Experience, Variation and Generalization
Learning a first language
Editors
Are all children exposed to the same linguistic input, and do they follow the same route in acquisition? The answer is no: The language that children hear differs even within a social class or cultural setting, as do the paths individual children take. The linguistic signal itself is also variable, both within and across speakers - the same sound is different across words; the same speech act can be realized with different constructions. The challenge here is to explain, given their diversity of experience, how children arrive at similar generalizations about their first language. This volume brings together studies of phonology, morphology, and syntax in development, to present a new perspective on how experience and variation shape children's linguistic generalizations. The papers deal with variation in forms, learning processes, and speaker features, and assess the impact of variation on the mechanisms and outcomes of language learning.
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 7] 2011. x, 300 pp.
Publishing status:
© John Benjamins Publishing Company
Table of Contents
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Acknowledgements | pp. vii–viii
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List of contributors | pp. ix–x
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IntroductionInbal Arnon and Eve V. Clark | pp. 1–12
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Part I. Extracting regularities
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Toward a theory of gradual morphosyntactic learningMatthew Rispoli and Pamela Hadley | pp. 13–34
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Cues to form and function in the acquisition of German number and case inflectionHeike Behrens | pp. 35–52
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Developing first contrasts in Spanish verb inflection: Usage and interactionCecilia Rojas-Nieto | pp. 53–72
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Part II. Multiple cues in learning to communicate
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A new look at redundancy in children's gesture and word combinationsBarbara F. Kelly | pp. 73–90
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Learning the meaning of “um”: Toddlers' developing use of speech disfluencies as cues to speakers' referential intentionsCeleste Kidd, Katherine S. White and Richard N. Aslin | pp. 91–106
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Part III. Discovering units
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From first words to segments: A case study in phonological developmentMarilyn Vihman and Virve-Anneli Vihman | pp. 109–134
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Analysis and generalization across verbs and constructions: The development of transitives and complement-clause constructions in GermanSilke Brandt | pp. 135–152
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Two- and three-year-olds' linguistic generalizations are prudent adaptations to the language they hearColin Bannard and Danielle Matthews | pp. 153–166
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Units of learning in language acquisitionInbal Arnon | pp. 167–178
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Part IV. Individual differences
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Causes and consequences of variability in early language learningAnne E. Fernald and Virginia A. Marchman | pp. 181–202
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Individual differences in measures of linguistic experience account for variability in the sentence processing skill of five-year-oldsSarah E. Anderson, Thomas A. Farmer, Michael Goldstein, Jennifer Schwade and Michael J. Spivey | pp. 203–222
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Genetic variation and individual differences in languageJennifer B. Misyak and Morten H. Christiansen | pp. 223–238
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Part V. Mechanisms for learning
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Language as a processWilliam A. Croft | pp. 241–260
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Memory, sleep and generalization in language acquisitionRebecca L. Gómez | pp. 261–276
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Bayesian modeling of sources of constraint in language acquisitionAmy Perfors and Elizabeth Wonnacott | pp. 277–294
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Index | pp. 295–300
Cited by (6)
Cited by six other publications
Oesch, Nathan
ARNON, Inbal
Berman, Ruth A. & Lyle Lustigman
2014. Emergent clause-combining in adult-child interactional contexts. In Language in Interaction [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 12], ► pp. 281 ff.
Kurumada, Chigusa & Inbal Arnon
2014. introduction Language acquisition in interaction. In Language in Interaction [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 12], ► pp. 1 ff.
Weisleder, Adriana & Anne Fernald
2014. Social environments shape children’s language experiences, strengthening language processing and building vocabulary. In Language in Interaction [Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 12], ► pp. 29 ff.
[no author supplied]
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 28 september 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