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The biological and neurological capacity to symbolize, and the
products of behavioral, cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic, and
technological uses of symbols (symbolism), are fundamental to every
aspect of human life. The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic
Evolution explores the origins of our characteristically human
abilities - our ability to speak, create images, play music, and
read and write. The book investigates how symbolization evolved in
human evolution and how symbolism is expressed across the various
areas of human life. The field is intrinsically interdisciplinary -
considering findings from fossil studies, scientific research from
primatology, developmental psychology, and of course linguistics.
Written by world leading experts, thirty-nine topical chapters are
grouped into six thematic parts that respectively focus on
epistemological, psychological, anthropological, ethological,
linguistic, and social-technological aspects of human symbolic
evolution. The handbook presents an in-depth but comprehensive and
interdisciplinary overview of the of the state of the art in the
science of human symbolic evolution. This work will be of interest
to academics and students active in all fields contributing to the
study of human evolution.
There have been many studies of children learning to talk, but
perhaps none as comprehensive - in terms of the number of children
involved, the period of continuous observation and the scope of the
analysis - as the Bristol Study of Language Development. This is
the first full-length volume to be written by members of the
research team and it is a fundamental study of language development
from infancy to primary school. It synthesises the research to date
and discusses some key socio- and psycholinguistic themes with
reference to transcribed excerpts from spontaneous conversations
recorded by the team and to experimental data. The authors' central
argument is that conversation provides the natural context of
language development and that the child learns through exploring
his world of interaction with other people. The quality of learning
is seen to depend particularly on the strategies that adults employ
to develop and extend children's contributions to interaction. This
has important practical implications for the transition from home
to school, and the second part of the book examines the differences
and similarities between the talk that goes on in these two
environments. The final chapter considers the development of
literacy. The model of language development presented here will
make stimulating and challenging reading for a wide range of
sociologists, psychologists and educationalists as well as being of
particular interest to linguists.
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