Language Acquisition (Palgrave Advances in Linguistics)

359 Pages·2009·2.04 MB·English

by  Susan H. Foster-Cohen (Editor)

language acquisition
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Palgrave Advances in Linguistics
Consulting Editor:
Christopher N. Candlin,
Macquarie University, Australia
Titles include:
Noel Burton-Roberts (editor)
PRAGMATICS
Susan Foster-Cohen (editor)
LANGUAGE ACQUISITION
Monica Heller (editor)
BILINGUALISM: A SOCIAL APPROACH
Martha E. Pennington (editor)
PHONOLOGY IN CONTEXT
Ann Weatherall, Bernadette M. Watson and Cindy Gallois (editors)
LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY
Forthcoming:
Charles Antaki (editor)
APPLIED CONVERSATIONAL ANALYSIS:
CHANGING INSTITUTIONAL PRACTICES
Barry O’Sullivan (editor)
LANGUAGE TESTING: THEORIES AND PRACTICES
Palgrave Advances
Series Standing Order ISBN 978–1–4039–3512–0 (Hardback) 978–1–4039–3513–7 (Paperback)
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language acquisition
edited by
susan foster-cohen
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Selection and editorial matter © Susan H. Foster-Cohen 2009
Chapters © their authors 2009
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in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published 2009 by
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ISBN-10: 0–230–50030–7 paperback
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contents
series preface vii
preface ix
acknowledgements xi
list of tables and figures xiii
notes on contributors xvi
introduction 1
part 1. explaining language acquisition
1. word learning and the origins of phonological systems 15
marilyn vihman
2. cracking the language code: processing strategies in
first language acquisition 40
ann m. peters
3. the inevitability of child directed speech 62
matthew saxton
4. universal grammar approaches to language acquisition 87
maria teresa guasti
5. second language acquisition 109
susan gass
part 2. windows on language acquisition
6. language and the many faces of emotion 143
judy s. reilly
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vi language acquisition
7. complements enable representation of the contents of
false beliefs: the evolution of a theory of theory of mind 169
jill g. de villiers and peter a. de villiers
8. going beyond semantics: the development
of pragmatic enrichment 196
nausicaa pouscoulous and ira a. noveck
9. the acquisition of phrasal vocabulary 216
koenraad kuiper, georgie columbus and norbert schmitt
part 3. language acquisition, culture and
linguistic diversity
10. language development in simultaneous bilingual children 243
natascha müller
11. universals and cross-linguistic variability in
children’s discourse 273
maya hickmann
12. trends in research on narrative development 294
ruth a. berman
13. family literacy activities: what is, what ought to
be and the role of parents’ ideas 319
stuart mcnaughton, meaola amituanai-toloa and
‘ema wolfgramm-foliaki
index 337
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series preface
christopher n. candlin
This new Advances in Linguistics Series is part of an overall publishing
programme by Palgrave Macmillan aimed at producing collections of
original, commissioned articles under the invited editorship of distin-
guished scholars.
The books in the Series are not intended as an overall guide to the
topic or to provide an exhaustive coverage of its various sub-fields.
Rather, they are carefully planned to offer the informed readership a
conspectus of perspectives on key themes, authored by major scholars
whose work is at the boundaries of current research. What we plan the
Series will do, then, is to focus on salience and influence, move fields
forward, and help to chart future research development.
The Series is designed for postgraduate and research students, includ-
ing advanced level undergraduates seeking to pursue research work in
linguistics, or careers engaged with language and communication study
more generally, as well as for more experienced researchers and tutors
seeking an awareness of what is current and in prospect in adjacent
research fields to their own. We hope that the some of the intellectual
excitement posed by the challenges of linguistics as a pluralistic discip-
line will shine through the books!
Editors of books in the Series have been particularly asked to put their
own distinctive stamp on their collection, to give it a personal dimen-
sion, and to map the territory, as it were, seen through the eyes of their
own research experience.
There are few sites of scholarly engagement in linguistics as rich in
potential for interdisciplinary study as that of language acquisition. It
is hardly possible, one would imagine, for such a site not to encompass
the range of disciplinary fields evidenced in this remarkable collection
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viii language acquisition
commissioned and brought together so expertly by Susan Foster-Cohen.
Yet, as the history of the broad field also evidences, this harmonization
and integration has been perhaps rather the exception than the rule.
Partly this is a consequence of the existence of professional boundar-
ies, as between, say, scholars in first and second language acquisition,
communication disorders, bilingualism and neuroscience, and partly
because of corresponding distinctions and divisions in the academy.
Yet, were one to approach the field from the perspective of investiga-
tive and research-based practice, it would be precisely that interdisci-
plinarity that one would be seeking to draw upon, whether in response
to challenges that arise in the mundane or the professional world, or,
indeed, to address the theoretical and descriptive issues to which such
challenges give rise.
Accordingly, this imaginative volume in the Advances in Linguistics
Series has an innovative thematic purpose; more than that, however, it
has an equally important and parallel methodological purpose, namely
to bring together a number of research paradigms and to display how
these, taken together, can reveal more of the processes and outcomes
of language acquisition than could any single mode of research. This
is more than advocating a mixing of the qualitative and the quanti-
tative, popular though that now is; what this collection shows is that
warranting claims with evidence, properly gathered and systematically
analysed, will always lead us to eschewing a single framework, however
trenchantly espoused, in favour of a more comprehensive explanatory
paradigm. This is true of all scientific endeavour but none more appo-
site than in the study of the acquisition of human language in all its
complexity. As Popper reminds us: ‘at any moment we are prisoners
caught in the framework of our theories: our expectations: or past expe-
riences; our language. But we are prisoners in a Pickwickian sense; if we
try, we can break out of our framework at any time. Admittedly, we shall
find ourselves again in a framework, but it will be a better and a roomier
one, and we can at any moment break out of it again’ (1970, p. 56). The
authors in this collection of papers show us exactly how one can con-
struct just such a roomier framework, and Susan Foster-Cohen deserves
all our thanks for designing the architecture to make this possible.
Christopher N. Candlin
Macquarie University, Sydney
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preface
susan foster-cohen
This book provides a snapshot of the field of language acquisition at
the beginning of the twenty-first century, together with some attempts
to speculate about the future. It is, first and foremost, a book of ideas;
ideas which you are invited to challenge. The advancement of the field
requires no less of you. Your challenge should be on the basis of other
ideas that you can argue are better and/or are supported by empirical
data. Your challenge should not be based on disliking the framework in
which ideas are couched, disliking the person who is proposing them,
or finding the ideas hard to understand.
Knowing where a field has come from, as preparation for under-
standing where it is going, is a vital component of good scholarship;
and in the field of language acquisition there are many histories that
intertwine. The field has engaged, and continues to engage, those in
linguistics, philosophy, psychology, anthropology, neuroscience, soci-
ology, education, and more. This volume respects that multidiscipli-
narity of research and understanding, and attempts to reflect the rich
range of approaches with which more advanced students and begin-
ning researchers ought to be familiar. The chapters provide readers with
a review of current topics and debates, as well as addressing some of
the connections between sub-fields and the possible future directions
for research, including in first language, second language, bilingual-
ism and language disorder in languages that are spoken, manual and
written.
To have been asked to put a volume of this kind together is an hon-
our; and it has been a delight to have so many respected colleagues in
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