NEW BOOK

[Annette Karmiloff-Smith]

Dear info-childes,
May I take the opportunity of announcing the publication this month of a
new book on language acquisition:

	Kyra Karmiloff and Annette Karmiloff-Smith (2001)
	"Pathways to Language: From fetus to adolescent"
	Developing Child Series, Harvard University Press.

Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 -  What is language acquisition?
Chapter 2 -  Experimental paradigms for studying language
               acquisition
Chapter 3 -  Speech perception in and out of the womb
Chapter 4 -  Learning about the meaning of words
Chapter 5 -  Becoming a grammatical being
Chapter 6 -  Beyond the sentence
Chapter 7 -  Atypical language development
Chapter 8 -  Rethinking the Nature/Nurture debate
References
Index
  From the cover:
"A timely, clear, and valuable book, which offers a masterful
overview of the many passionately held positions on the origins and
development of language" - Dan Slobin, University of California,
Berkeley
"....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"
- Roberta Golinkoff, University of Delaware.
The 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.