Studies of language acquisition often assume that children will simply begin to learn language, without questioning what sets the whole process in motion. In How Children Learn to Learn Language, Lorraine McCune thoroughly examines the often-neglected topic of how children discover the possibility of language and demonstrates that pre-language development involves a dynamic system of social, cognitive, and vocal variables that come together to enable the transition to referential language. The relationship with a caregiver is integral to this development because language is a system of symbolic communication that can emerge only with children's recognition that they are separate from others. McCune sees language learning as constructed equally from needing to develop meanings and learning to produce the sound sequences that represent them. In order for this dual construction to be effective, however, children must discover their capacity to refer to objects and events in the world by having their internal states of focused attention accompanied by an autonomic, physiologically based vocalization, which is the grunt that results from physical or mental effort. When the grunt is intensified and directed at a conversational partner, as when children attempt to convey an internal state, it becomes their first protoword. How Children Learn to Learn Language will be a valuable resource on pre-language development for students and researchers in developmental psychology.

1. A Perspective 2. Primary Relationships and the Symbol Situation 3. The First Phase 4. Cognitive Background for Language 5. Motion Events, Dynamic Event Words, and the Transition to Verbs 6. Representational Play and Language 7. The Vocal Story 8. Pre-linguistic Communication: Grunts as a Gateway to Language 9. Dynamic Systems in Language Development and Language Production References

"Language development and language learning seem to be rather hot topics these days in developmental psychology, and new breakthroughs (e.g., language development in autism) seem to come at a rapid pace. This text is a valuable contribution to this ongoing issue... This would be an excellent addition to any undergraduate or graduate class on developmental psycholgoy and especially welcome in graduate-level clasess in psychology, learning, or both."--PsycCritiques |k No