Babies are not born talking, they learn language, starting immediately from birth. How does this process take place? When do children master the skills needed for using language successfully? What stages do they go through as they learn to understand and talk? Do the languages they learn affect the way they think? This edition of Eve Clark's highly successful textbook focuses on children's acquisition of a first language, the stages of development they go through, and how they use language as they learn. It reports on recent findings in each area covered, includes a completely new chapter on the acquisition of two languages and shows how speech to children differs by social class. Skilfully integrating actual data with coverage of current theories and debates, it is an essential guide to studying language acquisition for those working in linguistics, developmental psychology and cognitive science.

The Acquisition of Constructions is the culmination of new research into constructions of grammar in languages as diverse as Cantonese, English, French, German, Mandarin, Thai, and Tzeltal. The contributors, all noted scholars in the field of construction grammar, investigate the acquisition of constructions—that is, the consistent patterns for combining words and phrases within a language—in children, from the first and most rudimentary gesture combinations to the production of larger syntactic constructions and complex clauses. Timely and comprehensive, it will be a superb resource for scholars of syntax.

Product Description: First language acquisition is an integral component of linguistics research. If one can understand a child's ability to learn a language, one can better understand the social and phonological implications of the complexities of language...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The contributors to the Proceedings of the 28th Annual Meeting of the Child Language Research Forum explore their findings on language acquisition in a variety of the world's languages, reflecting the diversity of interests in the field and the range of languages being studied...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Since its inception in 1967, the Forum has provided an informal but critical setting for the presentation of new ideas and research on first language acquisition. The Forum itself is sponsored by the Linguistics Department at Stanford and is organised by graduate students...read more

Product Description: Eve Clark argues for the centrality of the lexicon in language and language acquisition. She looks at the hypotheses children draw on about possible word meanings, and how they map their meanings onto forms. Starting with children's emerging knowledge of conventional words and meanings, she takes up their growing knowledge of word structure as reflected in their formation of new words...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: This book is the product of the twenty-sixth annual meeting of the Stanford Child Language Research Forum held in April, 1994. The conference included panel sessions organised by Terry K.-F. Au on 'Does input constrain word-learning principles?', Matthew Rispoli on 'Pronoun case errors: new approaches to an old phenomenon', and Janet F...read more

Product Description: This volume presents research in the field of first language acquisition discussed at the 1993 meeting of the Child Language Research Forum.The contributors are Maria A. Alegre, Ursula Bellugi, Jeffrey G. Bettger, Paul Bloom, Melissa Bowerman, Ursula Brinkmann, Penelope Brown, Nancy Budwig, Joan Bybee, Alice Shuk-yee Cheung, Soonja Choi, Patricia Clancy, Stephen Crain, William Croft, Cynthia Crosser, Peter Culicover, Eve Danziger, Sonja Eisenbeiss, Karen Emmorey, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Claire Foley, Dicky G...read more

Product Description: This volume presents research in the field of first language acquisition discussed at the 1993 meeting of the Child Language Research Forum.The contributors are Maria A. Alegre, Ursula Bellugi, Jeffrey G. Bettger, Paul Bloom, Melissa Bowerman, Ursula Brinkmann, Penelope Brown, Nancy Budwig, Joan Bybee, Alice Shuk-yee Cheung, Soonja Choi, Patricia Clancy, Stephen Crain, William Croft, Cynthia Crosser, Peter Culicover, Eve Danziger, Sonja Eisenbeiss, Karen Emmorey, Susan Ervin-Tripp, Claire Foley, Dicky G...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: First published in 1986. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.