Frank Smith (psycholinguist) - Biography

Biography

After disrupted schooling and evacuation from London to the countryside in the Second World War in Europe, Frank Smith learned to be a newspaper reporter on several suburban London newspapers, and the Evening Standard of Fleet Street fame. He also wrote freelance articles which appeared in popular magazines.

A couple of years of travel saw him serve in the British Royal Navy where he fudged his age upwards to enable him to join. Naval travel took him to Canada, the United States and Bermuda. He did not fulfil his ambition to captain a destroyer, rather he was confined to a desk and given the title of “writer.”

A stint of play-writing in France followed. Frank later travelled to Australia to work as a journalist. He also drove a tram in Sydney for a brief period, painted corrugated iron roofs (a warm job in the summer time), and later worked as a jackaroo on a sheep station in Western Australia, where he rode a horse for a living. He obtained some journalistic work but not enough to sustain him so decided to return to England. He was able to get his seaman’s ticket by working on a Danish freighter, plying between Fremantle and Christmas Island, thus becoming eligible to work his passage on a cruise liner sailing to England where he again took up journalism.

Frank subsequently served with international organizations as a publications officer in Belgium and Holland, producing magazines in several languages. He became more interested in the academic nature of language and began serious research in the subject. This led to formal study at the University of Western Australia and an Honours B. A., earned while he was working full time at night as a sub-editor on the West Australian newspaper in Perth. He was the first student to win both top prizes in the Psychology department in one year, an event that caused the rules to be changed to allow only one prize per student.

An interest in adult education found Frank leaving his newspaper work and taking charge of adult education in Western Australia, while still continuing his full-time studies. Upon graduation, he was urged by faculty at the university to apply to Harvard to continue his studies in the cognitive psychology of language. After taking the requisite examinations, he was accepted into the Centre for Cognitive Studies at Harvard where he was to work with George A. Miller and Noam Chomsky. Others on the faculty included B. F. Skinner and Jerome Bruner. Frank graduated with a Ph.D in cognitive psychology.

As a research assistant, Frank was asked to write a history of the Cognitive Centre along with a report on its current activities. He also edited the proceedings of a conference on language development with his supervisor, George Miller, published by MIT Press with the title THE GENESIS OF LANGUAGE.

Frank’s novel BROTHERS’ KEEPERS was published just before he left Perth for Harvard by Hamish Hamilton in the UK, Simon and Schuster in New York, and subsequently in paperback by Penguin. The book was twice optioned for a movie.

He has since written over 20 books on such topics as language, reading, writing, thinking and teaching. He was featured by the BBC in a program titled HOW DO YOU READ? And was also a featured speaker in the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Ideas program on language. His most recent prize was awarded by the National Council of Teachers of English which cites Frank “for his transforming influence and lasting intellectual contribution to the English profession.” He is the first Canadian to receive this prestigious award.

Frank’s books and academic work are documented elsewhere, (see Wikipedia). His book on Africa, WHOSE LANGUAGE? WHAT POWER? was short-listed as the best book on Africa for 2005. Many of his books have been translated, the latest being THE BOOK OF LEARNING AND FORGETTING into Japanese.

An abiding interest in education has followed Frank throughout his academic life. He claims not to tell teachers how to teach, only to show them how language and the brain interact to make reading take place. His hope has always been that teachers will think for themselves and, armed with the theoretical knowledge of what helps and what hinders, come up with the best results for the children in their classroom.

Always an avid and analytical reader who does not take accepted wisdom for granted, Frank pursues many intellectual interests including technology, history, music, astronomy, and evolution. His book currently in preparation is entitled MADE TO MEASURE. It examines how evolution has shaped the various features – and the mind – of human beings.