Child's Talk: Learning to Use Language

by Jerome Bruner

How does a child acquire language, and what may facilitate this learning? In this book, renowned psychologist Jerome Bruner explores the child's most remarkable achievement. To carry out his investigations, Bruner went to "the clutter of life at home," the child's own setting for learning, rather than observing children in a "contrived video laboratory." For Bruner, language is learned by using it. An central to its use are what he calls "formats," scriptlike interactions between mother and child―in short, play and games. What goes on in games as rudimentary as peekaboo or hide-and-seek can tell us much about language acquisition. But what aids the aspirant speaker in his attempt to use language? To answer this, the author postulates the existence of a Language Acquisition Support System that frames the interactions between adult and child in such a way as to allow the child to proceed from learning how to refer to objects to learning to make a request of another human being. And, according to Bruner, the Language Acquisition Support System not only helps the child learn "how to say it" but also helps him to learn "what is canonical, obligatory, and valued among those to whom he says it." In short, it is a vehicle for the transmission of our culture.

Genres: Psychology, Linguistics, Education, Nonfiction, Childrens

150 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1983

About the author

Jerome Seymour Bruner is an American psychologist predominately in the fields of developmental, educational, and legal psychology, and is one of the pioneers of the cognitive psychology movement in the United States. He is a senior research fellow at the New York University School of Law. He received his B.A. in 1937 from Duke University and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1941. During World War II, Bruner served on the Psychological Warfare Division of the Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force Europe committee under Eisenhower, researching social psychological phenomena.

Reviews

[Y.M.R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice introduction to how children learn language, though the book is a bit short in depth and focuses too much on describing experiments and child/mother interactions.
There are still some interesting concepts to gain and think upon.