Ten Lectures on Language, Cognition, and Language Acquisition

Melissa Bowerman

ISBN 10: 900435302X / ISBN 13: 9789004353022

Published by Brill, NL, 2018

About this Item

In her Beijing lectures, Melissa Bowerman presents a lucid introduction and account of her research on a range of topics: how children acquire the semantics of spatial terms, how they construct categories and acquire the semantics of nouns, and how they master the semantics of verbs in early language acquisition. Bowerman also covers the learning of argument structure and expressions of end-state, with special attention to the adult speech that guides children, and hence also the role of typology in acquisition; how cross-linguistic variation affects, for example, how speakers represent 'cutting' and 'breaking' in different languages, and the relation of the Whorfian Hypothesis to cross-linguistic variations in the semantics of languages. Bowerman's over-riding concern throughout is with how children come to master the first language being spoken to them by their parents and caregivers.

Seller Inventory # LU-9789004353022

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Ten Lectures on Language, Cognition, and Language Acquisition
• Publisher: Brill, NL
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 900435302X
• ISBN 13: 9789004353022
• Binding: Hardback
• Condition: New
• Dimensions: 15.5W x 2H x 23.5D centimeters 15.5 centimeters width by 2 centimeters height by 23.5 centimeters depth
• Weight: 530 grams

About this title

Synopsis

In her Beijing lectures, Melissa Bowerman presents a lucid introduction and account of her research on a range of topics: how children acquire the semantics of spatial terms, how they construct categories and acquire the semantics of nouns, and how they master the semantics of verbs in early language acquisition. Bowerman also covers the learning of argument structure and expressions of end-state, with special attention to the adult speech that guides children, and hence also the role of typology in acquisition; how cross-linguistic variation affects, for example, how speakers represent ‘cutting’ and ‘breaking’ in different languages, and the relation of the Whorfian Hypothesis to cross-linguistic variations in the semantics of languages. Bowerman’s over-riding concern throughout is with how children come to master the first language being spoken to them by their parents and caregivers.

About the Author

Melissa Bowerman† (1942-2011) was Senior Scientist Emerita at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics (Nijmegen, The Netherlands) and adjunct Professor of Linguistics Emerita at the Free University of Amsterdam.