What Children Know When They Know What a Name Is

The NonCartesian View of Language Acquisition

Bibliographic Data

ID2214205
AuthorsStuart Shanker (corresponding author)
Year2001
Volume42
Issue4
Pages481-513
Publication date2001-08-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueCurrent Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0011-3204 • E-ISSN: 1537-5382
PublisherUniversity of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1086/321803
OpenAlexW1549176674
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited60

Nativist theories of language insist that an infant must possess some abstract concepts about the structure of language or, at the very least, some wordlearning biases to be able to acquire the sorts of skills and knowledge displayed by competent languagespeakers. A direct consequence of Cartesian epistemology, nativism limits the role of linguistic anthropology to validating its claim that children typically acquire language in essentially the same manner, regardless of the culture in which they are raised. It seeks to confine linguistic anthropology to the study of the socialization processes whereby children use their innate linguistic knowledge to become accepted members of their community. Linguistic anthropologists, in contrast, see field studies as a way of discovering what children in different societies actually learn about a language when they learn how to speak. In this nonCartesian approach, children are seen as learning how to do different kinds of things with wordshow to engage in the culturally significant actions that make up their communitys form of life. The case of proper names in AngloAmerican and Navaho culture is here examined as an illustration of the significance of this epistemological shift

Epistemology · Immigration · Linguistic anthropology · Linguistics · Psychological nativism · Social science · Socialization · Sociology · Anthropology · History · Language Development and Disorders · Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies · Multilingual Education and Policy · Philosophy · Psychology

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