Growing Into Language: Developmental Trajectories and Neural Underpinnings

By Ruth a Berman, Liliana Tolchinsky, Ruth A. Berman

This book explores how school-age children and adolescents employ language in different communicative settings, for varied purposes-to tell stories, engage in conversations, speculate about the future, speak metaphorically, make jokes, reflect on language structure, use digital devices, and write academic essays. The authors focus on language production in authentic contexts across different domains, and examine the unconscious knowledge that speaker-writers recruit when they chat (orally or texting), argue a point, or analyze an issue. Each chapter opens with general insights into the domain, followed by a description of relevant linguistic systems, neurological underpinnings, and developmental trajectories. The students whose language data are investigated are primarily young people raised in Israel, the USA, and Spain, with supplementary examples taken from other languages. The book demonstrates how language development is filtered by the lexical and grammatical options provided by the particular language and culture in which it evolves. Brain studies provide a deeper explanation of the developmental changes in language behavior, to answer questions such as: Why is storytelling such an addictive activity? Why do adolescents develop their own peculiar vocabulary? Why are metaphorical meanings grasped before ironic ones? How is it that children write before they read? The authors argue that becoming literate is an integral part of later language development: it is a crucial factor in becoming a fully functioning member of one's community particularly in knowledge-based societies, and in changing people's knowledge and perception of their own language. Crowing into Language will appeal to a wide range of readers from different disciplines, including education, linguistics, neurobiology, philosophy, and psychology and, it is hoped, interested non-experts from various walks of life.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0192849980
• ISBN13: 9780192849984
• Release Date: June 2023
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 370 Pages
• Weight: 1.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.5" x 9.5"