History of theories in language acquisition

[Aliyah MORGENSTERN]

Dear Mavis,
who is the "we"? American scientists? American textbooks? 
You are right in general of course but it's even more so in the States I would think. The only course I had in language acquisition as a student did at least begin the history of the field in the mid 19th century and so do I, as a professor. Last year a PhD was defended in Aix in which the candidate, now a doctor, Guillaume Roux, did try to trace back the history of the field (but only on the notion of words in acquisition) from at least ancient Egypt up to now. 
http://tel.archives-ouvertes.fr/docs/00/82/93/73/PDF/2012_roux_diff.pdf 
Best,
Aliyah from Paris

Le 17 déc. 2013 à 19:12, Mavis L. Donahue a écrit :

> At the risk of old fogyism, my question is:  are we ignoring our
> fascinating history?  In the Kuhnian tradition of using textbook analysis
> as an indicator of paradigm shift, I just completed a content analysis of
> historical themes in popular introductory textbooks on language
> development.  (My presentation at the 2013 ASHA convention was titled
> "Beyond Psammeticus:  Are we neglecting the history of language
> development research?")  I was startled to find that about 25% of the
> textbooks had no mention of our field's history.  Typical textbook
> coverage was only about one page, usually in the introductory chapter, or
> in a chronology of various theories and theorists.  Ironically, the most
> frequently mentioned historical events of our field were two accounts
> separated by 2500 years, and with the same nativist theme:  Herodotus'
> description of the Egyptian King Psammeticus' experiment to deprive
> infants of language input to determine what language they would create;
> and Chomsky's 1959 scathing review of Skinner's book Verbal Behavior
> (1957), which of course triggered the explosion of research on child
> language development in the 1960s. (I'm intrigued that both stories had
> strong political drama; perhaps that is why they have stood the test of
> time?)  Of concern, connections between early research and the current and
> recurring theoretical and methodological themes/dilemmas in our field were
> rarely drawn in these textbooks.
> 
> ^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^v^V
> 
> Dr. Mavis L. Donahue
> Professor Emerita
> College of Education, m/c 147
> University of Illinois at Chicago
> Chicago, IL  60607
> 312-996-5650
> 
> 
> “To anyone who finds that linguistic study is a worthless finicking with
> trifles, I would reply that life consists of little things; the important
> matter is to see them largely.”
> 
> Otto Jesperson, 1860-1943, linguist and scholar of language acquisition
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