NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Source
Language Learning and…30
Audience
Laws, Policies, & Programs
Assessments and Surveys
MacArthur Communicative…3
What Works Clearinghouse Rating
Showing 1 to 15 of 30 results Save | Export
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Carla L. Hudson Kam – Language Learning and Development, 2024
Based on findings from a variety of research, Shin and Miller (2022) propose a 4-step process that children go through as they learn sociolinguistic variation. Their proposal raises many interesting questions that should inspire future research. Here, I discuss their Step 1 -- the stage in which, according to their proposal, children produce only…
Descriptors: Language Research, Language Acquisition, Language Variation, Child Language
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Benjamin Luke Davies; Katherine Demuth – Language Learning and Development, 2024
When acquiring the English plural, children correctly produce plural words long before they develop an understanding of morphological structure. When acquiring Sesotho noun prefixes, children are aware of the multiple constraints governing variation from a young age. Both of these cases raise questions about the Shin and Miller (2022) account of…
Descriptors: African Languages, Morphology (Languages), Syntax, Second Language Learning
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Kristen Syrett – Language Learning and Development, 2024
I argue that the variation within and across contexts detailed by Shin & Miller is indicative of a broader phenomenon in which morphosyntax and the discourse context are intertwined, including elements like perspective, discourse relations, information structure, and common ground. Appealing to independent evidence highlighting the role of…
Descriptors: Language Variation, Language Research, Language Acquisition, Learning Processes
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Virginia Valian – Language Learning and Development, 2024
The first stage of combinatorial speech is better described as variable than uniform. Talk of variants obscures two different aspects of language (knowledge and use) and two different aspects of language development -- acquisition of the grammar (competence) and deployment of the grammar in speaking and listening (performance). Null subjects and…
Descriptors: Phrase Structure, Language Acquisition, Language Variation, Grammar
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Janna B. Oetting – Language Learning and Development, 2024
Shin and Mill (2021) propose four steps children go through when learning "variable form use." Although I applaud Shin and Miller's focus on morphosyntactic variation, their accrual of evidence is post hoc and selective. Fortunately, Shin and Miller recognize this and encourage tests of their ideas. In support of their work, I share data…
Descriptors: Language Impairments, Language Research, Contrastive Linguistics, Comparative Analysis
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Callen, M. Cole; Miller, Karen – Language Learning and Development, 2022
Research in language development has only recently begun to focus on the inherent variability of language. Previous studies have explored at what age children begin to produce variable linguistic forms and how these forms progress through development. While children produce adult-like variation early on, some variable forms take longer to acquire…
Descriptors: Morphology (Languages), Language Acquisition, Parent Child Relationship, Syntax
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Pearl, Lisa – Language Learning and Development, 2022
Poverty of the stimulus has been at the heart of ferocious and tear-filled debates at the nexus of psychology, linguistics, and philosophy for decades. This review is intended as a guide for readers without a formal linguistics or philosophy background, focusing on what poverty of the stimulus is and how it's been interpreted, which is…
Descriptors: Language Acquisition, Learning Processes, Syntax, Semantics
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
de Villiers, Jill – Language Learning and Development, 2021
Does language have a role to play in conceptual development, and if so, what is that role? Understanding the contents of another person's mind parallels the development in early childhood of mental state language. Does the conceptual understanding get reflected in and drive the language development, or does the language allow the representation of…
Descriptors: Language Role, Syntax, Phrase Structure, Preschool Children
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Hudson Kam, Carla L. – Language Learning and Development, 2019
The phenomenon of regularization -- learners imposing systematicity on inconsistent variation in language input -- is complex. Studies show that children are more likely to regularize than adults, but adults will also regularize under certain circumstances. Exactly why we see the pattern of behaviour that we do is not well understood, however.…
Descriptors: Language Variation, Linguistic Input, Interference (Learning), Language Acquisition
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Hudson Kam, Carla L. – Language Learning and Development, 2020
Hudson Kam (2018) examined whether learning of a particular aspect of language that adults are known to have difficulty with (grammatical gender) could be improved by manipulating the learning experience of adults so that it was more like that of infants. Specifically, based on likely differences between adult and child learners' experiences as…
Descriptors: Infants, Adults, Language Acquisition, Comparative Analysis
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Saldana, Carmen; Smith, Kenny; Kirby, Simon; Culbertson, Jennifer – Language Learning and Development, 2021
Languages exhibit variation at all linguistic levels, from phonology, to the lexicon, to syntax. Importantly, that variation tends to be (at least partially) conditioned on some aspect of the social or linguistic context. When variation is unconditioned, language learners regularize it -- removing some or all variants, or conditioning variant use…
Descriptors: Morphology (Languages), Syntax, Comparative Analysis, Language Variation
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Huang, Yi Ting; Bounds, Mary; Suzuki, Yuichi – Language Learning and Development, 2019
Children acquire argument structure through distributional evidence, but how does this interacts with event semantics and existing verb knowledge? The current study compares verb learning in adult speakers of Japanese (where lexical causatives span wider semantic categories) and English (where alternation is more restricted). In the Fully…
Descriptors: Verbs, Semantics, Language Acquisition, Japanese
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Hendricks, Alison Eisel; Miller, Karen; Jackson, Carrie N. – Language Learning and Development, 2018
While previous sociolinguistic research has demonstrated that children faithfully acquire probabilistic input constrained by sociolinguistic and linguistic factors (e.g., gender and socioeconomic status), research suggests children regularize inconsistent input-probabilistic input that is not sociolinguistically constrained (e.g., Hudson Kam &…
Descriptors: Sociolinguistics, Language Research, Language Acquisition, Linguistic Input
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Arnon, Inbal – Language Learning and Development, 2018
Why do adults seem to struggle more than children in learning a second language, despite being better at a range of other cognitive skills? The source of L1-L2 differences in language learning is one of the most debated topics in the study of language. One hypothesis is that L1-L2 differences are primarily experience-based, with language learning…
Descriptors: Criticism, Second Language Learning, Language Acquisition, Age Differences
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
Musolino, Julien; Laity d'Agostino, Kelsey; Piantadosi, Steve – Language Learning and Development, 2019
In a recent article published in this journal, Moscati and Crain (M&C) showcase the explanatory power of a learnability constraint called the Semantic Subset Principle (SSP) (Crain et al. 1994). If correct, M&C's argument would represent a compelling demonstration of the operation of an innate, domain specific, learning principle. However,…
Descriptors: Semantics, Linguistic Theory, Language Acquisition, Language Research
Previous Page | Next Page ยป
Pages: 1  |  2