[From Bruce Nevin (2003.11.01 09:48 EST)]
Bill Williams just sent me a reference to a review in Nature 3 October
(p. 760) by Eve V. Clark of the 2003 book Constructing a Language: A
usage-Based Theory of Language Acquisition (Harvard U Press) by
Michael Tomasello.
I haven’t read the review (don’t have access to Nature).
I didn’t know of Michael Tomasello. He has an interesting syllabus at
http://www.unirsm.sm/dcom/2003/Functional/Abstract/Tomasello_abstract_new.htm
His CV with a very interesting list of writings is at
http://email.eva.mpg.de/~tomas/
From the Amazon.com entry for the above book:
Synopsis
This work presents a comprehensive usage-based theory of language
acquisition. Drawing together a vast body of empirical research in
cognitive science, linguistics and developmental psychology, Tomasello
demonstrates that we don’t need a self-contained “language
instinct” to explain how children learn language. Their linguistic
ability is interwoven with other cognitive abilities. Tomasello argues
that the essence of language is its symbolic dimension, which rests on
the uniquely human ability to comprehend intention. Grammar emerges as
the speakers of the language create linguistic constructions out of
recurring sequences of symbols - children pick up these patterns in the
buzz of words they hear around them. All theories of language acquisition
assume these fundamental skills of intention-reading and pattern-finding.
Some formal linguistic theeories posit a second set of acquisition
processes to connect somehow with an innate universal grammar. But these
extra processes, Tomasello argues, are completely unnecessary - important
to save a theory but not to explain the phenomenon.