The Articulate Mammal: An Introduction to Psycholinguistics

Where does language come from? Is language restricted to humans? How do children acquire language so quickly? Why are Noam Chomsky's theories of language so influential - and is he right?A classic in its field for almost forty years, The Articulate Mammal is a brilliant introduction to psycholinguistics. In lucid prose Jean Aitchison introduces and demystifies the fundamentals of psycholinguistics: the possibility of a 'language gene'; post-Chomskyan theories of language; language within an evolutionary framework; how children become acclimatized to speech rhythms before birth; the acquisition of verbs; construction and cognitive grammar; and aphasia and dementia.This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by the author.

Jean Aitchison was Professor of Language and Communication at the University of Oxford from 1993 to 2003 and is now an Emeritus Professorial Fellow at Worcester College, Oxford. She is the author of numerous books of language and gave the 1996 BBC Reith lectures on the topic of 'The Language Web'.