Children's Language: Revised Edition: Consensus and Controversy

Author:   Ray Cattell
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Edition:   2nd edition
ISBN:  

9780826488800


Pages:   304
Publication Date:   10 May 2007
Format:   Paperback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Children's Language: Revised Edition: Consensus and Controversy


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Overview

The popular notion of how children come to speak their first language is that their parents teach them words, then phrases, then sentences, then longer utterances. Although there is widespread agreement amongst linguists that this account is wrong, there is much less agreement as to how children really learn language. This revised edition of Ray Cattell's bestselling textbook aims to give readers the background necessary to form their own views on the debate, and includes accessible summaries of key thinkers, including Chomsky, Halliday, Karmiloff-Smith and Piaget.

Full Product Details

Author:   Ray Cattell
Publisher:   Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Imprint:   Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd.
Edition:   2nd edition
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.60cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.458kg
ISBN:  

9780826488800


ISBN 10:   0826488803
Pages:   304
Publication Date:   10 May 2007
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.
Language:   English

Table of Contents

1. Getting started with language 2. Starting to make progress 3. Do we teach children to speak?: B F Skinner and behaviourism 4. Learning through touching and feeling: Jean Piaget 5. What goes on in the mind?: Noam Chomsky and mentalism 6. A close look at Chomsky's theories 7. Do we help children to speak?: 'Motherese' or child-directed speech 8. Learning how to mean: Michael Halliday 9. The two hemispheres of the brain: their functions in relation to language 10. The two hemispheres of the brain: modern discoveries 11. The bounds of language acquisition 12. Animals and language 13. New knowledge about infant knowledge 14. Bootstrapping in vocabulary 15. The best of both worlds?: The work of Annette Karmiloff-Smith 16. Conclusion Glossary

Reviews

A revised edition of the 2000 volume of the same name, this book aims to be a text for the beginning student, focusing on areas of agreement and disagreement within the field. However, whereas it succeeds to some extent, it has a number of shortcomings...The many largely overworked debates that form the focus of the book are not matched with the many important and interesting areas of controversy in current acquisition studies....In the text is riddled with statements to the effect that explanations of particular topics are too complex to be attempted. This is intensely irritating and risks causing students to feel hopelessly disempowered. The issues either needed to be addressed appropriately for the level of the text or not be mentioned at all (or perhaps only in footnotes)...overall, this work was a disappointment. It had grand and appropriate aims, but, for various reasons, its effectiveness is compromised. -Susan Foster-Cohen, Studies in Second Language Acquisition, Vol. 30 No. 4, December 2008 -- negative Views about the nature of language acquisition differ dramatically, and it is not easy for the uninitiated non-specialist to gain a general overview of the field and the different views and perspectives held by various researchers in the field. Cattell's Children's Language: Consensus and Controversy meets this need and provides a welcome introduction to this very important field. It is well-written, cogent and easy to follow, and does an outstanding job of introducing some very complex topics in a readily-understandable manner. Highly recommended for general readers and undergraduate students. -Choice * Choice *


Views about the nature of language acquisition differ dramatically, and it is not easy for the uninitiated non-specialist to gain a general overview of the field and the different views and perspectives held by various researchers in the field. Cattell's Children's Language: Consensus and Controversy meets this need and provides a welcome introduction to this very important field. It is well-written, cogent and easy to follow, and does an outstanding job of introducing some very complex topics in a readily-understandable manner. Highly recommended for general readers and undergraduate students. Choice


Author Information

Ray Cattell is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics at the University of Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia.

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