Cognitive Neuroscience of Language

Cognitive Neuroscience of Language

Author: David Kemmerer

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 2014-11-20

Total Pages: 1303

ISBN-13: 1317653157

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Language is one of our most precious and uniquely human capacities, so it is not surprising that research on its neural substrates has been advancing quite rapidly in recent years. Until now, however, there has not been a single introductory textbook that focuses specifically on this topic. Cognitive Neuroscience of Language fills that gap by providing an up-to-date, wide-ranging, and pedagogically practical survey of the most important developments in the field. It guides students through all of the major areas of investigation, beginning with fundamental aspects of brain structure and function, and then proceeding to cover aphasia syndromes, the perception and production of speech, the processing of language in written and signed modalities, the meanings of words, and the formulation and comprehension of complex expressions, including grammatically inflected words, complete sentences, and entire stories. Drawing heavily on prominent theoretical models, the core chapters illustrate how such frameworks are supported, and sometimes challenged, by experiments employing diverse brain mapping techniques. Although much of the content is inherently challenging and intended primarily for graduate or upper-level undergraduate students, it requires no previous knowledge of either neuroscience or linguistics, defining technical terms and explaining important principles from both disciplines along the way.


The Neurobiology of Learning

The Neurobiology of Learning

Author: John H. Schumann

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-04-04

Total Pages: 227

ISBN-13: 1135619522

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The aim of the book is to demonstrate that language is not a unique cognitive ability that requires specialized neuromechanisms. It seeks to cover areas that support aspects of learning language and speculates how language might be learned.


Mind and Context in Adult Second Language Acquisition

Mind and Context in Adult Second Language Acquisition

Author: Cristina Sanz

Publisher: Georgetown University Press

Published: 2005-11-02

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 9781589013735

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How do people learn nonnative languages? Is there one part or function of our brains solely dedicated to language processing, or do we apply our general information-processing abilities when learning a new language? In this book, an interdisciplinary collaboration of scholars and researchers presents an overview of the latter approach to adult second language acquisition and brings together, for the first time, a comprehensive picture of the latest research on this subject. Clearly organized into four distinct but integrated parts, Mind and Context in Adult Second Language Acquisition first provides an introduction to information-processing approaches and the tools for students to understand the data. The next sections explain factors that affect language learning, both internal (attention and awareness, individual differences, and the neural bases of language acquisition) and external (input, interaction, and pedagogical interventions). It concludes by looking at two pedagogical applications: processing instruction and content based instruction. This important and timely volume is a must-read for students of language learning, second language acquisition, and linguists who want to better understand the information-processing approaches to learning a non-primary language. This book will also be of immense interest to language scholars, program directors, teachers, and administrators in both second language acquisition and cognitive psychology.


Exploring Language Aptitude: Views from Psychology, the Language Sciences, and Cognitive Neuroscience

Exploring Language Aptitude: Views from Psychology, the Language Sciences, and Cognitive Neuroscience

Author: Susanne M. Reiterer

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-10-04

Total Pages: 394

ISBN-13: 3319919172

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This book presents original, empirical data from quantitative and qualitative research studies in the field of language learning aptitude, ability, and individual differences. It does so from the perspectives of Second Language Acquisition, psychology, neuroscience and sociolinguistics. All studies included in the book use a similar and uniform layout and methodology. Each chapter contains a study examining factors such as memory, personality, self-concept, bilingualism and multilingualism, education, musicality or gender. The chapters investigate the influence of these concepts on language learning aptitude and ability. Several of these chapters analyse hypotheses which have never been tested before and therefore provide novel research results. The book contributes to the field both by verifying and contesting existent findings and by exploring novel approaches to devising research in the subject area.


Cognitive Processing in Second Language Acquisition

Cognitive Processing in Second Language Acquisition

Author: Martin Pütz

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2010

Total Pages: 385

ISBN-13: 9027239029

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This edited volume represents state of the field research linking cognition and second language acquisition, reflecting the experience of the learner when engaged in noticing, input/output processing, retrieval, and even attrition of target forms. Contributions are both theoretical and practical, describing a variety of L1, L2 and L3 combinations from around the world as observed in spoken, written, and computer-mediated contexts. The book relates conditions of language, task, medium or environment to how learners make decisions about language, with discussions about the application or efficacy of these conditions on linguistic success and development, and pedagogical implications.


Becoming Fluent

Becoming Fluent

Author: Richard Roberts

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2017-02-03

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 0262529807

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Forget everything you’ve heard about adult language learning: evidence from cognitive science and psychology prove we can learn foreign languages just as easily as children. An eye-opening study on how adult learners can master a foreign lanugage by drawing on skills and knowledge honed over a lifetime. Adults who want to learn a foreign language are often discouraged because they believe they cannot acquire a language as easily as children. Once they begin to learn a language, adults may be further discouraged when they find the methods used to teach children don't seem to work for them. What is an adult language learner to do? In this book, Richard Roberts and Roger Kreuz draw on insights from psychology and cognitive science to show that adults can master a foreign language if they bring to bear the skills and knowledge they have honed over a lifetime. Adults shouldn't try to learn as children do; they should learn like adults. Roberts and Kreuz report evidence that adults can learn new languages even more easily than children. Children appear to have only two advantages over adults in learning a language: they acquire a native accent more easily, and they do not suffer from self-defeating anxiety about learning a language. Adults, on the other hand, have the greater advantages—gained from experience—of an understanding of their own mental processes and knowing how to use language to do things. Adults have an especially advantageous grasp of pragmatics, the social use of language, and Roberts and Kreuz show how to leverage this metalinguistic ability in learning a new language. Learning a language takes effort. But if adult learners apply the tools acquired over a lifetime, it can be enjoyable and rewarding.


Cognitive Development and Cognitive Neuroscience

Cognitive Development and Cognitive Neuroscience

Author: Usha Goswami

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-09-26

Total Pages: 925

ISBN-13: 1317410041

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Cognitive Development and Cognitive Neuroscience: The Learning Brain is a thoroughly revised edition of the bestselling Cognitive Development. The new edition of this full-colour textbook has been updated with the latest research in cognitive neuroscience, going beyond Piaget and traditional theories to demonstrate how emerging data from the brain sciences require a new theoretical framework for teaching cognitive development, based on learning. Building on the framework for teaching cognitive development presented in the first edition, Goswami shows how different cognitive domains such as language, causal reasoning and theory of mind may emerge from automatic neural perceptual processes. Cognitive Neuroscience and Cognitive Development integrates principles and data from cognitive science, neuroscience, computer modelling and studies of non-human animals into a model that transforms the study of cognitive development to produce both a key introductory text and a book which encourages the reader to move beyond the superficial and gain a deeper understanding of the subject matter. Cognitive Development and Cognitive Neuroscience is essential for students of developmental and cognitive psychology, education, language and the learning sciences. It will also be of interest to anyone training to work with children.


Second Language Learning Motivation in a European Context: The Case of Hungary

Second Language Learning Motivation in a European Context: The Case of Hungary

Author: Kata Csizér

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-01-04

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 3030644626

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This book provides an overview of second language (L2) motivation research in a specific European context: Hungary, which has proved to offer an important laboratory for such research, as a number of major political changes over the past 30 years have created a changing background for L2 learning in an increasingly globalized world. The book provides an overview of theoretical research on L2 motivation, together with detailed information on large-scale L2 motivation studies in Hungary. Further, it presents a meta-analysis of the most important investigations, and qualitative data on teachers’ views regarding success in L2 learning. In turn, the interdisciplinary nature of L2 motivation is taken into account and relevant antecedent constructs to L2 motivation are investigated. Lastly, the book outlines possible future directions for L2 motivation research.


Reading in a Second Language

Reading in a Second Language

Author: Xi Chen

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2015-11-19

Total Pages: 339

ISBN-13: 1134690991

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Reading in a Second Language offers a comprehensive survey of the phenomenon and process of reading in a second language, with graduate and upper-level undergraduate students in second language acquisition, psycholinguistics, and applied psychology as its primary audience. The book explores reading processes from a number of complementary standpoints, integrating perspectives from fields such as first and second language reading, second language acquisition, linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive neuroscience. The first half examines major factors in second language reading: types of scripts, the cognitive and neural substrates of reading; metalinguistic awareness, word recognition, language transfer, and lexical knowledge. The second part of the book discusses the social and educational contexts in which reading development occurs, including issues related to pedagogy, the use of technology in the classroom, reading disorders, and policy making. Reading in a Second Language provides students with a full, logically organized overview of the primary factors that shape reading development and processes in a second language.


Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, second edition

Handbook of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, second edition

Author: Charles A. Nelson

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2008-07-11

Total Pages: 985

ISBN-13: 0262141043

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The second edition of an essential resource to the evolving field of developmental cognitive neuroscience, completely revised, with expanded emphasis on social neuroscience, clinical disorders, and imaging genomics. The publication of the second edition of this handbook testifies to the rapid evolution of developmental cognitive neuroscience as a distinct field. Brain imaging and recording technologies, along with well-defined behavioral tasks—the essential methodological tools of cognitive neuroscience—are now being used to study development. Technological advances have yielded methods that can be safely used to study structure-function relations and their development in children's brains. These new techniques combined with more refined cognitive models account for the progress and heightened activity in developmental cognitive neuroscience research. The Handbook covers basic aspects of neural development, sensory and sensorimotor systems, language, cognition, emotion, and the implications of lifelong neural plasticity for brain and behavioral development. The second edition reflects the dramatic expansion of the field in the seven years since the publication of the first edition. This new Handbook has grown from forty-one chapters to fifty-four, all original to this edition. It places greater emphasis on affective and social neuroscience—an offshoot of cognitive neuroscience that is now influencing the developmental literature. The second edition also places a greater emphasis on clinical disorders, primarily because such research is inherently translational in nature. Finally, the book's new discussions of recent breakthroughs in imaging genomics include one entire chapter devoted to the subject. The intersection of brain, behavior, and genetics represents an exciting new area of inquiry, and the second edition of this essential reference work will be a valuable resource for researchers interested in the development of brain-behavior relations in the context of both typical and atypical development.