Pragmatic Development in First Language Acquisition: (10 Trends in Language Acquisition Research)

Pragmatic development is increasingly seen as the foundation stone of language acquisition more generally. From very early on, children demonstrate a strong desire to understand and be understood that motivates the acquisition of lexicon and grammar and enables ever more effective communication. In the 35 years since the first edited volume on the topic, a flourishing literature has reported on the broad set of skills that can be called pragmatic. This volume aims to bring that literature together in a digestible format. It provides a series of succinct review chapters on 19 key topics ranging from preverbal skills right up to irony and argumentative discourse. Each chapter equips the reader with an overview of current theories, key empirical findings and questions for new research. This valuable resource will be of interest to scholars of psychology, linguistics, speech therapy, and cognitive science.

Table of Contents:
1. Introduction: An overview of research on pragmatic development (by Matthews, Danielle); 2. The communicative infant from 0-18 months: The social-cognitive foundations of pragmatic development (by Stephens, Gemma); 3. The development of speech acts (by Cameron-Faulkner, Thea); 4. Turn-taking (by Casillas, Marisa); 5. Conversation Analysis and pragmatic development (by Filipi, Anna); 6. Ontogenetic Constraints on Grice's Theory of Communication (by Moore, Richard); 7. Two Pragmatic Principles in Language Use and Acquisition (by Clark, Eve V.); 8. Learning conventions and conventionality through conversation (by Callanan, Maureen A.); 9. The pragmatics of word learning (by Grassmann, Susanne); 10. The production and comprehension of referring expressions (by Graf, Eileen); 11. Scalar Implicature (by Katsos, Napoleon); 12. Children's pragmatic use of prosodic prominence (by Ito, Kiwako); 13. The Pragmatic Development of Humor (by Hoicka, Elena); 14. "The elevator's buttocks": Metaphorical abilities in children (by Pouscoulous, Nausicaa); 15. Irony production and comprehension (by Filippova, Eva); 16. Narrative Development across Cultural Contexts: Finding the Pragmatic in Parent-Child Reminiscing (by Carmiol, Ana M.); 17. Children's understanding of linguistic expressions of certainty and evidentiality (by Matsui, Tomoko); 18. Crosslinguistic and crosscultural approaches to pragmatic development (by Kuntay, Aylin C.); 19. Atypical pragmatic development (by Norbury, Courtenay Frazier); 20. Assessing pragmatic language functioning in young children: Its importance and challenges (by O'Neill, Daniela K.); 21. Developmental pragmatics: Interdisciplinary perspectives on complex learning in everyday practice (by Budwig, Nancy); 22. Index

Review :
An excellent collection of up-to-date papers on pragmatic competence as the root of language acquisition – and as its fullest flowering as well.