Supports use of multiple paradigms for the measurement of individual differences in the search for explanations of natural language. Rather than a single paradigm discipline, they offer a wider scope of inquiry--phenomena of interest, types of questions, and forms of explanations, as well as opening the discipline to inspiration and analogy from…

Presents a rationale for undertaking the study of language. Views this study as a psychological investigation into how the self forms an identity of itself through its language, rather than how it is formed by its language. Thus, the structure of language is seen as a representational system, allowing a multiplicity of meanings. (SL)

Attempts to characterize the process of first language acquisition by children. Suggests that language learning involves the acquisition of both language knowledge and language behavior, hence of the internalized representations underlying linguistic competence and also the ability to deploy this knowledge in interpreting and speaking the language…