Constructing a Language
Language: English
Published by Harvard University Press, 2005
- Softcover
- Used
Seller: Phatpocket Limited, Waltham Abbey, HERTS, United KingdomPhatpocket Limited
AbeBooks seller since April 28, 2005
Condition: Used - Good
US$ 4.47
Quantity: 1 available
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Your purchase helps support Sri Lankan Children's Charity 'The Rainbow Centre'. Ex-library, so some stamps and wear, but in good overall condition. Our donations to The Rainbow Centre have helped provide an education and a safe haven to hundreds of children who live in appalling conditions.
Seller Inventory # Z1-J-015-02164
- Title
- Constructing a Language
- Author
- Tomasello, Michael
- Publisher
- Harvard University Press
- Publication year
- 2005
- Condition
- Good
- Binding
- Soft cover
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0674017641
- ISBN 13
- 9780674017641
In this groundbreaking book, Michael 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.
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.
All theories of language acquisition assume these fundamental skills of intention-reading and pattern-finding. Some formal linguistic theories posit a second set of acquisition processes to connect somehow with an innate universal grammar. But these extra processes, Tomasello argues, are completely unnecessary―important to save a theory but not to explain the phenomenon.
For all its empirical weaknesses, Chomskian generative grammar has ruled the linguistic world for forty years. Constructing a Language offers a compellingly argued, psychologically sound new vision for the study of language acquisition.
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Phatpocket Limited
Waltham Abbey, HERTS, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since April 28, 2005
Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
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Phatpocket Limited is a world class secondhand bookstore located in the Hertfordshire countryside in the United Kingdom. We specialize in textbooks across an enormous variety of subjects. We aim to provide a low cost source of high quality textbooks to the academic community. We also have a sizable collection of rare and collectible books. We are dedicated to providing our customers with the highest standard of customer service in the bookselling business.Phatpocket Limited is registered in England and Wales: No. 04924751.…
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