Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing (The MIT Press)

Morten H. Christiansen & Nick Chater. Foreword by Peter W. Culicover

ISBN 10: 026203431X / ISBN 13: 9780262034319

Published by MIT Press, USA, 2016

About this Item

HARDBACK IN JACKET 2016. 1st impression. xiv+330 pages. 23.5x16cm. Clean & tight. No inscriptions. Flat pages. Jacket is not torn. Jacket is now under clear removable covers. Dispatched ROYAL MAIL FIRST CLASS with TRACKING next working day or sooner securely boxed in cardboard. ref Fnk2. Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing by Morten H. Christiansen & Nick Chater; Foreword by Peter W. Culicover (The MIT Press).

Seller Inventory # 039703

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Creating Language: Integrating Evolution, Acquisition, and Processing (The MIT Press)
• Publisher: MIT Press, USA
• Publication Date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 026203431X
• ISBN 13: 9780262034319
• Binding: Hardback
• Edition: First Edition
• Printing: 1st Printing
• Condition: Very Good Plus
• Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good Plus
• Weight: 600 grams

About this title

Synopsis

A work that reveals the profound links between the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, and proposes a new integrative framework for the language sciences.

Language is a hallmark of the human species; the flexibility and unbounded expressivity of our linguistic abilities is unique in the biological world. In this book, Morten Christiansen and Nick Chater argue that to understand this astonishing phenomenon, we must consider how language is created: moment by moment, in the generation and understanding of individual utterances; year by year, as new language learners acquire language skills; and generation by generation, as languages change, split, and fuse through the processes of cultural evolution. Christiansen and Chater propose a revolutionary new framework for understanding the evolution, acquisition, and processing of language, offering an integrated theory of how language creation is intertwined across these multiple timescales.

Christiansen and Chater argue that mainstream generative approaches to language do not provide compelling accounts of language evolution, acquisition, and processing. Their own account draws on important developments from across the language sciences, including statistical natural language processing, learnability theory, computational modeling, and psycholinguistic experiments with children and adults. Christiansen and Chater also consider some of the major implications of their theoretical approach for our understanding of how language works, offering alternative accounts of specific aspects of language, including the structure of the vocabulary, the importance of experience in language processing, and the nature of recursive linguistic structure.

About the Author

Morten H. Christiansen is Professor of Psychology and Codirector of the Cognitive Science Program at Cornell University.