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This book explores how language is acquired via enculturation. It
combines research and perspectives from anthropology, sociology,
applied linguistics, developmental psychology and neurobiology to
argue for a theory of language acquisition via enculturation. The
first part of the book examines the practices by which we are
enculturated. Indeed, members of a society are socialized into
their culture, and more specifically to use language through
language via processes that include eavesdropping, observation,
participation, imitation, and language socialization. However,
ethnographic accounts also overwhelmingly show that children become
enculturated in large part on their own initiative. Thus, the
second part of the book argues for a motivation to attune to, seek
out, and become like others - or an Interactional Instinct, which
facilitates enculturation and the biology that subserves it. The
final chapters explore more of our biological readiness and the
neurological structures and systems that may have evolved to
respond to the input provided by society to facilitate the learning
of cultural practices and traditions by its youth. The picture that
emerges indicates that biology is nature and culture is nurture,
but there is no nurture without nature, and it is nurture that
provides for the phylogenetic development of our biological nature.
The ontogenesis of language behavior, i.e. its acquisition, cannot
occur without its evolved biology or without its evolved cultural
practices for socialization.
The Interactional Instinct explores the evolution of language from
the theoretical view that language could have emerged without a
biologically instantiated Universal Grammar. In the first part of
the book, the authors speculate that a hominid group with a lexicon
of about 600 words could combine these items to make larger
meanings. Combinations that are successfully produced,
comprehended, and learned become part of the language. Any
combination that is incompatible with human mental capacities is
abandoned. The authors argue for the emergence of language
structure through interaction constrained by human psychology and
physiology.
In the second part of the book, the authors argue that language
acquisition is based on an "interactional instinct" that
emotionally entrains the infant on caregivers. This relationship
provides children with a motivational and attentional mechanism
that ensures their acquisition of language. In adult second
language acquisition, the interactional instinct is no longer
operating, but in some individuals with sufficient aptitude and
motivation, successful second-language acquisition can be achieved.
The Interactional Instinct presents a theory of language based on
linguistic, evolutionary, and biological evidence indicating that
language is a culturally inherited artifact that requires no a
priori hard wiring of linguistic knowledge.
The Interactional Instinct explores the evolution of language from
the theoretical view that language could have emerged without a
biologically instantiated Universal Grammar. In the first part of
the book, the authors speculate that a hominid group with a lexicon
of about 600 words could combine these items to make larger
meanings. Combinations that are successfully produced,
comprehended, and learned become part of the language. Any
combination that is incompatible with human mental capacities is
abandoned. The authors argue for the emergence of language
structure through interaction constrained by human psychology and
physiology.
In the second part of the book, the authors argue that language
acquisition is based on an "interactional instinct" that
emotionally entrains the infant on caregivers. This relationship
provides children with a motivational and attentional mechanism
that ensures their acquisition of language. In adult second
language acquisition, the interactional instinct is no longer
operating, but in some individuals with sufficient aptitude and
motivation, successful second-language acquisition can be achieved.
The Interactional Instinct presents a theory of language based on
linguistic, evolutionary, and biological evidence indicating that
language is a culturally inherited artifact that requires no a
priori hard wiring of linguistic knowledge.
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