In this study, we investigated the expressive language development of 186 18-35 months old Chinese girls adopted into American families. The adoptees were adopted between 3 and 25 months (M=11.0, S.D.=3.1) and had lived in the adoptive families for 3-27 months (M=16.2, S.D.=5.8) at the time of the study. The adoptive mothers provided information…

Children who produce one word at a time often use gesture to supplement their speech, turning a single word into an utterance that conveys a sentence-like meaning ('eat'+point at cookie). Interestingly, the age at which children first produce supplementary gesture-speech combinations of this sort reliably predicts the age at which they first…

The construct of the native speaker is germane to second language acquisition (SLA) research; it underlies, and permeates, a significant bulk of SLA theory construction and empirical research. Nevertheless, it is one of the least investigated (and for that matter, least understood) concepts in the field. Even a cursory reading of the major SLA…

Explaining the persistent optional use of overt forms of certain grammatical properties in adult second language acquisition (SLA) raises the question of whether or not such difficulties are directly attributable to first language (L1) influence. Using Sperber and Wilson's Relevance Theoretic framework (1986/95), this paper considers how a…

This article explores a number of points at which Relevance Theory makes a useful contribution to second language theoretical models, specifically those of Bialystok and Schmidt and their respective notions of "analysis", "control" and "noticing". It is suggested that the inferential mechanisms of Relevance Theory can account for the contingencies…

The aim of this article is to provide a selective review of event-related potential (ERP) research on second language processing. As ERPs have been used in the investigation of a variety of linguistic domains, the reported studies cover different paradigms assessing processing mechanisms in the second language at various levels, ranging from…

Recasts have continued to be the object of intensive empirical and theoretical inquiry following Nicholas, Lightbown, and Spada's (2001) review. The current article identifies a number of problems with this research and the supporting theory. These problems concern the fact that recasts can take many different forms and perform a variety of…

This article represents an attempt to draw together findings from a range of second language acquisition studies in order to formulate a set of general principles for language pedagogy. These principles address such issues as the nature of second language (L2) competence (as formulaic and rule-based knowledge), the contributions of both focus on…

The understanding that choice of words in an individual's language construction is a reflection of her or his perspective is not new. This article examines the mindful and intimate link between language and empathetic perspective--the language that the author, as an individual, employ's in her daily life to what she, as an individual, constructs…

The phenomenon identified as naming is a key stage of language function that is missing in many children with autism and other language delay diagnoses. We identified four children with autism, who, prior to the implementation of this experiment, did not have the naming repertoire (either speaker to listener or listener to speaker) and who had no…

Purpose: The main purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of cochlear implant experience on prelinguistic vocal development in young deaf children. Procedure: A prospective longitudinal research design was used to document the sequence and time course of vocal development in 7 children who were implanted between 10 and 36 months…

Purpose: This study examined the longitudinal relationships between lexical and grammatical development in typically developing (TD) and late-talking children for the purposes of testing the single-mechanism account of language acquisition and comparing the developmental trajectories of lexical and grammatical development in late-talking and TD…

The family size of the constituents of compound words, or the number of compounds sharing the constituents, affects English-speaking children's compound segmentation. This finding is consistent with a usage-based theory of language acquisition, whereby children learn abstract underlying linguistic structure through their experience with particular…

Purpose: To examine the validity of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDI) for measuring language abilities in children with profound hearing loss who are using cochlear implants. Method: Twenty-four children with cochlear implants and their mothers participated in this study. Children ranged in age from 32 months to 86…

Some recent publications that explore the foundations of early language development are reviewed in this article. The review adopts the pivotal idea that infants' advancements are helped by the existence of different types of biases. The infant's discovery of the phonological properties of the language of the environment, as well as their learning…