Description: Biolinguistics involves the study of language from a broad perspective that embraces natural sciences, helping us better to understand the fundamentals of the faculty of language. This Handbook offers the most comprehensive state-of-the-field survey of the subject available. A team of prominent scholars working in a variety of disciplines is brought together to examine language development, language evolution and neuroscience, as well as providing overviews of the conceptual landscape of the field. The Handbook includes work at the forefront of contemporary research devoted to the evidence for a language instinct, the critical period hypothesis, grammatical maturation, bilingualism, the relation between mind and brain and the role of natural selection in language evolution. It will be welcomed by graduate students and researchers in a wide range of disciplines, including linguistics, evolutionary biology and cognitive science.
Brief description: Cedric Boeckx is ICREA Research Professor at the Catalan Institute for Advanced Studies and member of the linguistics department at the University of Barcelona.
Review Quotes: 'A thoughtfully constructed and didactically useful perspective on a vibrant, heterogeneous area. Many chapters succeed in illustrating the potential for future interdisciplinary progress in the alignment of linguistics and biology.' David Poeppel, New York University