The history of sociolinguistic research leads us to expect certain patterns of variation by social class, age and gender, but as the field expands to new societies with different social structures we often encounter unexpected results. Such findings can have great value in leading to higher level… read more
This paper is an effort to define the phonetic target of the language learner: what are the data that the child focuses on in becoming a native speaker? A number of studies are reviewed to show that children reject the idiosyncratic features of their parents’ phonetic system if they do not match… read more
This paper is an effort to define the target of the language learner: asking, what are the data that the child pays attention to in the process of becoming a native speaker? In so doing, we will necessarily be engaged in the more general effort to define language itself. The general argument to be… read more
This paper is an effort to define the target of the language learner: asking, what are the data that the child pays attention to in the process of becoming a native speaker? In so doing, we will necessarily be engaged in the more general effort to define language itself. The general argument to be… read more
There can be little doubt about the existence of substrate effects in many cases when a whole population abandons their original language and adopts another. But there are situations in which the direction of linguistic influence remains unexplained, the causal connections are obscure, or the… read more
Before a narrative can be constructed, it must be pre-constructed by a cognitive process that begins with a decision that a given event is reportable. Pre-construction begins with this most reportable event and proceeds backwards in time to locate events that are linked causally each to the… read more
Before a narrative can be constructed, it must be pre-constructed by a cognitive process that begins with a decision that a given event is reportable. Pre-construction begins with this most reportable event and proceeds backwards in time to locate events that are linked causally each to the… read more