Exploring the Interactional Instinct

The Interactional Instinct (Oxford University Press, 2009) argued that the ubiquitous acquisition of language by all normal children was the result of a biologically-based drive for infants and children to attach, bond, and affiliate with conspecifics in an attempt to become like them. This instinct leads children to seek out verbal interaction with caregivers and allows them to become competent language speakers by about age 8. In Exploring the Interactional Instinct, scholars in applied linguistics expand the theory by examining interaction in second language acquisition; in different cultures and species; in observation without participation; in literacy; in schizophrenia; in relation to human physiological responses; and in relation to correlated perspectives on interaction. This book, like its predecessor, offers a radical view of language acquisition: language is not acquired as a result of a Language Acquisition Device in the brain, but is rather a cultural artifact universally acquired by all normal children.

Anna Dina L. Joaquin is Assistant Professor, Department of Linguistics at California State University, Northridge. Her research interests include the neurobiological underpinnings of motivation and socialization of first and second language acquisition.

John H. Schumann is a professor of applied linguistics and former chair of the Department of Applied Linguistics at UCLA. His research includes the study of language acquisition, language evolution, the neurobiology of language, and the neurobiology of learning.