Handbook of Child Language Acquisition / / Tej K. Bhatia.

• VerfasserIn: Bhatia, Tej K.,
• Place / Publishing House: Leiden : : BRILL,, 1998.
• Year of Publication: 1998
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (761 pages)

This volume provides a comprehensive overview of the major areas of research in the field of child language acquisition. It is divided into seven parts and 19 chapters. Part I is an introduction and overview. Part II covers central issues in the study of child language acquisition, focusing on syntax, including those of innateness, maturation, and modularity and presents some of the major theoretical orientations of the field. Part III focuses on children's word learning, while Part IV deals with the acquisition of phonology and pragmatics. Both parts III and IV are concerned with children's language acquisition in areas other than syntax. Part V includes three chapters on methodological and research issues. Types of input to the child can vary not only in quality and quantity but in modality as well. Their effects, are examined in Part VI in three chapters on monolingual spoken input, the acquisition of signed rather than spoken language, and bilingual children respectively. Part VII contains 2 chapters that explore the study of language and speech disorders. One chapter focuses on a review of research on phonological disorders in children and the other focuses on the problems that constitute specific language impairment. Conains extensive references, a list of abbreviations, and author and subject indexes. (KFT).

Table of Contents

Intro -- Title Page -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Table of Contents -- CONTRIBUTORS -- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS -- I RESEARCH AND THEORETICAL ISSUES IN CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION -- 1 Child Language Acquisition: Introduction, Foundations, and Overview -- I. Introduction -- II. Issues of Innateness, Maturation, and Modularity in Child Language Acquisition -- A. Maturation versus Continuity Theories of Acquisition -- B. A Nonmodular Theory of Acquisition -- C. Acquisition and Limited Input: The Bioprogram Hypothesis -- D. Functionalist Approaches to Acquisition -- E. Another Approach: Connectionism -- III. Word Learning -- IV. The Child's Acquisition of Phonology and Pragmatics -- V. Research Methodology and Applications -- VI. Modality and the Linguistic Environment in Child Language Acquisition -- VII. Language Disorders and Impairments: Special Cases of Child Language Acquisition -- VIII. Conclusion -- References -- II ISSUES OF INNATENESS, MATURATION, AND MODULARITY IN CHILD LANGUAGE ACQUISITION -- 2 On the Nature, Use, and Acquisition of Language -- I. On the Nature, Use, and Acquisition of Language -- 3 Maturation and Growth of Grammar -- I. Growth/Maturation, Language Acquisition, and Linguistic Theory -- II. Growth/Maturation, Biology, and Cognition -- III. UG-Constrained Maturation and Continuous Development -- IV. Maturation at the Interface? -- V. Some Linguistic Developments -- A. Binding Theory and Interpretation -- B. Optional Infinitives: The Growth of Finiteness -- C. A Note on Argument-Chains -- VI. Conclusion -- References -- 4 Universal Grammar:The Strong Continuity Hypothesis in First Language Acquisition -- I. Introduction -- A. Theory of UG -- B. Brief History of Empirical Confirmation of UG as a Model of the Initial State -- II. Indeterminacy in Interpretation of the Theory of UG.

A. Problems with the Instantaneous Hypothesis (IH) -- B. Maturation Hypothesis (MH) -- C. Problems with the Maturational Hypothesis -- D. Reasons for Failure of the MH -- E. The Issue of Age -- III. The Strong Continuity Hypothesis (SCH) -- A. Relation between UG and Language Development -- B. Grammatical Mapping: From UG to Specific Language Grammars (SLG) -- C. UG as "Constraining" the Course of Acquisition -- D. UG as "Guiding" First Language Acquisition -- E. UG Can Itself Provide Apparent "Developmental Delay" -- F. Explanation of Developmental Delay without Offense of SCH -- G. Recent Revisions of the MH -- IV. Conclusions -- References -- 5 The Acquisition of Syntactic Representations: A General Nativist Approach -- I. Background -- II. Some Assumptions about the Acquisition Process -- A. Properties of the Grammar -- B. The Nature of Experience -- III. The Learnability Problem Reconsidered -- A. A Simple Categorical Grammar -- B. The Acquisition Device -- C. Syntactic Categories -- D. Hierarchical Structure -- IV. Conclusion -- References -- 6 Creole Languages, the Language Bioprogram Hypothesis, and Language Acquisition -- I. Origins of the Hypothesis and Its Relevance to Acquisition -- II. Current Status of the LBH -- III. What the LBH Predicts for Acquisition -- IV. The Pace of Normal Syntactic Development -- V. The LBH versus Other Acquisition Theories -- VI. Conclusion -- References -- 7 Functionalist Accounts of the Process of First Language Acquisition -- I. History and Definitions: Functionalism in Linguistics -- A. Definitions -- B. Mathesius and the Prague School -- C. The Chomskyan Revolution -- D. Neofunctionalism in Linguistics -- II. Studies of Language Acquisition -- A. Semantic Analyses and Cognitivist Approaches -- B. Isolated Functionalist Analyses of First Language Acquisition Phenomena.

C. Bates and MacWhinney's Competition Model -- III. Recent Developments -- A. Silverstein's Critique of Functionalism in Language Acquisition Research -- B. The Mosaic Acquisition of Grammatical Relations -- IV. Conclusions -- References -- III SEMANTICS AND SYNTAX IN CHILD WORD LEARNING -- 8 Theories of Word Learning: Rationalist Alternatives to Associationism -- I. Introduction -- II. Associationist Theories of Word Learning -- A. Issue 1: The Nature of Word Meanings -- B. Issue 2: Establishing Word/Meaning Mappings -- III. Rationalist Perspectives -- A. Syntax as a Pointer to Conceptual Type -- B. Abstract Conceptual Types -- C. Intentionality -- IV. Conclusion -- Appendix: Determining the Syntactic Categories That Words Belong to -- References -- 9 The Role of Syntax in Verb Learning -- I. Insufficiency of Observation for Verb Learning -- II. More Power to Verb Learning -- A. Origins and Motivation -- B. Form-Meaning Interactions in Verb Learning -- III. The Zoom Lens Hypothesis -- IV. The Multiple Frames Hypothesis -- V. The Potency of Various Evidentiary Sources -- VI. How the Structures of Sentences Can Aid Vocabulary Acquisition -- A. Relation of Surface Syntax to Semantics -- References -- IV THE CHILD'S ACQUISITION OF PHONOLOGY AND PRAGMATICS -- 10 Child Phonology, Learnability, and Phonological Theory -- I. Learnability: The Logical versus Developmental Problem of Acquisition -- II. Some Issues in the Logical Problem of the Acquisition of Phonology -- A. The Abstractness Controversy -- B. Nonlinear Phonology -- C. Underspecification -- D. Principles and Parameters -- III. Some Issues in Developmental Phonology -- A. Methodological Problems in the Analysis of a Child Language -- B. Discrepancies between Production and Perception -- C. Models of the Organization of Child Phonology -- D. Phonological Development as Growth of Complexity.

E. Accounting for Stages of Development -- IV. Conclusion: The Fourth Dimension of Complexity -- References -- 11 The Development of Pragmatics: Learning to Use Language Appropriately -- I. Defining the Domain of Pragmatics -- A. Pragmatics versus Syntax and Semantics in Formal Models -- B. The Place of Pragmatics in Functionalist Models -- C. Pragmatics in Developmental Theories -- II. Developing Communicative Intents and Appropriate Ways of Expressing Them -- A. Prelinguistic Communicative Abilities -- B. Communicative Intents Expressed at the Preverbal Stage -- C. The Continuity Hypothesis -- D. Transitional Phenomena -- E. The Pragmatics of Early Single-Word Utterances -- F. Developmental Trends in the Expression of Communicative Intents in the Early Stages of Speech Use -- G. Individual Differences in the Earliest Speech Uses -- H. Developmental Course of Verbal Control of Speech Acts -- III. Development of Control over Conversational Rules -- A. Turn Taking -- B. Topic Selection and Maintenance -- C. Individual Differences in Conversational Skill -- IV. Learning to Be Polite -- V. Learning to Produce Connected Discourse -- A. Linguistic Devices That Maintain Cross-Utterance Cohesion -- B. Adaptations to the Audience -- C. Learning about Genres and Their Structure -- VI. Endpoint of Pragmatic Development -- References -- V RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND APPLICATIONS -- 12 Methodology in the Study of Language Acquisition: A Modular Approach -- I. Introduction -- II. Competing Models of the Language Processing System -- III. Strong Crossover -- IV. Null Subjects and the Output Omission Model -- V. Performance Errors versus Nonadult Grammars -- VI. Minimality and Modularity -- VII. Statistics and Competing Factors -- VIII. Inferences about Grammaticality -- IX. Conclusion.

13 How Do We Know What Children Know? Problems and Advances in Establishing Scientific Methods for the Study of Language Acquisition and Linguistic Theory -- I. Introduction -- The Structure of This Chapter -- II. Problems in Determining What Children Know -- A. What Is the Object of Inquiry? -- B. Relating Grammar and Behavior -- C. Indeterminacy of Language Data -- D. Variability in Estimating Linguistic Knowledge from Language Data -- III. Foundations for Theory of Research Methodology -- A. Resolving Theoretical Paradox -- B. Resolving Indeterminacy and Variability of Language Data -- C. Experimental Methods -- IV. Inferring What Children Know from Their Behavior on Tasks -- A. Current Advances in the Study of Natural Speech -- B. Experimental Test of Production: Elicited Imitation (EI) -- C. Experimental Test of Comprehension: Act Out (AO) -- D. Converging Evidence: Comparing the EI and AO Tasks -- V. Can Performance Be Bypassed? -- A. Reduced Behavior Methods -- B. Examples of Reduced Behavior (RB) Tasks -- C. Conclusions on Reduced Behavior Tasks -- D. Converging Evidence -- VI. Conclusion -- References -- 14 The CHILDES System -- I. Background -- II. The Database -- A. English Data -- B. Non-English Data -- C. Narrative Data -- D. Language Impairments -- E. Bilingual Acquisition Data -- F. Books -- G. Access to the Database -- H. Reformatting of the Database -- III. CHAT -- A. Key Features of CHAT -- B. How Much CHAT Does a User Need to Know? -- IV. CLAN -- A. CLAN for Lexical Analysis -- B. CLAN for Morphological Analysis -- C. CLAN for Syntactic Analysis -- D. CLAN for Discourse and Interactional Analyses -- E. CLAN for Phonological Analyses -- F. Utilities -- G. CHECK -- V. The Future -- References -- VI MODALITY AND THE LINGUISTIC ENVIRONMENT IN CHILD LANGUAGE -- 15 Input and Language Acquisition -- I. Three Metaphors.

II. Forms of Evidence.