Language Development

Publication

Home
Publications
Language Development

Desk Copy for Instructors

Language Development

: LouAnn Gerken

Details:: 257 pages, Illustrated (B/W), Softcover, 6 x 9"

ISBN13:: 978-1-59756-263-8

Release Date:: 11/01/2008

$99.95

Add to Cart

View Sample Pages

About
Contents
Authors
Related Titles
Resources

Overview

The English word infant is derived from the Latin word meaning unable to speak, reflecting the general sense that the transition from infancy into childhood is marked by the production of the childs first word. However, modern methods for measuring infant behavior and brain activity suggest that there is a great deal of language learning that goes on before first word production. The book, Language Development, by LouAnn Gerken, Ph.D. examines both classic and current studies that trace the development of human language from before birth to the early childhood years. By focusing on areas of language development in which a unified set of theoretical issues has been explored, the book presents a theoretically and empirically more coherent approach to language development than other books in this discipline. The book also considers the theoretical questions that drive language scientists to pursue these studies: What are the biological underpinnings of language? Why has it proven so difficult to build a computer that learns language? Is language learning like or unlike learning of other abilities such as math or music? How should we best characterize developmental language disorders? This book is aimed at the junior and senior undergraduates and the graduate students enrolled in Language Development across psychology, linguistics, and communication disorders. For practitioners engaged in working with language development/disorders, this is the perfect book to stay up-to-date. Each chapter in this book includes valuable highlights of thought questions to help students ponder the content of the chapter. Lucid narration of contents has been significantly augmented by ample usage of tables and illustrations.

Chapter 1. Introduction
- Why Study Language Development?
- The Nature of Language
- Meaning Units
  Combinable Meaning Units
  Combinable Submeaning Units
- The Combinatorial System Used in Human Language
  Phonology (Submeaning Units)
  Lexical Semantics (Meaning Units)
  Morphology and Syntax
  Grammar
- Theories of Language Development
  What Are We Trying to Explain?
  Why Are Theories Important?
  Overview of the Theories
  Ruling Out an Unconstrained Learner
  Associative LearningMaking Connections Among Experiences
  Hypothesis TestingThe Learner as Scientist
  TriggeringA Minimal Role for Experience
  Summary of Theories
- Organization of the Book
Chapter 2. Overview of Phonology
- What Is Phonology?
- Segmental Phonology
  Phones and Phonemes
  A Note About Notation
  Articulatory Features
  Acoustic Manifestations of Articulatory Features
  Variability in Acoustic Manifestations of Articulatory Features
  Orderings of Phonemes
- Prosody
- Summary
Chapter 3. Phonological Perception
- Prenatal Speech Perception
- Infant Speech Sound Discrimination
  Early Exploration
  Some Puzzling Findings Lead to a Reananlysis
- How Does Speech Perception Change Over Development?
- Finding Phonological Patterns in Auditory Words
- Phonological Perception of Words
- Summary
Chapter 4. Phonological Production
- Precursors to Linguistic Production
  Oral Babble
  Manual Babble
- Protowords and Early Words
  Sound Properties of Early Words
  Early Words by Signing Children
- The Relation of Childrens Early Words Productions and Adult Forms
  Substitution Processes
  Assimilation Processes
  Syllable and Word Shape Processes
  Other Important Relations Between Adult and Child Forms
- Theories of the Relation Between Adult and Child Forms
  Perceptual Theories
  Articulatory Theories
  Innate Phonology Theories
  Experience with the Target Language Theories
  Summary of Theories of the Relation Between Adult and Child Forms
- Prosodic Properties of Early Productions
- Language Disorders Involving Phonology
  Disorders Involving the Production of Consonants and Vowels *:Disorders Involving the Production of Prosody
- Summary
Chapter 5. The Lexicon
- What Is the Lexicon?
- The Segmentation Problem
  Single-Word Utterances
  Words at Ends of Utterances
  Statistical Cues
  Occurrence of Words Adjacent to Frequent Function Morphemes
  Language-Specific Stress Patterns
  Language-Specific Typical Sound Sequences
- The Mapping Problem
  The Whole Object Assumption
  The Taxonomic Assumption
  The Mutual Exclusivity Assumption
  The Shape Bias
  Statistical Constraints
  Syntactic Constraints
  Childrens Mapping Errors
  The Mapping Problem Across Languages
- Summary
Chapter 6. Overview of Syntax and Morphology
- What Is Morphosyntax?
- Four Components of Morphosyntax
  Syntactic Constituents
  Syntactic Categories
  Structural Positions
  Thematic Roles
- Four Debates Concerning the Development of Morphosyntax
  Far Do Children Generalize from Morphosynctactic Input?
  Can Associative Learning Models Account for Generalization?
  Do Children Make Generalizations That Are Not Supported by the Input?
  Do Childrens Morphosyntactic Errors Reflect Possible Human Grammars?
- Summary
Chapter 7. Childrens Sensitivity to Sentence Forms
- Syntactic Constituents
- Syntactic Categories
  Childrens Early Utterances as Evidence for Syntactic Categories
  Childrens Use of Distributional Cues to Discover Syntactic Categories
  Are Syntactic Categories Innate?
- Word Order
  Word Order in Child Production
  Word Order in Infant Perception
  Phrase Order in Infant Perception
- Summary
Chapter 8. Assigning Meaning to Sentence Forms and Four Debates About Morphosyntactic Development
- Assigning Thematic Roles
  Using Word Order to Assign Thematic Roles
  Using Sentence Type to Assign Thematic Roles
  Using Morphological Case Markers to Assign Thematic Roles
  Learning the Thematic Role Requirements of Particular Verbs
  Summary of Assigning Thematic Roles to Structural Positions **How Far Do Children Generalize from Morphosyntactic Input?
- Can Associative Learning Models Account for Generalization?
  Past Tense Overgeneralization
  Childrens Generalization of Abstract Patterns
- Do Children Make Generalizations That Are Not Supported by the Input?
  Hierarchilcal Structure in Question Format
  Anaphoric One
- Do Childrens Morphosyntactic Errors Reflect Possible Human Grammars?
- English-Speaking Childrens Subjectless Sentences
  Childrens Pronoun Case Errors
  Summary of Childrens Morphosyntactic Errors
- Summary
Chapter 9. Issues in the Biology of Language
- We Need More Data
- What Do We Know so Far?
  The Raw Materials for Language
  Learning About the Form of the Input
  Mapping Forms to Meanings
- The Development of Language in Two Atypical Populations
  Specific Language Impairment
  Williams Syndrome
  Summary of Two Atypical Populations
  Age Effects on Language Learning
  Age Effects in Second Language Learning
  Age Effects in First Language Learning
  Creating Language Structure
- Summary
Chapter 10. Some Methods Used in Language Development Research
- Some Behavioral Methods Focusing on Infant Form Discrimination
  Contingent Sucking Rate Procedure
  High Amplitude Sucking Procedure
  Headturn Preference Procedure
  Central Fixation Preferential Listening Procedure
  Visual Habituation Procedure
  Conditioned Head Turn Procedure
- Behavioral Methods Focusing on Infants Ability to Associate Form and Reference
  Intermodal Preferential Looking Procedure
  Looking While Listening Procedure
  Switch Procedure
- Methods Measuring Brain Activity
  Event-Related Potentials
  Magnetoencephalography (MEG)
  Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI)
  Near Infrared Spectroscopy (NIRS)
- Methods for Testing Child Comprehension and Sensitivity to Morphosyntax
  Picture Selection Procedure
  Act-Out Procedure
  Grammaticality Judgments
  Truth-Value Judgments
- Methods for Testing Language Production
  Spontaneous Speech
  Imitative Speech
  Elicited Production
Index

About The Author

LouAnn Gerken

LouAnn Gerken received her PhD in Psychology from Columbia University in 1987. She has held faculty appointments in Psychology, Linguistics, and Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, and she is currently the Director of Cognitive Science at the University of Arizona. Throughout her career, she has used a range of techniques to study language development in infants and children, and has directed her research at addressing both practical issues and classic questions about the nature of human language and its relation to the human mind. In addition to her work on language development, Dr. Gerken is involved in efforts to restructure academic institutions to promote broader participation and greater equity.