Fonologia na perspectiva dos Modelos de Exemplares: Para além do dualismo natureza/cultura na ciência linguística ed. by Christina Abreu Gomes

Abstract

Reviewed by: Fonologia na perspectiva dos Modelos de Exemplares: Para além do dualismo natureza/cultura na ciência linguística ed. by Christina Abreu Gomes Ana Paula Huback Gomes, Christina Abreu, editora. Fonologia na perspectiva dos Modelos de Exemplares: Para além do dualismo natureza/cultura na ciência linguística. Contexto, 2020. Pp. 191. ISBN 978-85-520-0183-6. Fonologia na perspectiva dos Modelos de Exemplares: Para além do dualismo natureza/cultura na ciência linguística offers a collection of insightful articles on Usage-Based Models of linguistic representation applied to Brazilian Portuguese (BP). Exemplar Models, which have become more popular since the last quarter of the twentieth century, are able to integrate aspects of both nature and nurture, in the sense that linguistic structure emerges from the interaction between general innate cognitive skills, along with the individual's experience. This book is suitable especially to readers studying General Linguistics, Language Acquisition, and Speech Pathology. Since Spanish and Portuguese are so similar, this book could also be of interest to Spanish linguists. This book can be eye-opening and provoking as it drifts away from Generative Models which are still prevalent in the BP Linguistics scenario. The first two chapters provide the theoretical basis for Exemplar Models. The first one, Fonologia na perspectiva dos Modelos de Exemplares (Cristófaro-Silva and Gomes), states that, in Usage-Based Models, as opposed to more traditional approaches, phonetic details such as the speaker's gender, age, dialect, and such can be stored along with linguistic information. Additionally, exemplars are updated according to their usage, and not just along generations. Frequency effects are also considered to be relevant to strengthen or weaken mental representations. In the second article, Aquisição fonológica na perspectiva dos Modelos de Exemplares, by analyzing language perception and production in the first year of children's life, Gomes and Nery gather evidence to claim that children are born with cognitive skills that allow them to experience and capture information present in the language input to which they are exposed. Linguistic knowledge is thus better understood as the interaction between innate capabilities and language experience. A second set of articles is devoted to language acquisition and speech pathology according to Exemplar Models. The article Conhecimento fonológico em crianças com dislexia reports results of experiments conducted with both dyslexic children and a control group. After performing tests on memory, vocabulary, frequency effects, and using statistical tests, Esteves concludes that dyslexic children do not show any changes in access or representation of discrete information. The only test in which they score differently from the control group is in accessing words in the lexicon. The article Conhecimento fonológico em situação de lesão cerebral adquirida: a acurácia de repetição de pseudopalavras em afásicos discusses the responses of aphasic patients compared to a control group in the task of repeating nonsense words. The goal is to analyze the extent to [End Page 635] which phonological knowledge is compromised in aphasic individuals. Senna concludes that aphasic patients do have a tendency to replace lexical items, but their ability to make abstractions over patterns in the lexicon is preserved. The difficulties in repeating words are caused by issues with lexical access, without compromising the phonological organization of the mental lexicon. In Aquisição fonológica em crianças falantes tardios: Estudo de caso, a case study is presented to explore the topic of delays in language acquisition, or the case of "late talkers." Silva analyzes a child in this category and applies tests of word repetition and naming. The results show that this child, compared to others with average language acquisition, had smaller vocabulary, fewer complex syllables, and more omissions of segments. Silva concludes that children with delays in language acquisition also have delays that may affect their abstraction over phonological patterns, which slows down their language acquisition, as they have difficulties inferring phonological patterns available in the lexicon. In Medidas de avaliação do desenvolvimento do conhecimento fonológico, Nery compares two different approaches to testing the production of nonsense words spoken by children. The method proposed by Esteves (2013) takes into account...