Language Bioprogram Hypothesis Research Articles

Tense and Modality in two creoles: Capeverdean and Saamáka

<p>This paper provides evidence for the claim that in certain languages epistemic modality can have both a past and a present modal anchor time (in the case of CV), while in other languages epistemic modality must have a present modal anchor time (in the case of SM). Additionally, in his Language Bioprogram Hypothesis, Bickerton (1981, 1984) claims that tense, aspect and modality is similar across creoles. We will demonstrate that this claim is only partially correct. The modality system of these two creoles is very similar: Both have a necessity modal which conveys obligation and epistemic readings, and a possibility modal which conveys ability, permissive and epistemic readings. Furthermore, both have a past marker. A difference occur s when the past marker co-occurs with the modals; in CV both the circumstantial and epistemic reading of the two modals surfaces, whereas in SM only the circumstantial reading surfaces, the epistemic reading is infelicitous. The present paper accounts for this on the grounds of some important distinct features between these languages functional morphemes, which reflects in their respective functional structures.</p>

The handbook of pidgin and creole studies (review)

Reviewed by: The handbook of pidgin and creole studies Marlyse Baptista The handbook of pidgin and creole studies. Ed. by Silvia Kouwenberg and John Victor Singler. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Pp. v, 688. ISBN 9780631229025. $54.95. This handbook reflects the state of the art in creole studies and through a collection of twenty-six chapters captures the main insights that creolists have achieved in recent years with regard to the nature of creole languages, their linguistic properties, genesis, and development. It also highlights the large questions that remain central to the field in the areas of grammatical theory, historical linguistics, and sociolinguistics. Two core issues that this volume targets are how exactly substrates, lexifiers, and universal forces interact and contribute to the emergence of a new creole, and what the precise mechanisms involved in creole genesis are. Later in this review I evaluate the extent to which these two main lines of inquiry are adequately addressed in the volume. [End Page 918] The handbook is divided into five parts. Part 1, ‘Properties of pidgins and creoles’, surveys dominant linguistic properties of pidgins and creoles in the core domains of syntax (Don Winford), syntax/discourse interface and variability (Miriam Meyerhoff), morphology (Terry Crowley), and phonology (Norval S. H. Smith). In addition, structural differences between pidgins and creoles (Peter Bakker) and non-Indo-European pidgins and creoles (Kees Versteegh) are investigated. Part 2, ‘Perspectives on pidgin/creole genesis’, reveals how diverse perspectives on creoles have each contributed to enhancing our understanding of how they emerge and develop. The chapters in this section examine how the study of second language acquisition (Jeff Siegel), the language bioprogram hypothesis (Tonjes Veenstra), historical linguistics (Sarah G. Thomason), contact linguistics (Rajend Mesthrie), multilingualism (Pieter Muysken), population demographics (JacquesArends), and sociohistorical (John Victor Singler) and cultural (Christine Jourdan) contexts can all help us piece together the various factors involved in pidgin and creole formation. The common objective of the chapters in Part 3, ‘Pidgins/creoles and linguistic explanation’, is to provide explanatory frameworks for the linguistic properties that creoles display. Such explanations center around the process of grammaticalization (Adrienne Bruyn) or unmarked/default settings (Alain Kihm). These two chapters, which focus on morphosyntax, are complemented by one addressing semantic structure, in which the range of meaning of lexemes is investigated, regardless of their origin (George Huttar). Finally, the chapter on variation and change in pidgins and creoles views sociolinguistic studies as key to producing detailed comparisons of diverse speech communities (Peter L. Patrick). In a spirit of inclusion and comprehensiveness, Part 4, ‘Pidgins/creoles and kindred languages’, compares pidgins and creoles to kindred languages like signed languages (Judy Kegl), African American English (Arthur K. Spears), and the small cluster of Spanish-based creoles spoken in the Caribbean (John M. Lipski). Finally, Part 5, ‘Pidgins/creoles in society’, addresses the use of pidgins and creoles in distinct societal domains. The first chapter in this section examines the role of discourse (Geneviève Escure) in shaping creole reality and highlights the key role speakers play in the dynamic of communication. The late Dennis Craig reports on the status of pidgins and creoles in education and weighs the benefits of using them as languages of instruction. This chapter, which also addresses language policy, overlaps with Hubert Devonish’s study, which lays out the necessary steps in language planning for creolophone societies while showing that the status of creoles is interconnected with creole nationhood and statehood. In the last chapter of Part 5, Hélène Buzelin and Lise Winer provide a thorough historical overview of literary representations of French-lexicon and English-lexicon creole languages in the Caribbean, underlining the growing international acclaim of creole fiction and poetry as well as the current limitations of writing in creole. In their introduction, the editors attribute the recent developments in creole linguistics to three main events that generated interest...

Jeff Siegel: The Emergence of Pidgin and Creole Languages.

Jeff Siegel: The Emergence of Pidgin and Creole Languages.

Recent evidence against the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis

Preview this article: Recent evidence against the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis: The pivotal case of Hawai‘i Creole, Page 1 of 1 < Previous page | Next page > /docserver/preview/fulltext/sl.31.1.03sie-1.gif

Yes, but not in the Caribbean

From the publication of Roots of Language onward, a significant part of the debate about Derek Bickerton's Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (LBH) focused on the cultural matrix of creolization, 1 The crucial test case for Bickerton was Hawai'i. Hawai'i was important for two reasons: (1) creole genesis had occurred much more recently there than in the Caribbean, and (2) despite having an entirely different set of substrate languages from Caribbean creoles, Hawai'i Creole English (HCE) looked very much like them. The recency of creolization in Hawai'i meant that it was possible to recover a great deal of information about what had taken place there. When Bickerton first started looking at HCE in the 1970's, people were still alive who had come from Japan and the Philippines early in the twentieth century to work on sugar plantations. Data from interviews with them (Bickerton & Odo 1976; Bickerton 1981) showed the speakers to be individuals whose English had scarcely moved past the jargon stage. As for the similarities between HCE and Caribbean creoles, the fact that HCE looked so similar to Caribbean creoles yet lacked substratal input from African languages effectively negated - for Bickerton at least - the claim that input from African substrate languages had played a critical role in the formation of Caribbean creoles: 'if a feature appears in one creole whose substratum lacks that feature, it does not matter if there are nine or 99 creoles whose substratum has it - for it has then been demonstrated that substratum presence is no longer a necessary condition for presence of that feature, and substratal... explanations become superfluous' (1984:215).

Defining Creole (review)

Reviewed by: Defining Creole J. Kathe Managan John McWhorter , Defining Creole. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005, 435 pp. In Defining Creole, John McWhorter examines what a creole language is and what linguistic creolization entails. The term creole, which has become quite popular in anthropological literature and in literary and cultural studies, is notoriously polysemous. While many scholars and activists seem to be talking about creolization in some form or another, it is not clear that they are all talking about the same thing. In this book, McWhorter sets out to delimit the definition of the term creole as it relates to language. He argues that creole languages are indeed distinct from other languages, and he endeavors to show us just how they are different. This book is a compilation of various articles McWhorter has written, with some minor revision mainly to account for others' criticisms. He has combined these different pieces into sections that deal with three central themes; each section contains a brief introduction. The first chapter also serves as an introduction to the book, explaining not only the organization of the book but also the motivations behind its publication. The first section of the book explores the debate in creole studies about what a creole language is. McWhorter's argument is that creole languages are natural languages, but that they are unique. He specifically defines creole languages [End Page 565] as natural languages "documented to have been born in the middle of the second millennium amid displaced multiethnic populations and their descendants, with limited opportunity or motivation to acquire a dominant language fully" (11). As this definition indicates, McWhorter strives to define creole languages from a purely linguistic perspective, but a consideration of sociohistorical factors is also key to his understanding of what makes creole languages distinctive. Readers familiar with creole studies will recognize some similarities between McWhorter's argument in this book and other efforts at determining the features that creole languages share that set them apart from other languages, such as Bickerton's Language Bioprogram hypothesis. Such efforts seemed successful at first, but as more began to examine other creole languages, such as those in the Pacific, it became apparent that typologies that held for some creole languages, especially Caribbean creoles, often could not account for differences found among other creoles. Thus, McWhorter notes that the most common view among creolists is that creole language have no common linguistic features and can instead only be defined based on the similar sociohistorical contexts in which they seem to have emerged. McWhorter insists that creole languages do have shared linguistic features that make them unique and that it is important to determine them if the study of creole language is to contribute to the broader field of linguistics. He argues that he has determined several features that all creole languages share–or more precisely, features that all creole languages lack: the marking of grammatical inflexion with affixes, the use of tone for lexical or grammatical distinctions and the non-compositionality of derivational morphemes. This shared lack of features, McWhorter argues, makes creole languages different from older natural languages, since these are all features that make creole languages "less complex" than older natural languages. By complexity he means the "ornamental elaboration" and "results from the operations of random accretion over time" (43) that other natural grammars have developed to a far greater extent than have the grammars of creole languages. He points out that this suggestion has been met with criticism, in large part from creole-speakers of African decent. As he explains, for some scholars, his hypothesis bears too much similarity to models of creole genesis that posit creoles as simple, degraded forms of their lexifier languages, often based on the racist assumption that the speakers of creole languages are somehow "simple" and thus unable to learn to speak European lexifier languages. But, McWhorter makes clear that this is not what he is proposing. He notes that [End Page 566] creole languages are more complex than certain older languages in some respects and that they do not lack features which are common in all natural languages, and thus which appear to be necessary for effective and full...

Habitats for humanity: Effects of visual affordance on the evolution of hominid antipredator communication

Habitats for humanity: Effects of visual affordance on the evolution of hominid antipredator communication

Handbook of Child Language Acquisition

Research and Theoretical Issues in Child Language Acquisition: W.C. Ritchie and T.K. Bhatia, Child Language Acquisition: Introduction, Foundations, and Overview. Issues of Innateness, Maturation, and Modularity in Child Language Acquisition: N. Chomsky, On the Nature, Use, and Acquisition of Language. K. Wexler, Maturation and Growth of Grammar. B. Lust, Universal Grammar: The Strong Continuity Hypothesis in First Language Acquisition. W. O'Grady, The Acquisition of Syntactic Representations: A General Nativist Approach. D. Bickerton, Creole Languages, the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis, and Language Acquisition. M. Rispoli, Functionalist Accounts of the Process of First Language Acquisition. Semantics and Syntax in Child Word Learning: P. Bloom, Theories of Word Learning: Rationalist Alternatives to Associationism. L.R. Gleitman and J. Gillette, The Role of Syntax in Verb Learning. The Child's Acquisition of Phonology and Pragmatics: B.E. Dresher, Child Phonology, Learnability, and Phonological Theory. A. Ninio and C.E. Snow, The Development of Pragmatics: Learning to Use Language Appropriately. Research Methodology and Applications: S. Crain and K. Wexler, Methodology in the Study of Language Acquisition: A Modular Approach. B. Lust, S. Flynn, C. Foley, and Y. Chien, How Do We Know What Children Know? Problems and Advances in Establishing Scientific Methods for the Study of Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory. B. MacWhinney, The CHILDES System. Modality and the Linguistic Environment in Child Language: V. Valian, Input and Language Acquisition. D. Lillo-Martin, Modality Effects and Modularity in Language Acquisition: The Acquisition of American Sign Language. T.K. Bhatia and W.C. Ritchie, The Bilingual Child: Some Issues and Perspectives. Language Disorders and Impairments: Special Cases of Child Language Acquisition: D.A. Dinnsen, Some Empirical and Theoretical Issues in Disordered Child Phonology. H. Clahsen, Linguistic Perspectives on Specific Language Impairment. List of Abbreviations. Author Index. Subject Index.

The acquisition of lexical and grammatical aspect in Chinese

This study reports three experiments on how children learning Mandarin Chinese comprehend and use aspect markers. These experiments examine the role of lexical aspect in children's acquisition of grammatical aspect. Results provide converging evidence for children's early sensitivity to (1) the association between atelic verbs and the imperfective aspect markers zai, -zhe, and -ne, and (2) the association between telic verbs and the perfective aspect marker -le. Children did not show a sensitivity in their use or understanding of aspect markers to the difference between stative and activity verbs or between semelfactive and activity verbs. These results are consistent with Slobin's (1985) basic child grammar hypothesis that the contrast between process and result is important in children's early acquisition of temporal morphology. In contrast, they are inconsistent with Bickerton's (1981, 1984) language bioprogram hypothesis that the distinctions between state and process and between punctual and nonpunctual are preprogrammed into language learners. We suggest new ways of looking at the results in the light of recent probabilistic hypotheses that emphasize the role of input, prototypes and connectionist representations.

The role of diffusion in the genesis of Hawaiian creole

The historical diffusion of lexical and grammatical features from one pidgin to another has been well documented for the Pacific region, particularly by Baker (1993) who argued that items were spread individually in the early nineteenth century via an ad hoc foreigner talk register. Noting the profound similarities between Hawai'i Creole English (HCE) and the Caribbean English Creoles (CECs) which led Bickerton (1981) to propose the language bioprogram hypothesis, Goodman (1985) suggested a stronger model of diffusion, one which involved the transmission of a structurally complex pidgin or creole from the Caribbean to Hawai'i. Holm (1986) and Dillard (1995) have endorsed Goodman's hypothesis. This study, drawing on a wealth of pidgin/creole data spanning the previous two centuries, finds little support for Goodman's proposal. Textual evidence shows that the nineteenth-century pidgin of Hawai'i lacked not only the structure of later HCE but also displayed far stronger links with neighboring Pacific pidgin Englishes than the CECs. Furthermore, the creole TMA system and for -complementation patterns are revealed to have developed late and primarily (though not entirely) within the population of native-born speakers, as predicted by the bioprogram. However, while the pace of creolization was fairly rapid in Hawai'i, HCE did not form entirely within a single generation.

Tayo, The Strange Bird from New Caledonia

According to the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis, the core grammars of all "real" creoles should be alike to a significant degree. Real creoles are then defined as those creoles that were born on plantations, as opposed to those that appeared in so-called fort situations, that is, around trading posts and the like. The validity of the hypothesis depends on the precise characterization of what counts as a plantation situation, which is by no means an obvious task, contrary to what seems to have been assumed. An attempt toward such a characterization is made here. Tayo, a French-based creole spoken in the south of New Caledonia, can be considered a plantation creole and should therefore appear similar to, for example, Haitian and Isle-de-France Creole. That it differs radically from these languages in such basic domains as the determiner and the TMA systems, however, is easily demonstrated. Factors that might explain the difference are then examined, with the conclusion that only relexification from a substrate New Caledonian language can be retained as the primary reason for this difference. Although arguably a plantation creole, Tayo falls thus clearly outside the scope of the LBH, appearing rather as strong supportive evidence for the Relexification Hypothesis. Given the importance of the case for deciding between competing theories, further detailed investigation is urgently needed in order to ascertain whether Tayo is indeed a plantation creole, as it is seems to be, in view of the available historical and ecological evidence.

The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis and Singaporean English

In his rather controversial book "Roots of Language" 1981, Bickerton claims that 'many of the prerequisites for human language were laid down in the course of mammalian evolution, and that the most critical of those prerequisites... was the capacity to construct quite elaborate mental representations of the external world....' (Bickerton 1981:294-295). The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (LBH) concerns 'a biological' or 'a species-specific program for language, genetically coded and expressed in ways still largely myste rious, in the structures and modes of operation of the human brain' (Bickerton 1984:173). Among the important distinctions of the LBH are those between state and process, punctual and non-punctual, specific and non-specific and causative and non-causative. Such dis tinctions are clearly evident when a pidgin becomes a creole. The in nate punctual/non-punctual distinction is manifested in Bickerton's investigation of past tense marking in 2 decreolizing situations- Guyana and Hawaii. Verbs which were used non-punctually received a lower marking for past tense than verbs that were used punctually. What are the factors which influence variation in past tense marking of Chinese Singaporeans? The substratum language may have a strong influence since in Chinese there is no morphological change to the past form of the verb. Or it could be that the innate Language Bioprogram has an influence as well. Naturally, other fac tors such as teaching and general language learning strategies cannot be ignored. This paper is based on an empirical investigation of recordings of spontaneous speech of a hundred ethnically Chinese Singaporeans who have had English-medium education and discusses variation in past tense marking in Singaporean English as well as pedagogical im plications of the LBH for second language acquisition.

Pidgins and Creoles: The Blurring of Categories

In conclusion of article he wrote on Pidgin and Creole Languages for 1976 issue of Annual Review of Anthropology, Derek Bickerton (20) claimed that despite achievements of previous ten years the field still has a long way to go. Fifteen years later, pidgin and creole studies have come a long way. They have been transformed into one of most dynamic and theoretically challenging fields of contemporary linguistics. During past 15 years, Bickerton himself has done much to project pidgin and creole studies to forefront of academic debate. His controversial but thoughtprovoking Language Bioprogram Hypothesis (22, 23) has generated vibrant discussions among scholars in a range of fields interested in human language faculty. Can study of creoles reveal role played by universal faculties of language in language formation and interlingual communication? Bickerton's challenge has catalyzed theoretical interest and brought focus and direction to a field of studies that had become extremely dispersed. As if to answer Bickerton's call, a number of important general books on pidgin and creole linguistics have appeared recently: Holm's (89, 90) ambitious and highly successful survey, balancing role of universals and substrates in formation of Atlantic creoles; Muhlhausler's (133) carefully crafted generalizations on pidgin and creole linguistics, from standpoint of a universalist theory; Romaine's (155) meticulous introductory manual pro-

A review of the state-process and punctual-nonpunctual distinctions in children's acquisitions of verbs

A secondary analysis of empirical studies of children's acquisition of verbs was undertaken to examine evidence for the state-process and punctual-nonpunctual distinctions in children's early use and under standing of verbs as postulated by Bickerton's language bioprogram hypothesis. Approximately 60 empirical studies were initially reviewed with 13 reporting findings relevant to the state-process and/or punctual- nonpunctual distinctions involving the languages of English, French, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Serbo-Croatian, and Turkish. It was found that these studies in general provide considerable empirical support for the hypotheses that children universally distinguish stative from process verbs and punctual from nonpunctual verbs in the early stages of language acquisition.

The language bioprogram hypothesis: a reply to Youssef.

The language bioprogram hypothesis: a reply to Youssef.

The language bioprogram hypothesis revisited.

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The Habitual Category in Guyanese and Jamaican Creoles

IN Dynamics of a Creole System (1975), Bickerton proposes an aspectual opposition of [+ Punctual] for the Guyanese basilect. Subsequently, in Roots of Language (1981; see also Bickerton 1984), he proposes that the system is universal and incorporates it into his language bioprogram hypothesis. His analysis of the aspectual system holds that one morpheme is used to convey both habitual and progressive meanings. In this paper I will illustrate that Bickerton's system is inadequate for the Guyanese basilect since there is evidence to show that habitual and progressive meanings are conveyed by separate morphemes; and since he claims that the system is universal, I will examine how adequate it is for the Jamaican basilect.

A Japanese child's use of stative and punctual verbs.

ABSTRACTThis study investigated the use of stative, process, punctual, and non-punctual verbs by a child acquiring Japanese as a first language between the ages of 1;0 and 4;11 in an attempt to find evidence for two of Bickerton's (1981) proposed language acquisition universals, which form part of the language bioprogram hypothesis of language acquisition. As predicted by Bickerton's state-process hypothesis, it was found that all sampled present progressive verb forms occurred with process verbs while these forms were never used with stative verbs. Also, with only one exception, all omissions of present progressive forms occurred with the early use of ‘mixed’ verbs, i.e. verbs which behave syntactically as process verbs in Japanese but are nonetheless semantically stative. However, contrasting with Bickerton's hypothesis that children initially use the past tense to mark punctuality, no relationship between past tense use and punctuality was found.

Testing the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis: A Review of Children's Acquisition of Articles

One component of D. Bickerton's Language Bioprogram Hypothesis is here empirically tested by reviewing studies of children's comprehension and production of articles. Seven studies reporting relevant data in English and French were reviewed. Two of them provide clear empirical support for the hypothesis that children are universally sensitive to the specific/non-specific distinction of referential meaning. Moreover, findings of all reviewed studies were generally consistent with a four-stage hypothesis of the acquisition of English and French articles, characterized by (a) the use of the indefinite and/or definite article(s) for specific referents, and zero article for both non-specific referents and naming; (b) the use of the indefinite article for non-specific referents, and the definite article for specific referents whether or not they are presupposed; (c) an increase in the correct use of the indefinite article for specific, non-presupposed referents, with a concomitant decrease in the correct use of the definite article for specific, presupposed referents; and (d) the correct use of the definite and indefinite articles.

With a daughter's eye: A memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson By Mary Catherine Bateson (review)

198LANGUAGE, VOLUME 62, NUMBER 1 (1986) phonology, lexicon, and syntax, T discusses lexical patterning with reference to metaphorical language (119-31), and shows how the lexicon of each language reflects cultural items adopted from the indigenous mother tongues. Some of her data recapitulate material already described elsewhere (e.g. Hancock 1977, 1980); but she makes her point clearly. Peter Mühlhäusler, 'Synonymy and communication across lectal boundaries in Tok Pisin' (134-53), is a self-contained discussion of one aspect of TP, but one which fits into a tradition of research on on-going changes in this language (e.g. Mühlhäusler 1980). TP uses a technique of pairing synonyms such that an old and a new expression appear together linked by o 'or, that is': hospitel o haus sik. Such pairings are discussed from several viewpoints: the status of synonymity in TP, the function of synonym pairs, their grammatical properties, their role in linguistic change, and the implications for language planning. The functions are varied: the introduction ofnew lexical items for new concepts, communication across regional boundaries, the elimination of clumsy paraphrases and low prestige non-English forms, and the replacement of referentially wide items by more specialized terms. This is one of M's shorter papers, but it displays his usual thoughtful and thorough work. It is, indeed, the most workmanlike contribution to the collection. The volume concludes with a 'Bibliography' (155-68) containing—in principle —all works referred to in the various papers (in fact there are a couple of minor errors/omissions). This practice of integrating references, favored by Karoma, has much to recommend it. REFERENCES Andreski, S. 1972. Social sciences as sorcery. London: Deutsch. Baker, Philip, and Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Creole: Affinities and origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma. Bickerton, Derek. 1981. Roots of language. Ann Arbor: Karoma. ------. 1984. The Language Bioprogram Hypothesis. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 7:2.173-221. Hancock, Ian F. 1969. A provisional comparison of the English-based Atlantic creóles. African Language Review 7.7-71. ------. 1972. A domestic origin for the English-derived Atlantic creóles. Florida FL Reporter 10.7-8, 52. ------. 1977. Lexical expansion within a closed system. Sociocultural dimensions of language change, ed. by Ben G. Blount & Mary Sanches, 161-71. New York: Academic Press. ------. 1980. Lexical expansion in creóle languages. Theoretical orientations in creóle studies, ed. by Albert Valdman & Arnold Highfield, 63-88. New York: Academic Press. -----. 1985. The domestic hypothesis, diffusion and componentiality: An account of Atlantic Anglophone Creole origins. Paper presented at the Workshop on Universals vs. Substrata in Creole Genesis, University of Amsterdam. Mühlhäusler, Peter. 1980. Structural expansion and the process of creolization. Theoretical orientations in creóle studies, ed. by Albert Valdman & Arnold Highfield, 19-55. New York: Academic Press. [Received 11 July 1985.] With a daughter's eye: A memoir of Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson. By Mary Catherine Bateson. New York: William Morrow, 1984. Pp. 242. $15.95. [Paperback edition, New York: Pocket Books, 1985. $4.95.] Reviewed by Deborah Tannen, Georgetown University Why review here a book that has been widely discussed in the popular press? Reviews of this book have focused primarily on the private life and personality of Margaret Mead (hereafter MM). One would hardly know, reading them, that REVIEWS199 the book is also about Gregory Bateson (GB), let alone suspect how much of it is devoted to summary and discussion of their scholarly work. There is also little in those reviews to indicate that the book is important for linguists, or that it could be used as a text in courses on anthropological linguistics and discourse analysis. For this is a biography and a memoir which demonstrates as it advocates—and shows to have been demonstrated, in the lives and work of MM, GB, and Mary Catherine Bateson (MCB)—the inseparability of the intellectual and the personal, of observer and observed, of ideas and their contexts, of the public and the private, of knowing and feeling. By describing her experience of her parents' lives and work and how they shaped her own, MCB has written a book that can be read in several ways— as a novel, for its...