Inquiries in Linguistic Development

Inquiries in Linguistic Development

Author: Roumyana Slabakova

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2006-01-01

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 9027232326

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The authors present current work on language acquisition which further investigates several themes developed by White's research.


Language in Development

Language in Development

Author: Gita Martohardjono

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2021-08-17

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 0262361973

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Explorations of language development in different types of learner populations and across various languages. This volume examines language development in different types of learner populations and across various languages. The contributors analyze experimental studies of child and adult language acquisition, heritage language development, bilingualism, and language disorders. They consider theoretical and methodological issues; language development in children, discussing topics that range from gestures to errors in person and number agreement; and development and attrition of (morpho)syntactic constructions in second language learners, bilinguals, and Alzheimer's patients. The approach is "crosslinguistic" in three senses of the word: the contributors offer analyses of acquisition phenomena in different languages; they consider "crosslinguistic influence," or the potential effects of multiple languages on one another in the mind of the same speaker; and (in a novel use of the term, proposed by the editors) the chapters bring together theoretical and methodological approaches pertinent to the linguistics of language development in children, adults, and heritage speakers.


Language Acquisition and Development

Language Acquisition and Development

Author: Misha Becker

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2020-03-10

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 0262043580

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An introduction to the study of children's language development that provides a uniquely accessible perspective on generative/universal grammar–based approaches. How children acquire language so quickly, easily, and uniformly is one of the great mysteries of the human experience. The theory of Universal Grammar suggests that one reason for the relative ease of early language acquisition is that children are born with a predisposition to create a grammar. This textbook offers an introduction to the study of children's acquisition and development of language from a generative/universal grammar–based theoretical perspective, providing comprehensive coverage of children's acquisition while presenting core concepts crucial to understanding generative linguistics more broadly. After laying the theoretical groundwork, including consideration of alternative frameworks, the book explores the development of the sound system of language—children's perception and production of speech sound; examines how words are learned (lexical semantics) and how words are formed (morphology); investigates sentence structure (syntax), including argument structure, functional structure, and tense; considers such “nontypical” circumstances as acquiring a first language past infancy and early childhood, without the abilities to hear or see, and with certain cognitive disorders; and studies bilingual language acquisition, both simultaneously and in sequence. Each chapter offers a summary section, suggestions for further reading, and exercises designed to test students' understanding of the material and provide opportunities to practice analyzing children's language. Appendixes provide charts of the International Phonetic Alphabet (with links to websites that allow students to listen to the sounds associated with these symbols) and a summary of selected experimental methodologies.


The Questioning Child

The Questioning Child

Author: Lucas Payne Butler

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2020-01-30

Total Pages: 347

ISBN-13: 1108428916

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Explores how question-asking develops, how it can be nurtured, and how it helps children learn.


Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism

Incomplete Acquisition in Bilingualism

Author: Silvina Montrul

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9027241759

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Age effects have played a particularly prominent role in some theoretical perspectives on second language acquisition. This book takes an entirely new perspective on this issue by re-examining these theories in light of the existence of apparently similar non-native outcomes in adult heritage speakers who, unlike adult second language learners, acquired two or more languages in childhood. Despite having been exposed to their family language early in life, many of these speakers never fully acquire, or later lose, aspects of their first language sometime in childhood. The book examines the structural characteristics of "incomplete" grammatical states and highlights how age of acquisition is related to the type of linguistic knowledge and behavior that emerges in L1 and L2 acquisition under different environmental circumstances. By underscoring age of acquisition as a unifying factor in the study of L2 acquisition and L1 attrition, it is claimed that just as there are age effects in L2 acquisition, there are also age effects, or even perhaps a critical period, in L1 attrition. The book covers adult L2 acquisition, attrition in adults and in children, and includes a comparison of adult heritage language speakers and second language learners.


Inquiries in Hispanic Linguistics

Inquiries in Hispanic Linguistics

Author: Alejandro Cuza

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company

Published: 2016-11-01

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13: 902726645X

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Inquires in Hispanic Linguistics: From Theory to Empirical Evidence showcases eighteen chapters from formal and empirical approaches related to Spanish syntax and semantics, phonetics and phonology, and language contact and variation. Drawing on data from a number of monolingual and contact Spanish varieties, this volume represents the most current themes and methods in the field of Hispanic linguistics. The book brings together both established and emerging scholars, and readers will appreciate the variety of theoretical approaches, ranging from generative to variationist perspectives. The book is geared towards researchers and students in Spanish and Romance linguistics. Given its scope and quality, this volume is also well-suited for graduate courses in Spanish morphosyntax, phonetics, sociolinguistics, and language contact and change.


The Multilingual Self

The Multilingual Self

Author: Natasha Lvovich

Publisher: Psychology Press

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 137

ISBN-13: 0805823204

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For a wide audience of students and scholars of second-language learning and cultural identity, this book relates the author's stories about how languages have integrated her being, defined and formed her sense of self.


Spanish in Contact

Spanish in Contact

Author: Kim Potowski

Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing

Published: 2007-07-16

Total Pages: 421

ISBN-13: 9027292469

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This volume, covering a range of topics such as Spanish as a heritage language in the United States, policy issues, pragmatics and language contact, sociolinguistic variation and contact, and Bozal (Creole) Spanish, will serve the interests of linguists, educators, and policy makers alike. It provides cutting edge research on varieties of Spanish spoken by children, teenagers, and adults in places as diverse as Chicago, New York, New Mexico, and Houston; Valencia and Galicia; the Andean highlands; and the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic. The emphasis is on spoken Spanish, although researchers also investigate code-switching in the lyrics of bachata songs and the presence of creole in Cuban and Brazilian literature. This collection will be of interest wherever Spanish is spoken.


Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition

Author: Ursula Stephany

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2021-03-08

Total Pages: 685

ISBN-13: 1501504355

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This book deals with the development of modality from a crosslinguistic perspective and is closely related to two earlier volumes on the development of verb and nominal inflection in first language acquisition (SOLA 21 and 30) both methodologically and theoretically. Each of the fourteen contributions studies the early development of the form and function of expressions of deontic and dynamic agent-oriented modality or epistemic and evidential propositional modality in one of fourteen languages belonging to different morphological types and language families (seven Indo-European and seven non-Indo-European). The analyses are mainly based on longitudinal observations of children in their 2nd and 3rd years of life in conversational interaction with their caregivers, mostly the mothers. Main issues addressed are the development of directives and modulations of information in terms of certainty and evidentiality, also taking into account children’s developing social-pragmatic and cognitive skills. One of the main findings is that agent-oriented and propositional modality may develop in parallel depending on the typological characteristics of the language acquired. The decisive factor is whether notions of propositional modality are grammaticized and obligatorily expressed in the language. The findings are interpreted within non-nativist theoretical frameworks (Usage-based theories, Natural Morphology).


Language and State

Language and State

Author: Xing Yu

Publisher: FriesenPress

Published: 2021-05-04

Total Pages: 632

ISBN-13: 1525595075

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This book argues that while humans communicate using language, they create and use media. Media extend the distance of communication. Humans form themselves into a large community. This happens in a long historical process in which the state of the civilized society replaces the tribe of the primitive society. Language replaces kinship in playing a role in the formation of human society. Then this book argues that while humans communicate using language, they form political, economic and cultural communities which in turn jointly sustain the formation of the state. While humans use language in communication, they also create a series of language solutions to the organization of the state. They make a constitution, hold elections and even set up representation when they govern their state in the principle of democracy. Extending the distance of linguistic communication also underlies the formation of government as well as the emergence of three juxtaposing branches of government—administrative, legislative and judicial bodies. By using language in long-distance linguistic communication, humans further create their history, philosophy, literature, art, religion and law which play a role in the construction of people’s spirit that guides the operation and the future development of the state. Language not only gives origin to the state but also presets the whole process of the development of the state. This book offers one of the most systematic theories about the formation, the building and the future of the state.