The Interpretation of Infant Communication by Michael Barclay Ph.D.

This book is an academic study of language acquisition and infant communication. An interpreter of infant communication examines the actual communicative behavior of the infant as well as the literature, a discourse surrounding that sort of behavior. One cannot simply observe an infant and say something meaningful without saying it in the context of an explicit discursive background. In a real sense, that background provides not only a referential focus but an implicit epistemology. The infant under scrutiny takes on a particular appearance by dint of that epistemology. On the one hand, one hastens to become exposed to the discourse created by others who have also observed children; on the other hand, one observes and chronicles the actions and speech of a child or of children.