Constructing a Language by Michael Tomasello

Constructing a Language by Michael Tomasello

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 childrens linguistic ability is interwoven with other cognitive abilities.

Tomasello offers an extended and detailed exposition of his ‘usage-based’ theory of language acquisition, which he contrasts to nativist or ‘universal grammar’ theories such as those of Noam Chomsky and of Steven Pinker… Throughout this masterfully written but stylistically and intellectually dense book, Tomasello reports extensively on current research and looks critically at the assumptions and assertions of his contemporaries-- L. Bebout * Choice *
Constructing a Language is the best book on language development since Roger Brown’s A First Language. Tomasello has taken full advantage of the research that has been done in the thirty years since Brown’s landmark book, to give us a full account of language acquisition, from the first signs of intentional communication in prespeech through the most complex syntactic constructions children produce. The book rebuilds bridges between child language and linguistic theory—but in place of generative grammar, Tomasello ties the study of emergent language to a usage-based approach derived from cognitive and functional linguistics. He is particularly persuasive in showing how it solves the essential problem of how children ‘get from here to there,’ as they move by analogy from item-based phrases and word islands to richer constructions. Tomasello’s book presents a comprehensive and well-articulated theory of the language-learning process that is more complete and richer in its heuristic value than any other attempt of its kind. It will be difficult to refute and impossible to ignore. -- Elizabeth Bates, University of California, San Diego
Certain to be a landmark in the language sciences, this book persuasively argues that all of our fundamental knowledge of language can be ‘learned’ on the basis of what we hear, with recourse only to general basic cognitive abilities: intention reading and pattern-finding. No hard-wired ‘language instinct’ is required. Tomasello’s synthesis of linguistics and psychology will permanently change the debates about the developmental origins of language. -- Adele Goldberg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Michael Tomasello is Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. From 1998 to 2018 he was Co-Director of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and in 2017 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His scientific work has been recognized by institutions around the world, including the Guggenheim Foundation, the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Netherlands, and the German National Academy of Sciences.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780674017641
ISBN 10	0674017641
Title	Constructing a Language
Author	Michael Tomasello
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Harvard University Press
Year published	2005-03-31
Number of pages	408
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.