When A Functional Approach to Child Language first appeared in hardback in 1979, it was quickly recognized as a research report of the first rank and a timely, critical exposition of Piaget's views on language and thought. Whilst accepting the fundamental importance of Piaget's epistemology, the author argues that language acquisition will only be adequately explained if such an epistemology is explicitly focused on children's constructive interaction with their linguistic environment. In her own experimental work on referential expressions, Dr Karmiloff-Smith is concerned with the problem of ad-hoc experiment-generated behaviour and the analysis of children's normal language procedures. The results are carefully analysed and have significant theoretical implications. The volume as a whole makes a substantial contribution to child language studies and will be of interest to students of linguistics and of developmental and experimental psychology, and to those following advanced courses in language acquisition and child development.
