From the ancient Mediterranean world to the present day, our
conceptions of what is universal in language have interacted with
our experiences of language learning. This book tells two stories:
the story of how scholars in the west have conceived of the fact
that human languages share important properties despite their
obvious differences, and the story of how westerners have
understood the nature of second or foreign language learning.
In narrating these two stories, the author argues that modern
second language acquisition theory needs to reassess what counts as
its own past. The book addresses Greek contributions to the
prehistory of universal grammar, Roman bilingualism, the emergence
of the first foreign language grammars in the early Middle Ages,
and the Medieval speculative grammarians efforts to define the
essentials of human language. The author shows how after the
renaissance expanded people's awareness of language differences,
scholars returned to the questions of universals in the context of
second language learning, including in the 1660 Port-Royal grammar
which Chomsky notoriously celebrated in Cartesian Linguistics. The
book then looks at how Post-Saussurean European linguistics and
American structuralism up to modern generative grammar have each
differently conceived of universals and language learning.
Universal Grammar in Second Language Acquisition is a remarkable
contribution to the history of linguistics and will be essential
reading for students and scholars of linguistics, specialists in
second language acquisition and language teacher-educators.
General
Imprint: |
Routledge
|
Country of origin: |
United Kingdom |
Series: |
Routledge Studies in the History of Linguistics |
Release date: |
April 2004 |
First published: |
2004 |
Authors: |
Margaret Thomas
|
Dimensions: |
234 x 156 x 17mm (L x W x T) |
Format: |
Hardcover
|
Pages: |
270 |
ISBN-13: |
978-0-415-31037-6 |
Categories: |
Books >
Language & Literature >
Language & linguistics >
General
|
LSN: |
0-415-31037-7 |
Barcode: |
9780415310376 |
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