The model is makes quantitative and cross-linguistic predictions about child language. It may also be deployed as a predictive model of language change which, when the evidence is available, could explain why grammars change in a particular direction at a particular time.

"Attempts to indentify the fundamental concepts of language, argues that the study of language reveals hidden facts about the mind, and looks at the impact of propaganda".

Every two years since 1989, an international colloquium on cognitive science is held in Donostia - San Sebastian, attracting the most important researchers in that field. This volume is a collection of the invited papers to the Sixth International Colloquium on Cognitive Science (ICCS-99), written from a multidisciplinary, cognitive perspective, and addressing various essential topics such as self-knowledge, intention, consciousness, language use, learning and discourse. This collection reflects not only the various interdisciplinary origins and standpoints of the participating researchers, but also the richness, fruitfulness, and exciting state of research in the field of cognitive science today. A must-read for anyone interested in philosophy, linguistics, psychology, and computer science, and in the perception of these topics from the perspective of cognitive science.

In the World Library of Educationalists series, international experts themselves compile career-long collections of what they judge to be their finest pieces – extracts from books, key articles, salient research findings, major theoretical and practical contributions – so the world can read them in a single manageable volume. Readers will be able to follow the themes and strands and see how their work contributes to the development of the field. Language and the Joint Creation of Knowledge draws on the most prominent writing of Neil Mercer, covering his ground-breaking and critically acclaimed work on the role of talk in education, and on the relationship between spoken language and cognition. The text explores key themes, relating theoretical ideas to research evidence and to practical educational situations that improve children’s lives. Offering students and researchers a clear, accessible and up-to-date account of a sociocultural perspective on the relationship between spoken language and cognition, it explains one of the key themes in Neil Mercer’s work – that humans have uniquely evolved the capacity to think together, or ‘interthink’. Offering a crucial insight into the work of Neil Mercer, this selection showcases why his approach has become the dominant paradigm in educational research, and why it is increasingly influential in the psychology of teaching and learning. This unique collection of published articles and chapters, which represent the key themes and range of his research over the last 40 years, will be of interest to all followers of his work and any reader interested in the role of language in education.

Linguistics investigates the systems underlying language, speech, and language use. Linguists seek to develop an understanding of the rules and laws that govern the structure and use of particular languages and the manner in which these interact with internal systems and processes (interpretation, speech perception, and production) and with the outside world (acquisition, use, change and role in society). The articles in this volume present a valuable addition to answering three important questions about knowledge in linguistics: What is knowledge in linguistics, how is it acquired, and how is it put to use? Apart from the data on the specific phenomena addressed in the articles, the book presents insight into the palette of present-day linguistics. In this way, it aims to break open the division of linguistics into subfields thereby making possible cross-fertilisation.

Natural Language is not only the most important means of communication between human beings, it is also used over historical periods for the pres- vation of cultural achievements and their transmission from one generation to the other. During the last few decades, the ?ood of digitalized information has been growing tremendously. This tendency will continue with the globali- tion of information societies and with the growing importance of national and international computer networks. This is one reason why the theoretical und- standing and the automated treatment of communication processes based on natural language have such a decisive social and economic impact. In this c- text, the semantic representation of knowledge originally formulated in natural language plays a central part, because it connects all components of natural language processing systems, be they the automatic understanding of natural language (analysis), the rational reasoning over knowledge bases, or the g- eration of natural language expressions from formal representations. This book presents a method for the semantic representation of natural l- guage expressions (texts, sentences, phrases, etc. ) which can be used as a u- versal knowledge representation paradigm in the human sciences, like lingu- tics, cognitive psychology, or philosophy of language, as well as in com- tational linguistics and in arti?cial intelligence. It is also an attempt to close the gap between these disciplines, which to a large extent are still working separately.

Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistic Knowledge Into K-12 Teaching addresses two important questions: *What aspects of linguistic knowledge are most useful for teachers to know? *What kinds of activities and projects are most effective in introducing those aspects of linguistic knowledge to K-12 students? The volume focuses on how basic linguistic knowledge can inform teachers' approaches to language issues in the multicultural, linguistically diverse classroom. The text also includes examples of practical applications of language awareness to pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum construction, which support the current goals of language arts, bilingual, and ESL education. Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistic Knowledge Into K-12 Teaching contributes to the resources on linguistics and education by taking prospective teachers beyond basic linguistics to ways in which linguistics can productively inform their teaching and raise their students' awareness of language. It is intended as a text for students in teacher education programs who have a basic knowledge of linguistics.

From language creator David J. Peterson comes a creative gui de to language constructio, offering an overview of language creation, covering its history from Tolkien's creations and Klingon to today's thriving global community of conlangers. He provides the essential tools necessary for inventing and evolving new languages, using examples from a variety of languages including his own creations.

This book collects twenty-five of the author's essays, each of which addresses a descriptive or a foundational issue that arises at the interface between linguistic semantics and pragmatics, on the one hand, and the philosophy of language, on the other. Arranged into three interconnected parts (I. Matters of Meaning and Truth; II. Matters of Meaning and Force; III. Knowledge Matters), the essays suggest that some key topics in the above-mentioned fields have often been approached in ways that considerably underestimate their empirical or conceptual complexity, and attempt to delineate perspectives from which, and conditions under which, an improved understanding of those topics could be sought. The book will be of interest to linguists working in semantics and pragmatics, and to philosophers working in the philosophy of language and in epistemology.

Part travelogue and part scientist's notebook, The Last Speakers is the poignant chronicle of author K. David Harrison's expeditions around the world to meet with last speakers of vanishing languages. The speakers' eloquent reflections and candid photographs reveal little-known lifeways as well as revitalization efforts to teach disappearing languages to younger generations. Thought-provoking and engaging, this unique book illuminates the global language-extinction crisis through photos, graphics, interviews, traditional wisdom never before translated into English, and first-person essays that thrillingly convey the adventure of science and exploration.