Children's Language : Developing Narrative and Discourse Competence

These volumes present coherent sets of papers developed along two of the thematic lines that underscored the program of the meeting of the International Association for the Study of Child Language in Istanbul in the summer of 1996. Thoroughly reviewed and updated to reflect the state of child language research and theory--particularly in the domains of discourse and interaction--they convey not only the flavor of that meeting but some of the most exciting trends in the field today.

Each contribution in Volume 10, Developing Narrative and Discourse Competence, focuses on the differential effects of discourse genres, elicitation techniques, communicative contexts, literacy and schooling, and the oft-cited variables of age, language, and culture. Issues concerning the interrelations between social, cognitive, and affective capacities and processes in discourse are addressed. Each chapter raises theoretical questions regarding how and when representations are constructed to support new complexities. Presenting data from a cross-cultural and cross-linguistic perspective, this volume highlights both the particulars and the universals of the processes involved.

The chapters in Volume 11, Interactional Contributions to Language Development, address issues including scaffolding of processing and learning in particular interactional sequences; linkages among interpersonal functions or relations, cognitive development, and semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic devices or forms; and models of how interactions proceed, input is selected, and learning advances across multiple rounds of interaction.

Each of these volumes will be a valuable addition to the libraries of all who study the development of language.