Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research

Editors
ORCID logoElma Blom | University of Amsterdam
ORCID logoSharon Unsworth | Utrecht University
HardboundAvailable
ISBN 9789027219961 | EUR 105.00 | USD 158.00
 
PaperbackAvailable
ISBN 9789027219978 | EUR 36.00 | USD 54.00
 
e-Book
ISBN 9789027287953 | EUR 105.00/36.00*
| USD 158.00/54.00*
 
Google Play logo
Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research provides students and researchers interested in language acquisition with comprehensible and practical information on the most frequently used methods in language acquisition research. It includes contributions on first and child/adult second language learners, language-impaired children, and on the acquisition of both spoken and signed language. Part I discusses specific experimental methods, explaining the rationale behind each one, and providing an overview of potential participants, the procedure and data-analysis, as well as advantages and disadvantages and dos and don’ts. Part II focuses on comparisons across groups, addressing the theoretical, applied and methodological issues involved in such comparative work. This book will not only be of use to advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, but also to any scholars wishing to learn more about a particular research method. It is suitable as a textbook in postgraduate programs in the fields of linguistics, education and psychology.
[Language Learning & Language Teaching, 27] 2010.  vii, 292 pp.
Publishing status: Available
Table of Contents
“This book is an excellent manual for the language acquisition researcher, and would constitute an ideal reader for courses on experimental methodology in acquisition research. It provides a rich and extensive overview of various methods that have been used in the field of language acquisition, and offers, in a very practical fashion, the advantages and disadvantages of each method. The target audience is meant to include both beginner and experienced researchers; in this respect, it certainly succeeds as advertised. For the beginner researcher, the book provides an excellent introduction and overview of some commonly used methodologies, and very helpfully explains the appropriateness of each method; for the experienced researcher, the book rises to the occasion in providing a refresher on relevant methodologies. The greatest contribution of the book is that it compiles extremely useful and relevant information on various methodologies within a single source.
In covering as much as it does, however, one should note that the book is (naturally) somewhat limited in the amount of detail provided for each methodology. This book is in essence a handbook, and while it provides extremely useful and relevant information in a readily and easily accessible form, it is not meant to provide exhaustive coverage of all the details behind each methodology. For that, one must look to additional sources. It is a merit of the book, however, that each article does indeed point the reader to plentiful other sources, which include not only methodologically-oriented works that offer more focused detail about the methods themselves, but also numerous previous acquisition studies that have made use of the methods in question. These references are provided throughout the discussion in each chapter, as well as in extensive reference sections at the end of each chapter. The book, then, provides an excellent basis of knowledge, but ultimately must direct the reader to other sources for further detail.
Another limitation that arises from its conciseness as a handbook is that in many places it does not provide more detailed examples of experimental conditions. Each chapter does a good job of adequately describing the relevant procedures, but one must look to the references cited therein to see exactly how one would apply the method described (e.g. for examples of particular test items, instructions to participants, picture stimuli, dialogues, etc.). Each chapter adequately describes in prose various methodological points pertaining to relevant procedures, but it would have been helpful in many places to see an example of an actual test condition. These are not completely absent from the book, however; Sorace's chapter on magnitude estimation, for example, offers an example set of instructions that walks the reader through the crucial components of the experimental set-up, from the calibration session, to the practice session, to the actual test session (pp. 63-65). Such an explicit example offers the reader a very helpful ''tour'' of the method, demonstrating very clearly how to apply the various methodological points raised throughout the rest of the chapter. Another helpful example is found in Johnson and Zamuner's chapter on methods of infant testing, where the authors provide graphs depicting idealized data sets, which allow the reader to visualize target differences between conditions.
A notable merit of the book is that it does not restrict itself to any particular theoretical approach to language, and moreover, the methods that it covers collectively address research in a very broad range of linguistic subfields and research topics, including (but not restricted to): phonological development, grammatical feature specification, binding principles, grammatical agreement, morphology, quantifier interpretation, optionality, language attrition, language contact, word learning, phonotactic sensitivity, phonemic contrasts, auditory processing, lexical/semantic/syntactic processing, reference, ambiguity resolution, pragmatics, pronoun/anaphora resolution, etc. As such, almost any language acquisition researcher will find some issue of interest in the volume.
In short, this volume succeeds in its goal of providing students and researchers with very helpful and hands-on information about frequently used experimental methods in language acquisition research.”
“Language acquisition researchers should ideally be able to explore their questions with whichever methods are best suited to the problem at hand. Fortunately, recent years have witnessed huge growth in the diversity and sophistication of the experimental tools available for developmental research, including different on-line methods, electrophysiological procedures, and techniques for working with very young children. But this creates the challenge of how to master these exciting new methods. Blom and Unsworth have succeeded in gathering a treasure trove of valuable information on language acquisition methods, which will prove indispensable for novice and experienced researchers alike. The shared format of the different chapters makes them particularly easy to read, and it is fascinating to read the collections of pros, cons, and "dos and don'ts" that conclude each chapter. In addition to helping researchers who are taking their first steps with novel experimental methods, the chapters in the volume provide rare 'behind-the-scenes' commentary that should be useful for any consumers of the results that emerge from the various techniques.”
“This book fills an obvious gap in the literature of language acquisition research. It includes a comprehensive, state-of-the-art presentation of different experimental techniques, suggests their suitability for different populations of learners and points out the level of linguistic knowledge they tap into, providing guidelines which are psycholinguistically sophisticated and, at the same time, linguistically informed. Research methodologies into typical and atypical first language development as well as second language acquisition by children and adults are supplemented by advice on good practices in data elicitation and analysis, in ethical research conduct and in raised sensitivity to researcher-participant interactions. The book is an essential reading to anyone seeking to carry out sound psycholinguistic research on language development.”
“This volume contains an impressive collection of chapters that overviews a broad variety of current research methods in language acquisition that are targeted at a range of subject populations. It offers excellent practical information about diverse research methods written by experts in an informative and accessible style. This volume will serve as a valuable guide for graduate students just embarking on their research careers, as well as for seasoned researchers who might be interested in approaching their research from a different methodological perspective. The pros and cons of particular methods are clearly discussed, useful web resources are provided when applicable, and examples of research taken from foundational as well as more recent studies are provided. Even for researchers who are not embarking on experimental research themselves, the volume will help them understand and critically evaluate studies that use the covered methods. In short, Experimental Methods in Language Acquisition Research does an excellent job of bringing together interesting and informative reviews of current experimental methods under one cover.”
Cited by

Cited by 31 other publications

Antia, Bassey & Bem Ianna
2016. Theorising terminology development: Frames from language acquisition and the philosophy of science. Language Matters 47:1  pp. 61 ff. DOI logo
Austin, Jennifer R., Liliana Sánchez & Silvia Perez-Cortes
Bolyanatz, Mariška, Abril Jiménez & Isabella Silva DePue
2024. Acoustic Correlates of Subtypes of Irony in Chilean Spanish. Languages 9:1  pp. 22 ff. DOI logo
Buyl, Aafke & Alex Housen
2015. Developmental stages in receptive grammar acquisition: A Processability Theory account. Second Language Research 31:4  pp. 523 ff. DOI logo
CHONDROGIANNI, Vasiliki & Richard G. SCHWARTZ
2020. Case marking and word order in Greek heritage children. Journal of Child Language 47:4  pp. 766 ff. DOI logo
Chondrogianni, Vicky
2018. Chapter 6. Child L2 acquisition. In Bilingual Cognition and Language [Studies in Bilingualism, 54],  pp. 103 ff. DOI logo
Dressler, Wolfgang U.
2012. On the acquisition of inflectional morphology: introduction. Morphology 22:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Fotiadou, Georgia & Hélène Vassiliadou
2017. Transitivity and valency: from theory to acquisition. Lingvisticae Investigationes 40:1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Han, Weifeng
2020. Introduction. In Universal Grammar and the Initial State of Second Language Learning [SpringerBriefs in Education, ],  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Hudson, Thom & Lorena Llosa
2015. Design Issues and Inference in Experimental L2 Research. Language Learning 65:S1  pp. 76 ff. DOI logo
Johnson, Elizabeth K., Mybeth Lahey, Mirjam Ernestus & Anne Cutler
2013. A multimodal corpus of speech to infant and adult listeners. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 134:6  pp. EL534 ff. DOI logo
Kelly, Barbara F., William Forshaw, Rachel Nordlinger & Gillian Wigglesworth
2015. Linguistic diversity in first language acquisition research: Moving beyond the challenges. First Language 35:4-5  pp. 286 ff. DOI logo
King, Kendall A. & Alison Mackey
2016. Research Methodology in Second Language Studies: Trends, Concerns, and New Directions. The Modern Language Journal 100:S1  pp. 209 ff. DOI logo
Kwon, Young-Sung & Sung-Eun Lee
2020. Cognitive Processing of Sound Effects in Television Sports Broadcasting. Journal of Radio & Audio Media 27:1  pp. 93 ff. DOI logo
Leal, Tania & Timothy Gupton
2021. Acceptability Experiments in Romance Languages. In The Cambridge Handbook of Experimental Syntax,  pp. 448 ff. DOI logo
Mahboob, Ahmar, Brian Paltridge, Aek Phakiti, Elvis Wagner, Sue Starfield, Anne Burns, Rodney H. Jones & Peter I. De Costa
2016. TESOL Quarterly Research Guidelines. TESOL Quarterly 50:1  pp. 42 ff. DOI logo
O'Grady, William
2018. Assessing Language Revitalization: Methods and Priorities. Annual Review of Linguistics 4:1  pp. 317 ff. DOI logo
Ortega, Lourdes
2013. SLA for the 21st Century: Disciplinary Progress, Transdisciplinary Relevance, and the Bi/multilingual Turn. Language Learning 63:s1  pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Perez-Cortes, Silvia
2022. Lexical frequency and morphological regularity as sources of heritage speaker variability in the acquisition of mood. Second Language Research 38:1  pp. 149 ff. DOI logo
Plischewski, Henning, Natalia Kucirkova, Ingunn Anda Haug, Iselin Tanum & Silje Lea
2021. Children save lives: evaluation of a first aid training in Norwegian kindergartens. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal 29:6  pp. 813 ff. DOI logo
Romano, Francesco
2022. Task effects and the yes-bias in heritage language bilingualism. International Journal of Bilingualism  pp. 136700692110527 ff. DOI logo
Sekerina, Irina A.
Spit, Sybren, Sible Andringa, Judith Rispens & Enoch O. Aboh
2022. The Effect of Explicit Instruction on Implicit and Explicit Linguistic Knowledge in Kindergartners. Language Learning and Development 18:2  pp. 201 ff. DOI logo
Tagliani, Marta & Michela Redolfi
2023. Tracking Eye Movements as a Window on Language Processing: The Visual World Paradigm. Encyclopedia 3:1  pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
Thomas, Margaret
2011. CONTINUUM COMPANION TO RESEARCH METHODS IN APPLIED LINGUISTICS. Brian Paltridge and Aek Phakiti (Eds.). London: Continuum, 2010. Pp. xiii + 370.. Studies in Second Language Acquisition 33:3  pp. 475 ff. DOI logo
Thomas, Margaret & Nicole Pettitt
2017. Informed consent in research on second language acquisition. Second Language Research 33:2  pp. 271 ff. DOI logo
Unsworth, Sharon
2013. Book Review: Erika Hoff (Ed.), Research methods in child language: A practical guide. First Language 33:3  pp. 325 ff. DOI logo
van Hell, Janet G., Carla B. Fernandez, Gerrit Jan Kootstra, Kaitlyn A. Litcofsky & Caitlin Y. Ting
2018. Electrophysiological and experimental-behavioral approaches to the study of intra-sentential code-switching. Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism 8:1  pp. 134 ff. DOI logo
Voelkel, Svenja & Franziska Kretzschmar
2021. Introducing Linguistic Research, DOI logo
Wagner, Lisa C., Mónica Rodríguez-Castro & André Zampaulo
2021. Mitigating negative transference in foreign language articulatory phonetics: Revisiting explicit instruction. Didáctica. Lengua y Literatura 33  pp. 11 ff. DOI logo
Yip, Virginia, Ziyin Mai & Stephen Matthews
2018. Chapter 9. CHILDES for bilingualism. In Bilingual Cognition and Language [Studies in Bilingualism, 54],  pp. 183 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 16 march 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Subjects

Main BIC Subject

CFDC: Language acquisition

Main BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / General
ONIX Metadata
ONIX 2.1
ONIX 3.0
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2010021314 | Marc record