Action Meets Word: How Children Learn Verbs [Hardcover]

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek (Author), Roberta Michnick Golinkoff (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 6, 2006 | ISBN-10: 0195170008 | ISBN-13: 978-0195170009 | Edition: 1

Words are the building blocks of language. An understanding of how words are learned is thus central to any theory of language acquisition. Although there has been a surge in our understanding of children's vocabulary growth, theories of word learning focus primarily on object nouns. Word learning theories must explain not only the learning of object nouns, but also the learning of other, major classes of words - verbs and adjectives. Verbs form the hub of the sentence because they determine the sentence's argument structure. Researchers throughout the world recognize how our understanding of language acquisition can be at best partial if we cannot comprehend how verbs are learned. This volume enters the relatively uncharted waters of early verb learning, focusing on the universal, conceptual foundations for verb learning, and how these foundations intersect with the burgeoning language system.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This new compendium of articles is required reading for those interested in how infant language learning goes past the initial labeling of objects to understanding and expressing predicate-argument relations: the 'who does what to whom" of human discourse. The authors represent a cross-section of investigators with different research agendas and theoretical commitments. Each of them has contributed a quite original and broadly framed essay for the volume. I highly recommend it."--Lila Gleitman, University of Pennsylvania Institute for Research in Cognitive Science and Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science

"'At the critical juncture between words and grammar lies the frontier of word learning.' With this comment, the editors of this landmark volume set the stage for the varied and important chapters that follow. Not only a state of the art review of current understanding of verb learning, this book raises fundamental questions about word learning in general and, indeed, about the relation between language and thought."--Robert Siegler, Teresa Heinz Professor of Cognitive Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University

"A collection of the most recent and ground-breaking research in verb learning, this book at long last gives the verbs of language the attention they deserve. Action Meets Word is both timely and important, destined to endure as an important and sought after resource in the study of language acquisition."--Lois Bloom, Edward Lee Thorndike, Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education, Teachers College, Columbia University

"Verb learning remains one of the most enduring puzzles of language learning. This dazzling collection is jam-packed with the latest ideas, evidence, and debates on verb-learning in children, from leading researchers. The result is a must-read volume: lively, provocative, and deeply satisfying."--Susan A. Gelman, Frederick G.L. Huetwell Professor of Psychology, University of Michigan

"...an impressive compilation of up-to-the-minute ideas, research, and theories from the leading thinkers in the field of verb acquisition research. It is an essential handbook for all researchers and postgraduate students, and should probably be dipped into by those taking undergraduate or A-level courses...Action Meets Work provides a text that address all the issues that are important in research today."--Psychology Teaching Review

About the Author

Kathy Hirsh-Pasek is a Professor of Psychology at Temple University. Roberta Michnik Golinkoff is Rodney Sharp Professor at the School of Education at the University of Delaware.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA; 1 edition (April 6, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195170008
• ISBN-13: 978-0195170009
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.3 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,218,097 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)