History of theories in language acquisition

[Isa Barriere]

Hi,

I just wanted to comment on the messages of Brian, Philip and Aliyah's
messages:
- Like Philip I think it is difficult for students to appreciate the
history of a field before they know the field in its current state.  I used
to include a session on the history at the beginning of my undergrad
language development class and I realized it does not work.  I now do it
more indirectly and progressively: we discussed aspects of the history
after they watch the 'Wild Child' by Truffaut and then I discuss these
issues again in relation to different topics, re: different theories for
Autism etc
- I think that it is a shame that in the Speech Communication Arts and
Sciences Department where I teach we do not have a regular course on the
History at some point in the program, both in the undergrad and grad
classes.  The Psych department has such a course I do think that it helps
students place different approaches in perspective.
-  The research in our field is very scattered and extremely time
consuming, partly because it is buried in writings on the general language,
psychology, aphasia literature and in order to disentangle myths etc one
has to go to the original sources... and there is very little funding to
support it.  I am attaching two presentations that were given to the
International Society of the History of Neurosciences: the 2002 one is on
emerging concepts of Critical Periods and Modularisation (including in the
writings of Charcot) and the second one on other concepts of Innateness of
cognitive functions (less focused on language): both of them argue for the
important role that aphasiologists and neurologists had on
developmentalists, including in the interpretation of evolutionary
theories. And I know I should publish this work somweher but other articles
are more urgent...
- Alyiha: France has many relevant archives but their access is far from
easy...

Yours,
Isabelle



On Tue, Dec 17, 2013 at 7:27 PM, Robin Campbell <r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk>wrote:

> Besides Brian McWhinney excellent suggestions, we should not overlook
> Georges-Louis LeClerc, Comte de Buffon, from the 18th century. His enormous
> Histoire Naturelle (1749) contains a section dealing with language
> development (Natural History of Man, Section II) in which he proposes a
> least effort theory for phonological development, and reaches conclusions
> which anticipate some of those proposed by Roman Jakobson 200 years later.
> Another neglected writer, from the late 19th century, was the French
> psychologist Bernard Perez. His 1878 book Les trois premières années de
> l’enfant, étude de psychologie expérimentale (Paris: Germer Baillière.
> Later editions to 5th, 1892, Paris: Alcan) contained a long chapter dealing
> with language development.
>
> I very much agree with MacWhinney that Brown's work would have proceeded
> as it did, had there been no Noam Chomsky. Indeed, I regard Chomsky's
> influence on psycholinguistics and language development as baneful and
> destructive, even malignant.
>
> Robin N Campbell
> Psychology, Stirling
> r.n.campbell at stir.ac.uk
> ________________________________________
>
>
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