Bruner, Jerome Seymour; Rita Watson (ed);
Child's talk: learning to use language
Oxford University Press, 1983, 144 pages
ISBN 0198576137, 9780198576136
topics: | language-acquisition
An early text that makes some important point regarding what it is that the child learns.
at least three senses in which a child is acquiring "language": - learning to make well-formed utterances There is something implausible about the acquisition as grammar... it seems highly unlikely in the light of our present knowledge that infants learn grammar for its own sake. Its mastery seems always to be instrumental to doing something with words in the real world, if only meaning something. - learn to refer and to mean (using lg) how does the child learn to refer and to mean? and do so by using lexico-grammatical speech? - learn to get things done with words can the child request, indicate, promise or support or show respect, using language? these three q's imply that the child must master syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. this book takes th view that these three facets are interdependent - that they are necessarily inseparable 18 of course it must have some prior endowments that enable this acquisition. 19 It is obvious that an enormous amount of the activity of the child during the first year and a half of life is extraordinarily social and communicative. 27