News and Events

Dan Slobin

Professor, Department of Psychology
University of California, Berkeley

"The Child Learns To Think For Speaking:
Puzzles Of Crosslinguistic Diversity In Form–Meaning Mappings"

Monday, May 3, 2004

12:00-1:30 PM

The Beach Room - 3105 Tolman

It is not possible for the child to come to the task of language learning with pre-established categories of linguistic form and of semantic content, because the languages of the world differ considerably with regard to both types of categories, as well the relations between them. To be sure, crosslinguistic diversity is constrained and principled—but recent linguistic research suggests that linguistic structure is heavily determined by sociohistorical factors that lie outside of the individual mind/brain. That is, the source of linguistic structure is not to be sought in the mind of the learner. The child must be equipped with appropriate—yet flexible—starting points and learning mechanisms that allow for the construction of any particular language. The result will be patterns of thinking for speaking and understanding that are tuned to the native language. Close attention to input patterns and to the course of development of various types of languages is beginning to suggest how such puzzles might be solved.

Food and Refreshments will be served.