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Metalinguistic Development
Jean Émile Gombert
University of Chicago Press, 1992
At a very early age, the child is able to use and understand
language correctly. Later comes the precocious ability to
“reflect” upon and deliberately control its use.
Metalinguistic development, or the emergence of a reflective
attitude to the comprehension and production of oral and
written language, must be distinguished from that of ordinary
verbal communication.

This is the first book to review and analyze what is
known about metacognitive processes in relation to language.
Each of its seven chapters deals systematically with the
relationship between the comprehension and production of the
phonetic, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, and textual aspects
of language. This material is then related to the
metacognitive principles which govern reflective awareness.
A concluding chapter deals with written language and
metalinguistics.

Jean Émile Gombert's novel description of processes such
as the understanding of metaphor and humor in relation to
pragmatics and his suggestion that metalinguistic knowledge
is intimately connected with literacy contribute to a fuller
understanding of the stages of language acquisition and
mastery. With clarity and insight, Metalinguistic
Development reveals how the capacity for reflection gives
rise to emergent properties of the language system.

“A clear, critical, and interesting book about
an important topic which has not been reviewed properly
before. I particularly like the way that Jean Eacute;mile Gombert
combines a comprehensive account of American work with a very
impressive knowledge of European work.”—Peter Bryant,
University of Oxford

Jean Émile Gombert teaches genetic psychology at the
University of Dijon.
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front cover of Natural Histories of Discourse
Natural Histories of Discourse
Edited by Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban
University of Chicago Press, 1996
Is culture simply a more or less set text we can learn to read? Since the early 1970s, the notion of culture-as-text has animated anthropologists and other analysts of culture. Michael Silverstein and Greg Urban present this stunning collection of cutting-edge ethnographies arguing that the divide between fleeting discursive practice and formed text is a constructed one, and that the constructional process reveals "culture" to those who can interpret it.

Eleven original essays of "natural history" range in focus from nuptial poetry of insult among Wolof griots to case-based teaching methods in first-year law-school classrooms. Stage by stage, they give an idea of the cultural processes of "entextualization" and "contextualization" of discourse that they so richly illustrate. The contributors' varied backgrounds include anthropology, psychiatry, education, literary criticism, and law, making this collection invaluable not only to anthropologists and linguists, but to all analysts of culture.

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front cover of Talking Heads
Talking Heads
Language, Metalanguage, and the Semiotics of Subjectivity
Benjamin Lee
Duke University Press, 1997
In Talking Heads, Benjamin Lee situates himself at the convergence of multiple disciplines: philosophy, linguistics, anthropology, and literary theory. He offers a nuanced exploration of the central questions shared by these disciplines during the modern era—questions regarding the relations between language, subjectivity, community, and the external world. Scholars in each discipline approach these questions from significantly different angles; in seeking to identify and define the intersection of these angles, Lee argues for the development of a new sense of subjectivity, a construct that has repercussions of immense importance beyond the humanities and into the area of politics.
Talking Heads synthesizes the views and works of a breathtaking range of the most influential modern theorists of the humanities and social sciences, including Austin, Searle, Derrida, Jakobson, Bakhtin, Wittgenstein, Peirce, Frege, Kripke, Donnellan, Putnam, Saussure, and Whorf. After illuminating these many strands of thought, Lee moves beyond disciplinary biases and re-embeds within the context of the public sphere the questions of subjectivity and language raised by these theorists. In his examination of how subjectivity relates not just to grammatical patterns but also to the specific social institutions in which these patterns develop and are sustained, Lee discusses such topics as the concept of public opinion and the emergence of Western nation-states.
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