Sources of Variation in First Language Acquisition
Languages, contexts, and learners
Editors
| CNRS & Université Paris 8
| Université Paris Descartes & CNRS
| Université Lumière Lyon 2 & CNRS
Developmental research has long focused on regularities in language acquisition, minimizing factors that might be responsible for variation. Although researchers are now increasingly concerned with one or another of these factors, this volume brings together research on three different sources of variation: language-specific properties, the nature of the input to children across contexts, and several aspects of the learners themselves. Chapters explore these sources of variation within an interdisciplinary and comparative approach allying theories and methodologies stemming from linguistics, psycholinguistics, developmental psychology, and neuroscience. The comparative perspective involves different languages, contexts of use, types of learners (first/second language acquisition, monolingual/bilingual learners, autism, language impairment), as well as vocal and visuo-gestural communicative modalities (co-verbal gestures, sign language acquisition). The volume points to the need to enhance interdisciplinary research using complementary methodologies to further examine sources of variation and to integrate variation into a more general developmental theory.
[Trends in Language Acquisition Research, 22] 2018. x, 444 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
List of authors (alphabetical)
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viii–x
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1–24
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Part I. Universals and cross-linguistic variation in acquisition
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27–44
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45–62
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63–80
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81–102
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103–122
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123–138
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139–160
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Part II. Variation in input and contexts during acquisition
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163–182
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183–200
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201–218
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219–242
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243–264
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265–284
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Part III. Variation in types of acquisition and types of learners
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287–312
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313–338
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339–364
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365–390
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391–408
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409–426
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427–438
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Language index
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439
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Subject index
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440–444
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“This collection presents a broad new look at the importance of variation in language acquisition. The first part considers it in the course of language acquisition, from first words through syntax, including phonology, prosody, rhythm, grammatical morphemes, syntax, discourse and narrative. The chapters in the middle section present evidence on the effects of practice, speech genre, and register. The final section addresses different types of learners, including multilingual, sign language and autism spectrum disorder. Data are from French, Dutch, Korean, English, Turkish, Japanese, Zulu, Swedish, LSF and Italian.”
Ann Peters,
University of Hawai'i
“
This book is timely. “Celebrate diversity” is a motto of our era, and the authors assembled here examine many ways in which language learners and language environments are diverse. The study of variation can reveal the range of possible developmental paths and the factors that influence those paths, leading to more refined models of language learning. This rich volume provides masses of much-needed data of many sorts. Variations in input are examined along with necessary attention to variations in ways in which learners make use of different sorts of input across types of communication and communicative settings. This book makes it evident that there is no prototypical learner or learning situation, no prototypical type of communication or type of language. The challenge lies in determining what aspects of all of this diversity are relevant for models of language learning. That challenge cannot be met without the findings and ideas provided here.
”
Dan I. Slobin, University of California, Berkeley
Cited by
Cited by 2 other publications
Hickmann, Maya
Strand, Bror-Magnus S.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 01 january 2021. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
Subjects
BIC Subject: CFDC – Language acquisition
BISAC Subject: LAN009040 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Psycholinguistics