The relationship between language and other aspects of conceptual development is one of the central issues in child language acquisition. One view holds that language is a special capacity, separate from other areas of cognition and learning. Another maintains that language is part of a larger, more general cognitive system, and is crucially dependent on other cognitive domains. Recent research has turned to blind children and their acquisition of language as a way of evaluating whether and how language development relies on the non-linguistic context. Vision and the Emergence of Meaning addresses this complex problem through a detailed empirical analysis of early language development in a group of blind, partially sighted and fully sighted children who took part in a pioneering longitudinal investigation at the University of Southern California. By exploring the strategies which blind children bring to selected aspects of the language learning task, Anne Dunlea not only identifies some important differences between blind and sighted children, but also offers new insights on semantic and pragmatic development in general. Further, the study demonstrates the role of conceptual information in language learning and, at a more fundamental level, reveals a convergence of early language and conceptual development.

This book deals with the question of how children exposed to two languages simultaneously from birth learn to speak those two languages. After a critical and comprehensive survey of most of the literature on the subject, the author concludes that empirically well-documented knowledge in this area is very scant indeed. The core of the book concerns a naturalistic study of a Dutch-English bilingual girl around the age of three. The study's main aim is to explore the nature of early bilingual morphosyntactic development. Detailed analyses of most aspects of this development show that a child who hears two separate languages spoken to her reflects this distinctness in the utterances she produces: each language is handled as a system in its own right. Furthermore, the young bilingual three-year-old greatly resembles her monolingual peers in either language. Both these findings, the author concludes, highlight the language-specific nature of the morphosyntactic development process. This book will interest linguists, psycholinguists, developmental psychologists, and child language specialists.

Ayhan Aksu-Koc's empirical research on Turkish children's acquisition of the past tense forms the basis for this original and important contribution to the current debate among psycholinguistics on the interrelationship between language and cognitive development. Turkish, in its grammar, makes a clear distinction between direct and indirect experiencing, separating personal observation of processes from both inference and narrative. This distinction thus provides an ideal means by which linguistic and nonlinguistic conceptual development can be observed. Dr Aksu-Koc has exploited this to full advantage in her broadly based longitudinal and cross-sectional study, conducted across a wide age range. The data are meticulously analyzed, and the theoretical implications for a neo-Piagetian paradigm are carefully considered.

This study examines the variation between children in early language development, focusing on their acquisition of the auxiliary verb. Learning auxiliary verbs and the syntactic and pragmatic functions with which they are associated is an essential component in the child's language development from an early stage. At the same time, children vary extensively in the age and stage at which auxiliaries emerge and also in the style and rate at which subsequent development takes place. Some aspects of this variation have been linked with the quality of interaction with the child's conversation partners, others with a tendency to acquire language holistically through unanalysed 'chunks'. Using data drawn both from the Bristol Longitudinal Study of Language Development and from independent case studies conducted in Wales, Dr Richards points to a number of important areas of variation between children, for example in sequence of syntactic development and in the relationship between pragmatic and syntactic factors, and raises a number of important methodological and theoretical issues, such as how to assess the level of unanalytical usage and how to measure real syntactic advance. By analysing relationships between input and auxiliary growth, the study attempts to resolve some of the inconsistencies in the results of previous studies which have included the auxiliary as a measure. The book will be of value to all those interested in language acquisition, whether linguists, psychologists, speech therapists or lecturers in nursery, infant and special education.

Dr. Dolittle-and many students of animal communication-are wrong: animals cannot use language. This fascinating book explains why. Can animals be taught a human language and use it to communicate? Or is human language unique to human beings, just as many complex behaviors of other species are uniquely theirs? This engrossing book explores communication and cognition in animals and humans from a linguistic point of view and asserts that animals are not capable of acquiring or using human language. Stephen R. Anderson explains what is meant by communication, the difference between communication and language, and the essential characteristics of language. Next he examines a variety of animal communication systems, including bee dances, frog vocalizations, bird songs, and alarm calls and other vocal, gestural, and olfactory communication among primates. Anderson then compares these to human language, including signed languages used by the deaf. Arguing that attempts to teach human languages or their equivalents to the great apes have not succeeded in demonstrating linguistic abilities in nonhuman species, he concludes that animal communication systems-intriguing and varied though they may be-do not include all the essential properties of human language. Animals can communicate, but they can't talk.

A considerable proportion of our everyday language is 'formulaic'. It is predictable in form, idiomatic, and seems to be stored in fixed, or semi-fixed, chunks. This book explores the nature and purposes of formulaic language, and looks for patterns across the research findings from the fields of discourse analysis, first language acquisition, language pathology and applied linguistics. It gradually builds up a unified description and explanation of formulaic language as a linguistic solution to a larger, non-linguistic, problem, the promotion of self. The book culminates in a new model of lexical storage, which accommodates the curiosities of non-native and aphasic speech. Parallel analytic and holistic processing strategies are the proposed mechanism which reconciles, on the one hand, our capacity for understanding and producing novel constructions using grammatical knowledge and small lexical units, and on the other, our use of prefabricated material which, though less flexible, also requires less processing.

Language plays an essential role in how we portray our personalities. Through social interaction, others develop a picture of us based on our linguistic cues. However, when we interact in a foreign language and in a new country, limitations in linguistic and cultural knowledge can make self-presentation a more difficult task. This book explores the problems faced by language students embarking on 'study abroad' programmes, spending time in a foreign country and having to interact - and express their personalities - in a second language. Drawing on her extensive work with students, Valerie Pellegrino Aveni explores the factors that complicate self-presentation and the strategies students use for overcoming these, looking in particular at issues of anxiety, control, age, gender, risk-taking and self-esteem. Offering rich insights into the study abroad experience, this book will be an invaluable resource for professionals in second language acquisition, and for teachers and students preparing for study abroad.

Language plays an essential role in how we portray our personalities. Through social interaction, others develop a picture of us based on our linguistic cues. However, when we interact in a foreign language and in a new country, limitations in linguistic and cultural knowledge can make self-presentation a more difficult task. This book explores the problems faced by language students embarking on 'study abroad' programmes, spending time in a foreign country and having to interact - and express their personalities - in a second language. Drawing on her extensive work with students, Valerie Pellegrino Aveni explores the factors that complicate self-presentation and the strategies students use for overcoming these, looking in particular at issues of anxiety, control, age, gender, risk-taking and self-esteem. Offering rich insights into the study abroad experience, this book will be an invaluable resource for professionals in second language acquisition, and for teachers and students preparing for study abroad.

This book presents a comprehensive study of how children acquire complex sentences. Drawing on observational data from English-speaking children aged 2 to 5, Holger Diessel investigates the acquisition of infinitival and participial complement clauses, finite complement clauses, finite and nonfinite relative clauses, adverbial clauses, and coordinate clauses. His investigation shows that the development of complex sentences originates from simple non-embedded sentences and that two different developmental pathways can be distinguished: complex sentences including complement and relative clauses evolve from simple sentences that are gradually expanded to multiple-clause constructions, and complex sentences including adverbial and coordinate clauses develop from simple sentences that are integrated in a specific biclausal unit. He argues that the acquisition process is determined by a variety of factors: the frequency of the various complex sentences in the ambient language, the semantic and syntactic complexity of the emerging constructions, the communicative functions of complex sentences, and the social-cognitive development of the child.

This book presents six new studies on identity construction in the speech of older adolescents and young adults learning French. It takes a sociolinguistic approach to acquisition. First language sociolinguistic research has shown that identity construction is particularly intense during adolescence and young adulthood, and language use has been found to be an especially key resource in this dynamic construction. The contributors examine the language practices of L2, L3 and L4 speakers in multilingual and multicultural societies in Ireland, Canada, Belgium and France in order to demonstrate their use in identity construction. Several contexts of language acquisition for multilingual speakers are examined and compared, including formal and naturalistic settings for acquisition and learning. The book also investigates the speech of learners at upper-intermediate and advanced stages of acquisition of French to provide a holistic view of the way individuals use the language resources available to them to stake a claim to a new multilingual identity in their target language networks. The papers in this book combine qualitative and quantitative data on French speech and the context in which it occurs to provide detailed pictures of the co-construction of identity and complex speech patterns by multilingual speakers of French.

This volume investigates the linguistic development of children with regard to their knowledge of the verb and its grammar. The selection of papers brings to researchers and in particular psycholinguists empirical evidence from a wide variety of languages from Hebrew, through English to Estonian. The authors interpret their findings with a focus on cross-linguistic similarities and differences, without subscribing to either a UG-based or usage-based approach.

Combining the World Englishes framework with First Language Acquisition methodology, this book investigates children's acquisition of L1 English in the context of multilingual Singapore, one of the traditional Kachruvian Outer Circle or ESL countries. The book investigates language choice, use, and dominance in Singaporean families, identifies common linguistic characteristics of L1 Singapore English, as well as the acquisitional route that Singaporean children take. It discusses characteristics at the different levels of language organization, i.e., phonological, morphosyntactic, lexical, and pragmatic features, drawing on a variety of systematically elicited data and Praat-based acoustic analyses. Comparing the results to similar data obtained from children living in England (both mono- and bi-/multilingual), the book also sheds light on how the acquisitional steps taken by Singaporean children differ from or are similar to traditional native speakers of English and children from immigrant families in England.

Jim Miller and Regina Weinert investigate syntactic structure and the organization of discourse in spontaneous spoken language. Using data from English, German, and Russian, they develop a systematic analysis of spoken English and highlight properties that hold across languages.
The authors argue that the differences in syntax and the construction of discourse between spontaneous speech and written language bear on various areas of linguistic theory, apart from having obvious implications for syntactic analysis. In particular, they bear on typology, Chomskyan theories of first language acquisition, and the perennial problem of language in education. In current typological practice written and spontaneous spoken texts are often compared; the authors show convincingly that typological research should compare like with like. The consequences for Chomskyan, and indeed all, theories of first language acquisition flow from the central fact that children first learn spoken language before they are taught written language.

Beyond Yellow English is the first edited volume to examine issues of language, identity, and culture among the rapidly growing Asian Pacific American (APA) population. The distinguished contributors-who represent a broad range of perspectives from anthropology, sociolinguistics, English, and education-focus on the analysis of spoken interaction and explore multiple facets of the APA experience. Authors cover topics such as media representations of APAs; codeswitching and language crossing; and narratives of ethnic identity. The collection examines the experiences of Asian Pacific Americans of different ethnicities, generations, ages, and geographic locations across home, school, community, and performance sites.

This ground breaking research explores language maintenance and shift focusing on a school community. Following students' language practice inside and outside of school, the author offers a full picture of students' multilingual practices and their role in shaping identity. Using case studies of eight girls from Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds, the book draws on data from questionnaires, interviews and ethnographic observation to bring these language practices to life. It explores the place of heritage languages, English and other languages in the girls' repertoires and investigates the role they see for these languages in their lives. A key focus of the book is the role of the school environment in shaping students' repertoires and unfolding sense of ethnic identity; both directly through formal instruction and indirectly through its ethos and social composition. It provides practical suggestions on the basis of extensive research for how schools can negotiate some of the challenges of catering to a multiethnic population. Essential reading for anyone researching migrant language practice, sociolinguistics or multicultural education.

This volume provides an integrative review of the emerging and increasing use of network science techniques in cognitive psychology, first developed in mathematics, computer science, sociology, and physics. The first resource on network science for cognitive psychologists in a growing international market, Vitevitch and a team of expert contributors provide a comprehensive and accessible overview of this cutting-edge topic. This innovative guide draws on the three traditional pillars of cognitive psychological research-experimental, computational, and neuroscientific-and incorporates the latest findings from neuroimaging. The network perspective is applied to the fundamental domains of cognitive psychology including memory, language, problem-solving, and learning, as well as creativity and human intelligence, highlighting the insights to be gained through applying network science to a wide range of approaches and topics in cognitive psychology Network Science in Cognitive Psychology will be essential reading for all upper-level cognitive psychology students, psychological researchers interested in using network science in their work, and network scientists interested in investigating questions related to cognition. It will also be useful for early career researchers and students in methodology and related courses.

Spatial orientation and direction are core areas of human and animal thinking. But, unlike animals, human populations vary considerably in their spatial thinking. Revealing that these differences correlate with language (which is probably mostly responsible for the different cognitive styles), this book includes many cross-cultural studies investigating spatial memory, reasoning, types of gesture and wayfinding abilities. It explains the relationship between language and cognition and cross-cultural differences in thinking to students of language and the cognitive sciences.

Spatial orientation and direction are core areas of human and animal thinking. But, unlike animals, human populations vary considerably in their spatial thinking. Revealing that these differences correlate with language (which is probably mostly responsible for the different cognitive styles), this book includes many cross-cultural studies investigating spatial memory, reasoning, types of gesture and wayfinding abilities. It explains the relationship between language and cognition and cross-cultural differences in thinking to students of language and the cognitive sciences.

This authoritative textbook is an overview and analysis of current second language acquisition research, conducted within the generative linguistic framework. It argues for a role for Universal Grammar in second language acquisition. Theories as to the role of Universal Grammar and the extent of language transfer are presented along with relevant empirical research. Properties of early developmental stage grammars are examined, as well as the nature of the final outcome of the acquisition process.

This book critically examines South Korean English teachers' awareness of and attitude towards eight varieties of English and how they respond to the proposal of a World Englishes approach in their teaching practice. It showcases the deeply rooted favouritism towards American English and illustrates how relevant challenges arising from this attitude can be addressed to meet the changing needs of future participants in international contexts. This book argues that disclosing and questioning the hidden discursive practices embedded in the English education policy in South Korea may be the first step in raising awareness of and in changing negative attitudes towards embracing diversified Englishes. The findings are systemically discussed in relation to the implications that researching awareness and attitude has for pedagogical considerations and for teacher training. This book aims to contribute to the field of WE, where studies relating to the South Korean context are largely limited.

Mimetic words, also known as 'sound-symbolic words', 'ideophones' or more popularly as 'onomatopoeia', constitute an important subset of the Japanese lexicon; we find them as well in the lexicons of other Asian languages and sub-Saharan African languages. Mimetics play a central role in Japanese grammar and feature in children's early utterances. However, this class of words is not considered as important in English and other European languages. This book aims to bridge the gap between the extensive research on Japanese mimetics and its availability to an international audience, and also to provide a better understanding of grammatical and structural aspects of sound-symbolic words from a Japanese perspective. Through the accounts of mimetics from the perspectives of morpho-syntax, semantics, language development and translation of mimetic words, linguists and students alike would find this book particularly valuable.

In this volume leading researchers present new work on the semantics and pragmatics of adjectives and adverbs, and their interfaces with syntax. Its concerns include the semantics of gradability; the relationship between adjectival scales and verbal aspect; the relationship between meaning and the positions of adjectives and adverbs in nominal and verbal projections; and the fine-grained semantics of different subclasses of adverbs and adverbs. Its goals are to provide a comprehensive vision of the linguistically significant structural and interpretive properties of adjectives and adverbs, to highlight the similarities between these two categories, and to signal the importance of a careful and detailed integration of lexical and compositional semantics.
The editors open the book with an overview of current research before introducing and contextualizing the remaining chapters. The work is aimed at scholars and advanced students of syntax, semantics, formal pragmatics, and discourse. It will also appeal to researchers in philosophy, psycholinguistics, and language acquisition interested in the syntax and semantics of adjectives and adverbs.

Psycholinguist Maya Hickmann presents an original comparative study of discourse development in English, French, German, and Chinese. Hickmann discusses the main theoretical issues in the study of first language acquisition and provides a wide review of available studies in three domains of child language: person, space and time. Her findings concern the rhythm of language acquisition, its formal and functional determinants, and its universal vs. language-specific aspects. The conclusions stress the importance of relating sentence and discourse determinants of acquisition in a crosslinguistic perspective.

This volume is a concise introduction to the lively ongoing debate between formalist and functionalist approaches to the study of language. The book grounds its comparisons between the two in both historical and contemporary contexts where, broadly speaking, formalists' focus on structural relationships and idealized linguistic data contrasts with functionalists' commitment to analyzing real language used as a communicative tool. The book highlights key sub-varieties, proponents, and critiques of each respective approach. It concludes by comparing formalist versus functionalist contributions in three domains of linguistic research: in the analysis of specific grammatical constructions; in the study of language acquisition; and in interdisciplinary research on the origins of language. Taken together, the volume opens insight into an important tension in linguistic theory, and provides students and scholars with a more nuanced understanding of the structure of the discipline of modern linguistics.

Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South provides an original appraisal of the latest innovations and challenges in applied linguistics from the perspective of the Global South. Global South perspectives are encapsulated in struggles for basic, economic, political and social transformation in an inequitable world, and are not confined to the geographical South. Taking a critical perspective on Southern theories, demonstrating why it is important to view the world from Southern perspectives and why such positions must be open to critical investigation, this book: charts the impacts of these theories on approaches to multilingualism, language learning, language in education, literacy and diversity, language rights and language policy; provides broad historical and geographical understandings of the movement towards a Southern perspective and draws on Indigenous and Southern ways of thinking that challenge mainstream viewpoints; seeks to develop alternative understandings of applied linguistics, expand the intellectual repertoires of the discipline, and challenge the complicities between applied linguistics, colonialism, and capitalism. Written by two renowned scholars in the field, Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South is key reading for advanced students and researchers of applied linguistics, multilingualism, language and education, language policy and planning, and language and identity.