

Language Acquisition PDF Author: Paul Fletcher
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521277808
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 632

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Book Description
An invaluable resource for students and professionals alike with an interest in child language acquisition.

The Origin of Concepts

The Origin of Concepts PDF Author: Susan Carey
Publisher:
ISBN: 0199838801
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 609

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Book Description
New in paperback-- A transformative book on the way we think about the nature of concepts and the relations between language and thought.

Language Policy and Language Acquisition Planning

Language Policy and Language Acquisition Planning PDF Author: Maarja Siiner
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319759639
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
In the sociopolitics of language, sometimes yesterday’s solution is tomorrow’s problem. This volume examines the evolving nature of language acquisition planning through a collection of papers that consider how decisions about language learning and teaching are mediated by a confluence of psychological, ideological, and historical forces. The first two parts of the volume feature empirical studies of formal and informal education across the lifespan and around the globe. Case studies map the agents, resources, and attitudes needed for creating moments and spaces for language learning that may, at times, collide with wider beliefs and policies that privilege some languages over others. The third part of the volume is devoted to conceptual contributions that take up theoretical issues related to epistemological and conceptual challenges for language acquisition planning. These contributions reflect on the full spectrum of social and cognitive factors that intersect with the planning of language teaching and learning including ethnic and racial power relations, historically situated political systems, language ideologies, community language socialization, relationships among stakeholders in communities and schools, interpersonal interaction, and intrapersonal development. In all, the volume demonstrates the multifaceted and socially situated nature of language acquisition planning.