Before Speech

Book excerpt: Long before they can make any sounds approaching language, infants can share in communication, though what this means is the subject of much scrutiny. This 1979 volume deliberately draws on people whose different backgrounds have brought them to explore questions that have a bearing on communication in this earliest phase of human infancy. This is, then, as Dr Bullowa says in her introduction, primarily a book about 'how scientists go about finding out how infants and adults communicate with one another'. It is nowhere dogmatic; contributors have all been encouraged to say why they came to do the research reported, how they set about it and what they discovered. Dr Bullowa herself provides a useful introduction which makes its own substantial contribution, while surveying the broad context of the particular research, discussing some of the themes that recur in the book and relating them to the wider literature.