Featuring a multi-disciplinary approach—and chapters written by outstanding scholars known for their expertise in the areas they discuss—The Development of Language focuses on language acquisition throughout the lifespan, with new coverage of linguistic achievements in the first year of life and through the middle school years. It examines what we know about language development using biological, social, and cultural contexts, while also investigating individual differences, atypical development, literacy, and language development in adults. Each chapter is written by world-renowned scholars and cutting-edge researchers, and each chapter provides a helpful summary, list of key words, a comprehensive text glossary explaining each term, and extensive links to video resources that help bring the concepts to clarity, through examples of child communication behaviors, insights into how research into child language is conducted, and first person interviews with influential researchers in the field.
The new edition emphasizes language development in children who are learning languages other than English or are bilingual and includes new information about children with risk factors for language delay or disorder. Within each topical area, such as speech production, vocabulary, syntax, pragmatics, and literacy, the authors integrate discussion of potential problems or differences in how children learn the various aspects of language. Cultural influences that lead to group and individual variation in children’s language environments and profiles of language development are addressed throughout.
Table of Contents:
1 THE DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE: An Overview and a Preview 1
Jean Berko Gleason, Boston University
An Overview of the Course of Language Development 2
Communication Development in Infancy 2
Phonological Development: Learning Sounds and Sound Patterns 2
Semantic Development: Learning the Meanings of Words 2
Putting Words Together: Morphology and Syntax in the
Preschool Years 3
Language in Social Contexts: Development of Communicative Competence 3
Theoretical Approaches to Language Acquisition 4
Variation in Language Development: Implications for Research and Theory 4
Atypical Language Development 5
Language and Literacy in the School Years 5
Bilingual Language Development 6
The Structure of Language: Learning the System 6
Competence and Performance 6
Phonology 7
Morphology 7
Syntax 8
Semantics 8
The Social Rules for Language Use 9
The Biological Bases of Language 9
Animal Communication Systems 9
The Biological Base: Humans, Ancient and Modern 14
The Study of Language Development 18
Interest in Language Acquisition in Ancient Times 18
Studies in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries 18
Research in the Modern Era 19
Research Methods 20
Childes 23
Summary 23
Suggested Projects 25
2 COMMUNICATION DEVELOPMENT IN INFANCY 26
Rochelle S. Newman, University of Maryland, College Park
Perceptual “Tuning” to Speech 27
Segmentation 28
Statistical Learning 29
Early Communicative Attempts 30
The Expression of Communicative Intent before Speech 31
Characteristics of Intentional Communication 31
The Forms and Functions of Early Communicative Behaviors 32
The Assessment of Communicative Intent 33
The Social Context of the Preverbal Infant 34
The Sound of the Caregiver’s Speech: “Listen to Me!” 35
The Conversational Nature of the Caregiver’s Speech: “Talk to Me!” 36
Contexts for the Emergence of Object Reference: “Look at That!” 38
Talk in Structured Situations: “Here’s What We Say” 39
First Words 40
Enhancing Early Development: A Summary 40
When Learning to Communicate Is Difficult 41
Summary 43
Suggested Projects 44
3 PHONOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT: Learning Sounds and Sound Patterns 45
Carol Stoel-Gammon, University of Washington
Lise Menn, University of Colorado
English Speech Sounds and Sound Patterns 45
IPA Symbols for Consonants 45
Classifying Consonants 46
Place of Articulation 47
Manner of Articulation 47
Voicing 48
Classifying Vowels 48
Contrast: The Phoneme 49
Phonotactics: Constraints on Possible Words 49
Prosodic Aspects of Speech: Stress and Intonation Contour 49
Production: The Prelinguistic Period 49
Sounds of Babbling 50
The Relationship between Babbling and Speech 51
Learning to Make Words 51
The Beginning of Phonological Development: Protowords 51
Words and Sounds: Vocabulary and Phonology Interact 52
A Cognitive Approach to the Acquisition of Phonology 53
Learning to Pronounce 54
How Real Children Pronounce Words 54
How to Describe Regularity in Children’s Renditions of Adult Words 55
Rules, Templates, and Strategies 58
Phonological Development: Norms and Measures 60
Phonetic Inventories of Young Children 60
Accuracy of Production 61
Ages and Stages of Acquisition 62
When Phonological Development Is Difficult 63
Phonological Disorders of Unknown Etiology 63
Articulation and Phonological Disorders Associated with Identifiable Causes 64
Effects of a Phonological/Articulation Disorder 66
The Acquisition of English Morphophonology 66
Parents’ Role in Phonological Development 67
Phonological Awareness and Reading Readiness 67
Language Variation in the United States: Languages, Dialects, and Speech Styles 67
Spanish in the United States 68
Consonants of (Mexican) Spanish, by Manner Class 69
Regional and Ethnic Dialectal Differences in English 70
Pronunciation in Conversational Speech 71
Summary 72
Child Phonology Problems 73
Suggested Projects 75
Suggested Websites 76
4 SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT: Learning the Meanings of Words 77
Paola Uccelli, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Meredith L. Rowe, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Barbara Alexander Pan, Harvard Graduate School of Education
The Relations between Words and Their Referents 78
Mental Images 79
Theoretical Perspectives on Semantic Development 80
Learning Theory 80
Developmental Theories 81
Fast Mapping 82
The Study of Early Semantic Development 83
What Are Early Words Like? 84
Unconventional Word/Meaning Mappings 87
Invented Words 88
Differences between Comprehension and Production 89
How Adult Speech Influences Children’s Semantic Development 89
Individual Differences in Vocabulary Development: Home and School Factors 92
Vocabulary Development and Assessment in Bilingual Children 93
Later Semantic Development 95
Connections between Research and Practice 96
Metalinguistic Development 97
Word-Concept Awareness 98
Word-Meaning Awareness: Humor, Metaphor, and Irony 98
Word Definitions 100
When Learning New Words Is Difficult 100
A Life-Long Enterprise 102
Summary 102
Suggested Projects 103
5 PUTTING WORDS TOGETHER: Comprehension and Production of Morphology and Syntax in the Preschool Years 104
Andrea Zukowski, University of Maryland, College Park
Children’s Early Comprehension of Syntax 105
Studying Syntactic Development 106
Entering the Complex Linguistic System 107
Two-Word Utterances 108
Telegraphic Speech 109
Semantic Relations 110
Early Grammar 110
The Nature of Syntactic Rules 111
Measuring Syntactic Growth 116
Developing Grammatical Morphemes 119
Brown’s 14 Morphemes 119
Order of Acquisition 120
Optional Infinitives 121
Productivity of Children’s Morphology 122
Crosslinguistic Data 123
Different Sentence Modalities 124
Negatives 124
Questions 125
Later Developments in Preschoolers 127
Passives 127
Coordinations 129
Relative Clauses 129
Beyond the Preschool Years 131
Anaphora 131
Interpreting “Empty” Subjects in Infinitive Clauses 132
Knowledge versus Processing 132
Summary 134
Suggested Projects 134
6 LANGUAGE IN SOCIAL CONTEXTS: Development of Communicative Competence 137
Judith Becker Bryant, University of South Florida
Language in Social Contexts 138
Non-egocentric Language 139
Requests 140
Conversational Skills 141
Choices among Language Varieties 143
The Challenge of Acquiring Communicative Competence 146
How Do Children Acquire Communicative Competence? 147
Family Influences 147
Schools’ and Peers’ Influence 151
Children’s Cognitions and Efforts to Achieve Communicative Competence 152
Why Does Communicative Competence Matter? 155
Summary 157
Suggested Projects 157
7 THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE ACQUISITION 158
John N. Bohannon III, Butler University
John D. Bonvillian, University of Virginia
Distinguishing Features of Theoretical Approaches 158
Structuralism versus Functionalism 159
Competence versus Performance 159
Nativism versus Empiricism 159
Evaluating Research Methods 160
Classic Behavioral Approaches 160
General Assumptions 160
Behavioral Language Learning 161
Evaluation of the Behavioral Approaches 163
Linguistic Approaches 164
General Assumptions 164
LAD and Development 166
Evaluation of the Linguistic Approaches 167
Interactionist Approaches 172
General Assumptions 172
Cognitive Approaches: Piaget’s Theory and Information-Processing Models 172
Information-Processing Approach 176
Social Interaction Approach 180
Gestural and Usage-Based Approach 187
Gestural and Sign Origins 187
Usage-Based Theory 190
Evaluation of Gestural and Usage-Based Theory 191
Summary 192
Suggested Projects 194
8 VARIATION IN LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT: Implications for Research and Theory 196
Beverly A. Goldfield, Rhode Island College
Catherine E. Snow, Harvard Graduate School of Education
Ingrid A. Willenberg, Australian Catholic University
The History of Variation in Child Language Research 197
Variation in Early Words 198
Segmenting the Speech Stream 199
Variation in Early Sentences 201
Stability of Style across Words and Sentences 202
Sources of Variation 204
Child Factors 204
Input Factors 205
Socioeconomic Status 206
Linguistic Factors 208
Bilingual Language Learners 209
Context: The Interaction of Child, Caregiver, and Language 211
Implications of Variation for Theories of Language Acquisition 212
Summary 213
Suggested Projects 214
9 ATYPICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT 215
Nan Bernstein Ratner, University of Maryland, College Park
What Causes Atypical Language Development? 216
Communicative Development and Severe Hearing Impairment 217
Language Development 219
Lexical Development 220
Grammatical Development 220
Reading and Writing Skills 220
Pragmatic Skills 221
Educational Approaches to the Development of Language in Children Who Are Deaf 221
Acquisition of ASL as a First Language 223
Teaching Sign Language to Typically Developing and Developmentally Delayed Babies with Typical Hearing Skills 223
Sign Language and the Brain 224
Are You at Risk for Hearing Impairment? 224
Intellectual Disability and Communicative Development 224
Cognitive Disability and the Language-Acquisition Process 224
Language Development 227
Teaching Language to Children with Intellectual Disability 229
Autism Spectrum Disorder 230
General Characteristics 230
Causation 232
Specific Social and Communicative Weaknesses in Autism Spectrum Disorder 233
Language 234
Echolalia 234
Treatment 235
Specific Language Impairment 239
General Identity and Prevalence 239
Language Profiles of Children with Specific Language Impairment 239
Lexicon 240
Morphosyntax 241
Pragmatics 243
Concomitant Problems 244
Causative Explanations 244
Models of SLI 245
Is SLI Universal? 247
Language Intervention with Children Who Are Specifically Language Impaired 247
Atypical Speech Development 250
Childhood Stuttering 251
Evaluation of Suspected Speech and Language Disorders in Children 252
Summary 253
Suggested Projects 255
10 LANGUAGE AND LITERACY IN THE SCHOOL YEARS 257
Gigliana Melzi, New York University
Adina R. Schick, New York University
Learning to Share Oral Stories 259
Sharing Oral Stories at Home 259
Oral Stories across Cultures and in Different Languages 263
Sharing Oral Stories in the Classroom 264
Playing with Language and Using Verbal Humor 266
Beyond Language Play: Types of Metalinguistic Knowledge 267
Developing Metalinguistic Awareness in Two Languages 269
Learning to Read 270
Engaging with Print at Home and in the Community 270
Reading Components 273
Reading Development 274
Approaches to Reading Instruction 275
Learning to Read in a Second Language 277
When Learning to Read Is Difficult 277
Learning to Write 279
Development of Spelling 279
Developing Writing Skills across Genres 280
Learning to Write in a Second Language 282
Summary 283
Suggested Projects 283
11 BILINGUAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT 285
L. Quentin Dixon, Texas A&M University
Jing Zhao, Sun Yat-sen University/Harvard Graduate School of Education
Perspectives on Bilingual Language Development 287
The Child Language Perspective: Input and Interaction as Factors in Bilingual Acquisition 287
The Linguistic Perspective 287
The Sociocultural Perspective 289
The Psycholinguistic Perspective 290
Key Questions in Bilingual Language Development 290
Q1: What Are the Best Conditions for Acquiring Two Languages? 290
Q2: Are You Ever Too Old to Learn a Second Language? 293
Q3: Why Are Some People Better at Learning a New Language than Others? 294
Q4: How Much Does Bilingual Development Resemble Monolingual Development? 296
Q5: Is It Possible to Become a Perfect Bilingual? 299
Q6: Is Bilingualism an Advantage or Disadvantage? 301
When Learning a Second Language Is Difficult 304
Summary 305
Suggested Projects 306
References 308
Glossary 369
Name Index 383
Subject Index 398
About the Author :
Jean Berko Gleason, PhD. is one of the world’s leading experts on children’s language and one of the founding mothers of the field of psycholinguistics. She created the famous “Wug Test”, which reveals how children learn the rules of language, such as how to make singular words plural. Her current work investigates parents’ speech and the interactive nature of language acquisition. She is the author of leading textbooks in her field and many influential studies of aphasia, language development, gender differences in language, and language in the Roma community in Hungary.
Dr. Berko Gleason is Professor Emerita in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Boston University. A member of the Academy of Aphasia, she is past president of the International Association for the Study of Child Language and of the Gypsy Lore Society, and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Her classic work in child language development is frequently cited in the professional literature and featured in the popular media. She is a featured scientist in the award-winning PBS online Nova Science Now series The Secret Life of Scientists.
Nan Bernstein Ratner, Ed.D., C.C.C. is Professor, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland at College Park and participating faculty in the Maryland Language Sciences Center and Program in Neuroscience and Cognitive Neuroscience, and a Board-Recognized Specialist in Child Language and Language Disorders. Dr. Bernstein Ratner is the editor of numerous volumes, and author of numerous chapters and articles addressing language acquisition and fluency in children. Many of her research reports can be found in the Journal of Speech and Hearing Research and other major journals, with chapters in major texts on child speech and language development. With Jean Berko Gleason, Dr. Bernstein Ratner is the author of the text Psycholinguistics as well as prior editions of The Development of Language. In 2014, Dr. Bernstein Ratner received the Honors of the American Speech-Language Hearing Association; she was made a Psychology Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2015.
