Language Acquisition: Studies in First Language Development

The aim of the first edition of Language Acquisition was to provide as comprehensive a description and explanation as possible of the changes in the child's language as he or she grows older. In this second edition Paul Fletcher and Michael Garman have the same fundamental aim. Six years later the field has not changed dramatically, but there have been fruitful theoretical developments - the learnability hypothesis, in particular, has been influentially expounded - and empirical work seeking evidence of specific language capacities in children has made notable advances. Equally significant are shifts in emphasis: the growing interest in cross-linguistic studies, for example, or accounts of language development of reading and writing. All these changes are reflected in the second edition. About half the chapters are entirely new, having been specially commissioned for this edition. The remainder of the book consists of substantially revised versions of chapters from the first edition. Like its predecessor, this collection is the work of distinguished specialists from many countries and will provide an invaluable resource for students and professionals alike who have an interest in the field of child language acquisition.

Table of Contents:
Preface; Part I. Contexts and Determinants: 1. Psychosocial aspects of language acquisition Maya Hickmann; 2. Language acquisition and cognition Robin N. Campbell; 3. Language acquisition and linguistic theory Helen Goodluck; 4. Conversations with children Catherine E. Snow; 5. Learnability Martin Atkinson; 6. Variation in child language Gordon Wells; Part II. The Development of Linguistic Systems: Phonology: 7. Prespeech segmental feature development Rachel E. Stark; 8. Prosodic development David Crystal; 9. Early strategies for the perception and production of words and sounds Paula Menyuk, Lise Menn and Ronnie Silber; 10. Phonological development: production David Ingram; 11. Speech perception and the emergent lexicon: an ethological approach John L. Locke; 12. Phonological development: a crosslinguistic perspective Marlys A. Macken; Part III. The Development of Linguistic Systems: Grammar: 13. Early vocabulary Patrick Griffiths; 14. Early syntax Ann M. Peters; 15. Assessing morphological development Bruce L. Derwing and William J. Baker; 16. Personal pronouns Shulamuth Chiat; 17. Tense and aspect Richard M. Weist; 18. Modality Ursula Stephany; 19. Deixis Roger Wales; 20. A crosslinguistic perspective: morphology and syntax Ruth A. Berman; Part IV. Later Language Development: 21. Some fundamental aspects of language development after age 5 Annette Karmiloff-Smith; 22. The development of reading: the acquisition of a cognitive skill Philip T. Smith; 23. Language acquisition and writing Katherine Perera; Notes to chapters; Bibliography and citation index; General index.