Editors Hall and Waxman, aided by numerous contributors, have developed a rich tapestry of multi-dimensional approaches to language learning in children. Although the studies are divided into two parts (early and later lexical acquisitions), the complex nature of the subject matter entails numerous developmental overlaps.
Broadly speaking, Part 1 describes how infants use sound patterns and action knowledge, in parallel with environmental factors, to acquire their first words (namely, about 50 nouns). Part 2 focuses on toddler and preschool language, in its latent to potent semantic and syntactic manifestations. A few cross-lingual or sensory-impaired examples (Japanese, Korean, and Spanish, the deaf, and the blind) are also mentioned. The nature-nurture debate stands in the background of many of the presentations.
A brief review cannot do justice to the book’s 19 chapters, which range within and beyond classical and applied linguistics. Nonetheless, a number of presentational traits can be observed. Both editors, and 34 other contributors, eschew what they describe as old-fashioned “single strand” analyses. Rather, they purport to favor both theoretical and applied mixes, flavored with inputs from related “fields”: cognitive psychology, logic and metaphysics, and statistics. Indeed, editorial support for team, if not cross-disciplinary, approaches to infant language acquisition is echoed in a predominance of multi-authored chapters (13) versus single authored pieces (6).
A review of the subject index illustrates a curious constraint on citation range; out of 402 discrete items, one finds 374 drawn from only 14 contemporary researchers. The imbalance reflects an ongoing bias, in general linguistics milieus, to reference only the “latest” published, if not unpublished (“private”) communications, which can be displayed as type-token confirmation of professional viability.
As a consequence, unfortunately, each chapter presents a unique, if not closed, micro-universe of argumentative autonomy. As suggested in the brief introduction, connections between chapters lie mainly in their shared expository conventions, rather than in substantive linkages. A further clue to disciplinary parochialism in the present cohort is the uniformly small sample sizes in chapters where data are introduced and supported by standard statistical interpretation. Although sampling conditions may be technically correct, difficulties in recruiting and retaining infant subjects suggest heroic, albeit artisanal, protocols, to gather only modest amounts of data.
In addition, in spite of resolute methodological and argumentative cohesion, there is a subtle continuum of painterly language by presenters, starting with the weaving metaphor in the title, and sustained in recurring expressions such as “bootstrapping,” “crosscutting,” “mapping,” “streamlining,” and, even, Quine’s “chimney sweep.” Added to such affective images are pleas for further research, confirming my frustration that even an enlarged linguistic domain does not yet suffice to move researchers from micro- to macro-levels of investigation and synthesis. Such a worthy goal (a more unified language acquisition theory and practice) can eventually favor diagnosis and treatment of dysfunction in individual language-learners, as well as pedagogical guidance for first and second language teachers and their students. Certainly, more generous funding will be needed for these endeavors in a broader consortium of players, including ethnographic and anthropological specialists, and with assistance from computational modelers.
