Pathways to Language: From Fetus to Adolescent(The Developing Child)

About the Book

Our journey to language begins before birth, as babies in the womb hear clearly enough to distinguish their mother's voice. Canvassing a broad span of experimental and theoretical approaches, this book introduces new ways of looking at language development.

A remarkable mother-daughter collaboration, Pathways to Language balances the respected views of a well-known scholar with the fresh perspective of a younger colleague prepared to challenge current popular positions in these debates. The result is an unusually subtle, even-handed, and comprehensive overview of the theory and practice of language acquisition, from fetal speech processing to the development of child grammar to the sophisticated linguistic accomplishments of adolescence, such as engaging in conversation and telling a story.

With examples from the real world as well as from the psychology laboratory, Kyra Karmiloff and Annette Karmiloff-Smith look in detail at the way language users appropriate words and grammar. They present in-depth evaluations of different theories of language acquisition. They show how adolescent usage has changed the meaning of certain phrases, and how modern living has led to alterations in the lexicon. They also consider the phenomenon of atypical language development, as well as theoretical issues of nativism and empiricism and the specificity of human language. Their nuanced and open-minded approach allows readers to survey the complexity and breadth of the fascinating pathways to language acquisition.

Table of Contents:
Preface 1. What Is Language Acquisition? 2. Experimental Paradigms for Studying Language Acquisition 3. Speech Perception in and out of the Womb 4. Learning about the Meaning of Words 5. Becoming a Grammatical Being 6. Beyond the Sentence 7. Atypical Language Development 8. Rethinking the Nature-Nurture Debate Further Readings Index

About the Author :
Kyra Karmiloff is a writer based in Cambridge, United Kingdom. She has worked as a researcher at the Centre for Speech, Language, and the Brain, University of Cambridge, and as a volunteer at University College London’s Lifespan Learning and Sleep Lab. Annette Karmiloff-Smith (1938–2016) was Professorial Research Fellow in the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London.

Review :
A timely, clear, and valuable book, which offers a masterful overview of the many passionately held positions on the origins and development of language. Karmiloff-Smith is widely recognized as one of the most important theorists now working in early cognitive development, for her emphasis on the way that many factors move development forward. With its graceful, lucid style, Pathways To Language takes the reader on a journey, vividly conveying the excitement of all the new discoveries of recent years that have so deeply changed our understanding of what it means to "learn language." This beautifully written, clearly structured book succeeds in making the intricacies of all aspects of language development accessible to the general reader. It communicates the authors' enthusiasm for their subject, and never loses sight of the reality of the developing child. This is a timely and very useful book: growing awareness of the importance of language difficulties, and the increasing demands on child psychology caseloads arising from such difficulties mean that knowledge in this area is desirable...[It] addresses complex topics with clarity and fluency, using well-chosen examples, so that a coherent picture of normal language development erges...Beautifully written and well designed...Pathways to Language would make an excellent introduction to the field, but is equally a superb refresher text, capable of re-enthusing busy practitioners. [This] is indeed an exciting, masterfully written and well-organized volume, covering a broad range of topics…Pathways to Language offers a comprehensive coverage of what is currently known about the steps involved in language acquisition. One of the most appealing features of the book, especially for students, is its ability to present a vast number of studies in a clear and concise fashion while critically examining their implications. But perhaps the most appreciated characteristic of the current volume is the authors' emphasis on the integration of different perspectives in order to deepen our understanding of language acquisition, which should be of interest to anyone concerned with child development.