Information Structure: The Syntax-Discourse Interface (Oxford Surveys in Syntax & Morphology)
By Nomi Erteschik-Shir
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:256
* Publication Date:2007-02-12
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0199262586
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780199262588
* Binding:Hardcover
Book Description:
This introduction to the role of information structure in grammar discusses a wide range of phenomena on the syntax-information structure interface. It examines theories of information structure and considers their effectiveness in explaining whether and how information structure maps onto syntax in discourse. Professor Erteschik-Shir begins by discussing the basic notions and properties of information structure, such as topic and focus, and considers their properties from different theoretical perspectives. She covers definitions of topic and focus, architectures of grammar, information structure, word order, the interface between lexicon and information structure, and cognitive aspects of information structure. In her balanced and readable account, the author critically compares the effectiveness of different theoretical approaches and assesses the value of insights drawn from work in processing and on language acquisition, variation, and universals. This book will appeal to graduate students of syntax and semantics in departments of linguistics, philosophy, and cognitive science.
The Origin of Speech (Studies in the Evolution of Language)
By Peter MacNeilage
* Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages: 352
* Publication Date: 2008-06-02
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 019923650X
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780199236503
* Binding: Hardcover
Product Description:
This book explores the origin and evolution of speech. The human speech system is in a league of its own in the animal kingdom and its possession dwarfs most other evolutionary achievements. During every second of speech we unconsciously use about 225 distinct muscle actions. To investigate
the evolutionary origins of this prodigious ability, Peter MacNeilage draws on work in linguistics, cognitive science, evolutionary biology, and animal behaviour. He puts forward a neo-Darwinian account of speech as a process of descent in which ancestral vocal capabilities became modified in
response to natural selection pressures for more efficient communication. His proposals include the crucial observation that present-day infants learning to produce speech reveal constraints that were acting on our ancestors as they invented new words long ago.
This important and original investigation integrates the latest research on modern speech capabilities, their acquisition, and their neurobiology, including the issues surrounding the cerebral hemispheric specialization for speech. It will interest a wide range of readers in cognitive, neuro-, and
evolutionary science, as well as all those seeking to understand the nature and evolution of speech and human communication.
Mind, Metaphor and Language Teaching
Mind, Metaphor and Language Teaching
By Randal Holme
* Publisher:Palgrave Macmillan
* Number Of Pages:256
* Publication Date:2004-03-18
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1403915857
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781403915856
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
Understanding metaphor raises key questions about the relationship between language and meaning, and between language and mind. This book explores how this understanding can impact upon the theory and practice of language teaching. After summarizing the cognitive basis of metaphor and other figures of speech, it looks at how this knowledge can inform classroom practice. Finally, it sets out how we can use these insights to re-appraise language learning theory in a way that treats it as consonant with the cognitive nature of language.
Kant and the Platypus: Essays on Language and Cognition
By Umberto Eco, Alastair McEwen
* Publisher:Harvest Books
* Number Of Pages:480
* Publication Date:2000-11-09
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:015601159X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780156011594
Product Description:
How do we know a cat is a cat? And why do we call it a cat? How much of our perception of things is based on cognitive ability, and how much on linguistic resources? Here, in six remarkable essays, Umberto Eco explores in depth questions of reality, perception, and experience. Basing his ideas on common sense, Eco shares a vast wealth of literary and historical knowledge, touching on issues that affect us every day. At once philosophical and amusing, Kant and the Platypus is a tour of the world of our senses, told by a master of knowing what is real and what is not.
Amazon.com Review:
Describing Umberto Eco as a writer is like describing the platypus as an animal. What do readers expect when they see the author's name on a book jacket? It's a tricky question to answer, given his range and versatility: he has produced studies of semiotics, children's books, medieval history, essays on contemporary culture, and, of course, novels--most notably The Name of the Rose and The Island of the Day Before. So first, a word of warning. Anyone familiar with Eco the novelist or essayist might well be dismayed by Kant and the Platypus, for this new book returns to his preoccupations of the 1960s and 1970s--to semiotics and cognitive semantics. As such, it can be a daunting volume (the initial chapter, for example, riffs on the numerous philosophical concepts of being). And second, a word of encouragement: this is a wonderful engagement with the issues of language itself. Even as he beckons the reader into one linguistic thicket after another, Eco always keeps a commonsensical perspective, using stories to explicate the knottiest concepts.
Why did Marco Polo describe the rhinoceros as a type of unicorn? Why couldn't 18th-century observers figure out how to classify the duck-billed platypus? Given a dictionary or encyclopedia definition of a mouse, how easy would it be to identify one if we had never seen one before? These are some of the examples that Eco uses to explore the ways in which we see and describe the world--the ways, that is, in which cultures develop taxonomies. If you want to know "why we can tell an elephant from an armadillo," or why mirrors do not in fact reverse images, this book will tell you. In fact, it will also tell you why you know what I am talking about when I say "this book." Got it? No? Then get it. --Burhan Tufail
Summary: Emphatically *not* for the lay reader
Rating: 2
Why only two stars? I'm fascinated by books about the origins and evolution of language, but this one definitely belongs on the "philosophy", rather than the "linguistics" shelf (I suppose the mention of Kant in the title should have been sufficient warning). And, though I have a decent enough training in logic and mathematics, my philosophical chops are non-existent. So that paragraphs like the following just stick in my craw, like an indigestible platypus-burger:
"First of all, so that these most partial notes may be understood, I must clarify what I mean by the term "referring". I intend to exclude a "broad" use of the term, and I think it would be appropriate to limit the notion of referring to what is perhaps more properly describable as cases of designation, that is to utterances that mention particular individuals, groups of individuals, specific facts or sequences of facts, in specific times and places. From now on I shall also be using the generic notion of "individual" for identifiable spatiotemporal segments, such as 25 April 1945, and I shall hold to the golden decision by which nominantur singularia sed universalia significantur."
So, here's the thing. I actually had five years of Latin in high school, so I can reasonably figure out that that last part means something along the lines of 'although the specific is named, the general is to be understood' (e.g. 'the platypus' can be taken to mean that particular platypus over there, but it can also mean 'platypuses in general').
So I can figure it out. But I RESENT HAVING TO. There seems to be no particular reason to lapse into Latin at the point where he does - it smacks of flaunting one's erudition (and, dear God, Umberto has erudition out the wazoo), at the price of potentially losing a significant fraction of one's readers.
So, only two stars from me. Readers with a stronger background in philosophy and a greater tolerance for gratuitous bursts of Latin may feel differently. But reviews which suggest that this book is accessible to the 'general reader' are severely misguided, in my opinion.
Summary: Verbose beyond Cuteness
Rating: 2
Dont get me wrong, Im generally big on Eco, not only his novels, but also the other essay books and Travels in Hyperreality really was an eye opener in my intellectual development. But Kant and the Platypus was a real disappointment. First, the reference to Kant is rather misleading, for Kant's work is reviewed rather summerally and reduced to an absurdity. Kant's categories of cognition are not geared towards semiotics as such, but towards formal logical operations, the space time structure of thinking. To say that the Kantian categories fall short of an analysis of meaning is to suggest that the faucet was deficient in putting out the fire at Macy's. Second, to say the perceptual categories of every day meaning are negotiated contracts with a community of parlants, does not require almost 400 pages. The essays are like pastries oversaturated with sacharine. After the initial taste or two, u just feel like putting it down. It was a labor to honor the man by finishing the book.
Summary: Philosophy alive
Rating: 5
I read the review of Simon Blackburn trashing the book: Eco made a few mistakes concerning the two dogmas of empiricism (he confused Davidson's work with Quine's first dogma). So I am sure many readers hesitated after a review by such a rigorous big gun thinker as Blackburn.
When I started reading the book I was taken aback by the combination of depth and the vividness of the style. Eco is sprightly and alive, something that cannot be said of many philosophers dealing with the subject of categories.
The notion of categories is not trivial: you need a simple conditional prior to identify an object; it is a simple mathematical fact. You need to know what a table is to see it in the background separated from its surroundings. You need to know what a face is so when it rotates you know it is still the same face. Computers have had a hard time with such pattern recognition. A PRIOR category is a necessity. This was Kant's intuition (the so-called "rationalism"). This is also the field of semiotics as initially conceived. Eco took it to greater levels with his notion of what I would call in scientific language a compression, a "simplifation". This leads to the major problem we face today: what if the act of compressing is arbitrary?
Not just very deep but it is a breath of fresh air to see such a philosophical discussion nondull, nondry, alive!
Summary: Akin to a TV show; a layman's view of semiotics
Rating: 5
This is a layman's introduction to semiotics. These essays make me feel as if I were watching a TV show (probably the Roseanne show) on semiotics. Where is the intellectual substance I ask? When have semioticians given up the pursuit of semiotic research merely to be branded as "semioticians for the masses"?
Summary: Well done Alastair McEwen (Translator)
Rating: 5
Alastair McEwen (Translator) makes this book the gem that it is. If it weren't for Alastair McEwen (Translator) this book might suffer from a mundane translation. Yet you need not fear, Alastair McEwen (Translator) has done a superior job.
The Dynamics of Language: An Introduction (Syntax and Semantics, Volume 35)
by: Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson, Lutz Marten,
en
By Ronnie Cann, Ruth Kempson, Lutz Marten,
* Publisher:Academic Press
* Number Of Pages:456
* Publication Date:2005-08-17
* Sales Rank:2834883
* ISBN / ASIN:0126135363
* EAN:9780126135367
* Binding:Paperback
* Manufacturer:Academic Press
* Studio:Academic Press
* Average Rating:
* Total Reviews:
Book Description:
For the whole of the last half-century, most theoretical syntacticians have assumed that knowledge of language is different from the tasks of speaking and understanding. There have been some dissenters, but, by and large, this view still holds sway.
This book takes a different view: it continues the task set in hand by Kempson et al (2001) of arguing that the common-sense intuition is correct that knowledge of language consists in being able to use it in speaking and understanding. The Dynamics of Language argues that interpretation is built up across as sequence of words relative to some context and that this is all that is needed to explain the structural properties of language. The dynamics of how interpretation is built up is the syntax of a language system. The authors' first task is to convey to a general linguistic audience with a minimum of formal apparatus, the substance of that formal system. Secondly, as linguists, they set themselves the task of applying the formal system to as broad an array of linguistic puzzles as possible, the languages analysed ranging from English to Japanese and Swahili.
*Argues that knowledge in language consists of being able to use it in speaking and understanding
*Analyses a variety of languages, from English to Japanese and Swahili
*Appeals to a wide audience in the disciplines of language, linguistics, anthropology, education, psychology, cognitive science, law, media studies, and medicine
Why Language Matters for Theory of Mind
by: Janet Wilde Astington, Jodie A. Baird (Editors)
By
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:368
* Publication Date:2005-02-25
* Sales Rank:906644
* ISBN / ASIN:0195159918
* EAN:9780195159912
* Binding:Hardcover
* Manufacturer:Oxford University Press, USA
* Studio:Oxford University Press, USA
* Average Rating:5
* Total Reviews:1
Book Description:
"Theory of mind" is the phrase researchers use to refer to children's understanding of people as mental beings, who have beliefs, desires, emotions, and intentions, and whose actions and interactions can be interpreted and explained by taking account of these mental states. The gradual development of children's theory of mind, particularly during the early years, is by now well described in the research literature. What is lacking, however, is a decisive explanation of how children acquire this understanding. Recent research has shown strong relations between children's linguistic abilities and their theory of mind. Yet exactly what role these abilities play is controversial and uncertain. The purpose of this book is to provide a forum for the leading scholars in the field to explore thoroughly the role of language in the development of the theory of mind. This volume will appeal to students and researchers in developmental and cognitive psychology.
Date: 2006-11-27Rating: 5
Review:
Highly relevant and full of implications
Speaking as someone with both a Masters in Linguistics and a child on the Autism spectrum who will likely not develop Theory of Mind without assistance, I found answers to many questions I wanted answered.
It was most enlightening to see the predictor of TOM in kids on the spectrum, as well as studies from deaf people which supported the notion that language (especially for spectrum kids) plays a crucial roles.
It's especially interesting to me that the consultant/agency I used for my child's early intervention program considered my son all-caught-up in his language skills while he still had not mastered what research in this book considers the prerequisite to TOM. As such, this book provided a new direction for us.
While, in fact, early intervention programs do make use of the structures shown to be critical in the research in this book, I feel that the comprehensive view of how TOM is acquired that this book presents may shed new light and illuminate a better path towards helping TOM acquisition in children where it does not necessarily occur naturally (though this book does show how/when it does in that group of children).
While it is easy for me as an educator to see what should be done based on the research, this is not a how-to for parents. I would suggest that all people who intend to work with children on the Autism/Aspergers spectrum be required to fully understand and discuss the implications of the findings.
I would also suggest that all agencies/early intervention programs re-evaluate and justify their "not modeling" the type of language that the research in this work suggests. The owner of one such agency suggested to me that "we don't want kids sounding like they have Theory of Mind if, it turns out, they don't" (because it makes the job of evaluating whether they do or not -- and whether or not intervention should continue -- more difficult). The research in this book, though, suggests that acquisition of TOM is made possible through understanding and use of specific linguistic elements which modeling helps to be acquired. Clearly the field needs to look at this research carefully and debate what the implications are.
Text World Theory: An Introduction
By Joanna Gavins
* Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
* Number Of Pages:224
* Publication Date:2006-09-15
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0748623000
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780748623006
* Binding:Paperback
* Publisher:Edinburgh University Press
* Number Of Pages:224
* Publication Date:2006-09-15
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0748622993
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780748622993
Product Description:
Text World Theory is a cognitive model of all human discourse processing. In this introductory textbook, Joanna Gavins sets out a usable framework for understanding mental representations. Text World Theory is explained using naturally occurring texts and real situations, including literary works, advertising discourse, the language of lonely hearts, horoscopes, route directions, cookery books and song lyrics. The book will therefore enable students, teachers and researchers to make practical use of the text-world framework in a wide range of linguistic and literary contexts.
Features
* An accessible and enabling course book which includes suggestions for exploration and further reading.
* Draws on linguistics, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, poetics and stylistics, and will be attractive to students and researchers working in all of these disciplines.
* Each chapter provides a reader-friendly introduction to an aspect of Text World Theory and includes at least two practical applications of these ideas to real discourse examples.
New Developments In Parsing Technology (Text, Speech and Language Techology)
by: Harry Bunt, John Carroll, Giorgio Satta (Editors)
By
* Publisher:Springer
* Number Of Pages:405
* Publication Date:2004-07-20
* Sales Rank:4072285
* ISBN / ASIN:140202293X
* EAN:9781402022937
* Binding:Hardcover
* Manufacturer:Springer
* Studio:Springer
* Average Rating:
* Total Reviews:
Book Description:
Parsing can be defined as the decomposition of complex structures into their constituent parts, and parsing technology as the methods, the tools and the software to parse automatically. Parsing is a central area of research in the automatic processing of human language. Parsers are being used in many application areas, for example question answering, extraction of information from text, speech recognition and understanding, and machine translation. New developments in parsing technology are thus widely applicable.
This book contains contributions from many of today's leading researchers in the area of natural language parsing technology. The contributors describe their most recent work and a diverse range of techniques and results. This collection provides an excellent picture of the current state of affairs in this area. This volume is the third in a line of such collections, and its breadth of coverage should make it suitable both as an overview of the current state of the field for graduate students, and as a reference for established researchers.
This volume is of specific interest to researchers, advanced undergraduate students, graduate students, and teachers in the following areas: Computational Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, Computer Science, Language Engineering, Information Science, and Cognitive Science. It will also be of interest to designers, developers, and advanced users of natural language processing software and systems, including applications such as machine translation, information extraction, spoken dialogue, multimodal human-computer interaction, text mining, and semantic web technology.
The Genesis of Grammar: A Reconstruction (Studies in the Evolution of Language)
By Bernd Heine, Tania Kuteva
* Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages: 352
* Publication Date: 2007-11-02
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0199227772
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780199227778
* Binding: Paperback
Book Description:
"This book reconstructs what the earliest grammars might have been and shows how they could have led to the languages of modern humankind. "Like other biological phenomena, language cannot be fully understood without reference to its evolution, whether proven or hypothesized," wrote Talmy Givon in 2002. As the languages spoken 8,000 years ago were typologically much the same as they are today and as no direct evidence exists for languages before then, evolutionary linguists are at a disadvantage compared to their counterparts in biology. Bernd Heine and Tania Kuteva seek to overcome this obstacle by combining grammaticalization theory, one of the main methods of historical linguistics, with work in animal communication and human evolution. The questions they address include: do the modern languages derive from one ancestral language or from more than one? What was the structure of language like when it first evolved? And how did the properties associated with modern human languages arise, in particular syntax and the recursive use of language structures? The authors proceed on the assumption that if language evolution is the result of language change then the reconstruction of the former can be explored by deploying the processes involved in the latter. Their measured arguments and crystal-clear exposition will appeal to all those interested in the evolution of language, from advanced undergraduates to linguists, cognitive scientists, human biologists, and archaeologists.
The Cambridge Companion to Chomsky
By James McGilvray
* Publisher: Cambridge University Press
* Number Of Pages: 346
* Publication Date: 2005-03-28
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0521780136
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780521780131
* Binding: Hardcover
Book Description:
Noam Chomsky is one of the most influential thinkers of modern times. The most cited writer in the humanities, his work has revolutionized the field of linguistics, and has dominated many other disciplines including politics and the philosophy of mind and human nature. This Companion brings together a team of leading linguists, philosophers, cognitive scientists and political theorists to consolidate the disparate strands of Chomsky's thought into one accessible volume and an essential guide to one of the leading intellectual figures of our time.
Understanding Complex Sentences: Native Speaker Variation in Syntactic Competence
By Ngoni Chipere
* Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
* Number Of Pages: 256
* Publication Date: 2004-03-04
* ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0333986393
* ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780333986394
* Binding: Hardcover
Product Description:
Is native speaker variation in understanding complex sentences due to individual differences in working memory capacity or in syntactic competence? The answer to this question has very important consequences for both theoretical and applied concerns in linguistics and education. This book is distinctive in giving an historical and interdisciplinary perspective on the rule- based and experience-based debate and in supporting an integrated account. In the study reported here, variation was found to be due to differences in syntactic competence and the author argues that sentence comprehension is a learned skill, displaying many of the general characteristics of cognitive skills. The book will be stimulating reading for psycholinguists, theoretical linguists, applied linguists and educators.
Use of Language Across the Primary Curriculum
By Eve Bearne
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:286
* Publication Date:1998-07-06
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0415158516
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415158510
* Binding:Paperback
Product Description:
This book describes classroom practice and offers careful reflections on the interrelationships and processes of language and cognitive development, helping teachers to effectively develop students' language skills across the primary curriculum.
The On-line Study of Sentence Comprehension: Eyetracking, ERPs and Beyond
By Manue Carreiras
* Publisher:Psychology Press
* Number Of Pages:424
* Publication Date:2004-08-02
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1841694002
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781841694009
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
This book contains eighteen chapters addressing important findings, assumptions, problems, hopes and future guidelines on the use of advanced research techniques to study the moment-by-moment mental processes that occur while a reader or listener is understanding language. The core techniques are Eyetracking and ERP, with some extensions to others such as fMRI. Eyetracking and ERPs are techniques widely used in the last two decades in the field of psycholinguistics. A vast amount of data has been collected with these two techniques that allow us to advance in our knowledge of the cognitive mechanisms and processes involved in comprehending and producing language. They also allow us to ask new questions for advancing in our theoretical knowledge. The book has been written by leading researchers in the field of psycholinguistics that are also leading experts in the use of these techniques. The book combines comprehensive overviews of the state of the art on theoretical progress and assumptions behind the use ofeye movements (reading and visual world) and ERP methods with papers that address specific research questions through the use of these techniques. It addresses not only methodological issues but also discuss the theoretical progress that has been made on understanding language processing using temporally fine-grained methods.
Narrative Gravity: Conversation, Cognition, Culture
By Bhaya Rukmini
* Publisher:Routledge
* Number Of Pages:440
* Publication Date:2003-07-29
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:041530735X
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780415307352
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
Narrative Gravity explores the anti-foundationalist, anti-essentialist idea that our stories make us up, rather than we make up our stories.
The cognitive scientist Daniel C. Dennett has suggested that human beings tell stories as compulsively as beavers build dams or birds nests. Our basic identities are conferred on us by the myriad takes we hear and narrate throughout our lifetimes. All "selves" are "centres of narrative gravity."
But even if it is true that we are born to weave stories, why is it that we are so "programmed?" Narrative Gravity attempts to answer this question by carrying the important but embryonic notion that stories are obsessive self-constructions, to its logical conclusion. The book argues that narrative - a universal form found in every known human culture - functions as a "species of natural theory."
This is a foundational text for students of linguistics, philosophy and literary theory. It will also appeal to the general reader interested in the psychology and sociology of language and cultural cognition.
Handbook of Word-Formation (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory) (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory)
By Pavol Stekauer, Rochelle Lieber
* Publisher:Springer
* Number Of Pages:470
* Publication Date:2005-09
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1402035950
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781402035951
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
This volume, intended both for advanced students and scholars of linguistics, traces the many strands of study in the field of word formation that have developed since the seminal work of Marchand and Lees in the 1960s. In mapping the state of the art in the field of word formation, it avoids a biased approach by presenting different, but mutually complementary frameworks within which research into word formation has taken place. It covers the historical development of theories of word formation within generative grammar, and affords a solid introduction to the treatment of word formation in cognitive grammar, natural morphology, optimality theory, Lexeme Morpheme Base Morphology, onomasiological theory, and other recent frameworks. Each topic is presented by an expert who has contributed significantly to the field. In addition to surveying theoretical developments from both European and North American perspectives, it looks specifically at individual English word formation processes (derivation, compounding, conversion) and reviews some of the ways in which they have been analyzed since Marchand’s comprehensive treatment nearly five decades ago.
Whales, Candlelight, and Stuff Like That: General Extenders in English Discourse (Oxford Studies in Sociolinguistics)
By Maryann Overstreet
* Publisher:Oxford University Press, USA
* Number Of Pages:184
* Publication Date:2000-02-17
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0195125746
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780195125740
* Binding:Hardcover
Product Description:
This innovative work provides the first comprehensive account of general extenders ("or something," "and stuff," "or whatever"). Combining insights from linguistics, cognitive psychology, and interactional sociolinguistics, the author demonstrates that these small phrases are not simply vague expressions, but have a powerful role in making interpersonal communication work. The audience for this book includes linguists, scholars of English, teachers of English as a first and a second language, sociolinguists, psycholinguists, and communications researchers.
New Approaches to Interpreter Education (The Interpreter Education Series, Vol. 3) (v. 3)
By Cynthia B. Roy
* Publisher:Gallaudet University Press
* Number Of Pages:148
* Publication Date:2006-10-15
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:1563682974
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9781563682971
Product Description:
The Third Volume in the Interpreter Education Series
The latest addition to the Interpreter Education series expands the tools available to instructors with six new, vital chapters on new curricula and creative teaching methods. Series editor Cynthia B. Roy leads the way by calling for the use of a discourse-oriented curriculum for educating interpreters. In the following chapter, Claudia Angelelli outlines the bottom-line principles for teaching effective health-care interpreting, postulating a model that depends upon the development of skills in six critical areas: cognitive-processing, interpersonal, linguistics, professional, setting-specific, and sociocultural. Risa Shaw, Steven D. Collins, and Melanie Metzger collaborate on describing the process for establishing a bachelor of arts program in interpreting at Gallaudet University distinct from the already existent masters program.
In the fourth chapter, Doug Bowen-Bailey describes how to apply theories of discourse-based interpreter education in specific contexts by producing customized videos. Jemina Napier blends three techniques for instructing signed language interpreters in Australia: synthesizing sign and spoken language interpreting curricula; integrating various interpreting concepts into a theoretical framework; and combining online and face-to-face instruction. Finally, Helen Slatyer delineates the use of an action research methodology to establish a curriculum for teaching ad hoc interpreters of languages used by small population segments in Australia.
First Language Acquisition
By Eve V. Clark
* Publisher:Cambridge University Press
* Number Of Pages:502
* Publication Date:2009-02-02
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0521514134
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780521514132
Product Description:
Babies are not born talking, they learn language, starting immediately from birth. How does this process take place? When do children master the skills needed for using language successfully? What stages do they go through as they learn to understand and talk? Do the languages they learn affect the way they think? This new edition of Eve Clark's highly successful textbook focuses on children's acquisition of a first language, the stages of development they go through, and how they use language as they learn. It reports on recent findings in each area covered, includes a completely new chapter on the acquisition of two languages and shows how speech to children differs by social class. Skilfully integrating actual data with coverage of current theories and debates, it is an essential guide to studying language acquisition for those working in linguistics, developmental psychology and cognitive science.
Summary: Readable and precise
Rating: 5
Clark is one of those few scholars who can present a complicated topic in a very accessible way. She touches on the most important and interesting areas of child language acquisition, citing others' studies as well as her own research. You don't need any previous knowledge of this field to enjoy this book. I highly recommend it!
Summary: Heavy on data, not so much on readability
Rating: 3
Although it was refreshing to read an account of language acquisition from the point of the view of Pragmatics, I felt the text was very dense and not organized well within the chapters. Dr. Clark includes information about many relevant experiments, but at times it was hard to distinguish her own interpretations from paraphrased citations. The chart dealing with phonetics also had quite a few errors.
I hope the second edition turns out to be better than this one!
Teaching Young Children a Second Language
By Tatiana Gordon
(November 30, 2006)
* Publisher:Praeger Publishers
* Number Of Pages:232
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0275986047
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780275986049
Product Description:
This volume addresses a gamut of questions of interest to teachers of young second language learners. Why do immigrant children leave their home countries and what are their journeys to the United States like? How do young children adjust to the new culture? What sort of dynamic prevails in immigrant families? What are young immigrants' schooling experiences like? What are language learning processes like in young children? The first part of the book contains an overview of recent ethnographic, sociological, and psycholinguistic research concerned with answering these queries. The second half of the volume focuses on classroom practice. Gordon provides an extensive overview of activities that have been proven to be effective with young language learners. Practical recommendations contained in these pages flow directly from the classroom. Gordon describes innovative second language lessons developed and implemented by ESL teachers who work with language learners enrolled in primary grades. The book places special emphasis on those instructional strategies that stir young language learners' interest while stimulating their linguistic and cognitive development.
Summary: Teaching Young Children a Second Language
Rating: 5
This is an outstanding resource book for anyone interested in the education of young second language learners. Whether you are a mainstream teacher, an administrator or even a seasoned ESL teacher, this book will prove to be invaluable. The author not only presents some of the latest research in the field of linguistics, but also successfully merges theory with classroom practice. Additionally, she poignantly addresses the needs of second language learners in a sensitive and informative manner. As a current ESL teacher, I am particularly impressed with the myriad of fresh and innovative lessons offered in the book. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is looking to enrich their current ESL instruction or gain new perspectives on young second language learners.
The Lexicon-Encyclopedia Interface (Current Research in the Semantics/Pragmatics Interface)
By B. Peeters
* Publisher:Elsevier Science
* Number Of Pages:508
* Publication Date:2000-08-01
* ISBN-10 / ASIN:0080435912
* ISBN-13 / EAN:9780080435916
Product Description:
Questions about the exact nature of linguistic as opposed to non-linguistic knowledge have been asked for as long as humans have studied language, be it as linguists, philosophers, psychologists, language teachers, semioticians or cognitive scientists. This distinction has been maintained and defended by some, attacked and abandoned by others. Through specially commissioned papers for this, the fifth volume in the CRiSPI series, contributors argue both for and against the distinction between lexical knowledge and encyclopedic knowledge and debate how it should be drawn.