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.

Introduction; A Unified Perspective of First and Second Language Acquisition; John H. Schumann; Infant Attachment and Language Exposure Across Cultures; Gail Fox Adams; Learning while Eavesdropping on the Social World; Anna Dina L. Joaquin; Resonance in Dialogic Interaction; Anna Dina L. Joaquin; Biological and Psychological Bases for Social Engagement Behaviors in Second Language Acquisition; Bahiyyih Hardacre; Theories of the Interactional Instinct and the Pedagogical Stance: An Integrated View of Cultural Knowledge, Interaction, and Language; Jessica J. Roehrig; Affiliative Behaviors that Increase Language-Learning Opportunities in Infant and Adult Classrooms: An Integrated Perspective; Laura Amador and Gail Fox Adams; Interactional Instinct and its Connection to Instruction in Human Life; Emre Guvendir; Leveraging the Interactional Instinct for Literacy; Andrea W. Mates; An Impaired Interactional Instinct: Schizophrenia as a Case Study; Lisa Mikesell; The Interactional Instinct and Related Perspectives; John H. Schumann, Emre Guvendir, Anna Dina L. Joaquin

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.