Examines joint attentional processes in children's early lexical acquisition and conversational interaction. Early language development builds on adult-child joint attentional focus on nonlinguistic entities. A developmental sequence of joint attentional processes in early language development is proposed, and the role of adults in this sequence…

Children's early writing is analyzed in this paper according to different perspectives such as function, grapho-phonemics, syntax, and semantics. Emphasis is given to the semantic perspective of decoding the text and to the study of coherence in text as it is viewed by the reader. Proposition analysis is used to map the coherence of samples of…

Outlines some problems that emerged when speech act theory was applied to the analysis of natural discourse, traces these problems to basic flaws or misconceptions in J. R. Searle's theory, and proposes an alternative view of speech acts within the complex organization of discourse processes. (FL)

Focuses on concepts and arguments from psychoanalysis and presents an example of a counterargument on the slip of the tongue. The article delineates psycholinguistic accounts of speech errors, showing how these accounts can enhance a comparison of three samples of literary and nonliterary word substitutions that elucidate claims being made in…

Briefly reviews current knowledge about the nature of limits of intersubjectivity (ability to acquire and manage representations of self and other through social experience) in autistic children. Describes an observational study of verbal autistic children indicating the presence of intersubjectivity, but with little of the verbal social…

Critically examines papers by Wellman and Estes, Olson and Torrance, and Hall and Nagy. (AEW)

The 10 articles in this book examine how comprehension is affected by what the reader brings to the text, the manner in which the text is structured by the author, and the contextual variables that shape the meaning derived by the reader. Specific topics covered in the articles are (1) background knowledge and comprehension, (2) learning how to…

Type/Token Ratios (TTRs) frequently fail to discriminate between children at widely different stages of language development, and may fall as children get older. Such effects are caused by a negative, though non-linear, relationship between sample size and TTR. Standardization of the number of tokens before computing TTRs is recommended.…

Considers the culturally patterned set of analogic renamings found in Huli baby talk, nursery rhymes, and children's verbal games. An analysis of socialization activities shows a marked concern with body motifs and appellations and inter-adult behavior involving talk about the body, and showing that such language sensitizes children to cultural…

This book is designed to provide practical advice to parents and educators on the language acquisition process. Citing numerous case studies and anecdotal examples, it explains how children learn to talk and acquire language. Chapter 1 serves as an introduction to language acquisition, explaining the components, forms, and structure of language.…

An historical overview of research on second language acquisition considers research topics examined in observational/longitudinal studies and experimental studies. The questions that have reappeared across both observational and experimental studies concern: (1) whether second language learning is the same or different from first language…

An understanding of the structure and function of discourse in social communication and in its internal representation to the individuals is sought in this multidisciplinary collection of papers. The approaches are divided into theoretical orientations and empirical orientations. The theoretical papers deal with: (1) comprehension in conversation,…

Two theoretical orientations-schema theory and cultural norms for the use of language unify this multidisciplinary collection of papers examining discourse. Chapters by Adams and Collins; Warren; Nicholas and Trabasso; Stein and Glenn; and Freedle and Hale highlight the application of schema theory to the study of story recall, reading, and the…