This book examines key issues in theories of what language is and what happens in the mind during second language acquisition (SLA), inspiring readers to think in new and exciting ways about language learning and teaching. Chapters, written by both established and rising star scholars, provide cutting-edge insights and new empirical findings on…

In recent years, linguists have increasingly turned to the cognitive sciences to broaden their investigation into the roots and development of language. With the advent of cognitive-linguistic, usage-based and complex-adaptive models of language, linguists today are utilizing approaches and insights from cognitive psychology, neuropsychology,…

In recent decades, a growing number of children have been diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a condition characterized by social interaction deficits and language impairment. Yet the precise nature of the disorder's impact on language development is not well understood, in part because of the language variability among children across…

This volume presents the findings of a large-scale study of individual differences in spoken (and heard) language development during the school years. The goal of the study was to investigate the degree to which language abilities at school entry were stable over time and influential in the child's overall success in important aspects of…

Language Development: Understanding Language Diversity in the Classroom offers comprehensive coverage of the language development process for pre- and in-service teachers while emphasizing the factors that further academic success in the classroom, including literacy skills, phonological awareness, and narrative. With chapters written by respected…

This book is an accessible introduction to learnability theory and its interactions with linguistic theories. Working within the principles and parameters framework, the book surveys general concepts from formal learning theory and complexity theory, together with important findings from developmental psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, and…

This book contains a collection of current research in the development of speech perception and perceptual learning. The collection integrates research involving infants, young children, and adults, and explores systematically how adult perceptual abilities develop from early infant capabilities, focusing particularly on the nature of transitional…

This collection of articles is one of a series of semiannual reports on the status of speech research at Haskins' Laboratories. The titles of the 18 articles and their authors are as follows: "The Alphabetic Principle and Learning to Read" (Isabelle Y. Liberman and others); "Language Development from an Evolutionary…

In this book, current work and issues in psycholinguistics are reviewed by 19 noted authorities in the fields of psychology, linguistics, education, psychiatry, and medicine. The seven sections of the book discuss past and present issues in psycholinguistics (including controversial issues and the theoretical and historical roots of…

Recognizing that language itself is not an isolated entity but part of a larger social, cultural, and cognitive context, the papers in this book investigate the relationships among all aspects of language--reading, writing, speaking, and listening. Literacy is dealt with as the development of language in young children. Issues related to this…

The 34 summaries contained in this collection represent the theoretical positions and the empirical studies of a wide variety of investigators currently working in the field of language comprehension. The entries summarize contributions from the areas of assessment, artificial intelligence, cognition (including schema theory), instruction,…

This book has been conceived as a companion to learnability for the benefit of those linguists who base their work on Chomsky's "Principles and Parameters Hypothesis." General concepts from formal theory and complexity theory and important facts from psycholinguistics, historical linguistics, and language processing have been introduced…

This book considers the question of whether, or to what extent, a critical period limits the acquisition of a first language as well as a second language acquired postpubertally. The diversity of opinion on this question is represented in this volume. It is a question that has been approached by researchers working in linguistic theory, evolution…

Written by teachers, linguists, psychologists, and reading specialists, this book elucidates the relationship between reading and language, and explains why reading should be regarded as a language-based process. The book is divided into eight sections, each of which includes an introduction and sources for further reading. The essays for each…

Focusing on the reading-thinking-learning process, the classrooms in which such processes occur, and the means for studying these processes, this book presents essays on teaching, learning, and assessing the reading process. The first section contains essays on learning contexts that are interactive and participatory, while essays in the second…