Growing up with Language : How Children Learn to Talk

"It is a gift when an academic can take a difficult subject and make it not just accessible but actually enjoyable for the average reader. Anyone who is around young children will find useful information on how humans create speech and language."--The Bloomsbury Review

Children learn to make sense of the babble around them and become coherent speakers and incipient readers in just five or six years. In this remarkable book, linguist Naomi Baron takes us on a journey through language, showing the variety of ways in which children crack the language code and master the means of expression, and how parents play a vital role in the process. Every parent will see something of his or her child in the numerous and vivid examples; those whose kids don't fit preconceived norms will find reassurance and guidance in these pages. Spiced with enchanting examples of children putting their first words together, struggling to understand meaning, and coming to use language as a creative tool, Growing Up with Language reminds us that underneath all their efforts is the drive to make sense of the world.

Naomi S. Baron is Professor of Linguistics and Associate Dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at The American University in Washington, D.C. A Guggenheim fellow, she is the author of four previous books about language and has taught at Brown University, Emory University, and Southwestern University. Dr. Baron resides with her husband and their son Aneil in Bethesda, Maryland.