Language Acquisition : Core Readings

Language Acquisition offers, in one convenient reader, work by the most outstanding researchers in each field and is intended as a snapshot of the sort of theory and research taking place in language acquisition in the 1990s. All of the articles and chapters were chosen to reflect topics and debates of current interest, and all take an interdisciplinary approach to language development, relating the study of how a child comes to possess a language to issues within linguistics, computational theory, biology, social cognition, and comparative psychology.

While there are several introductory texts on language development, and countless collections of articles, these scientists are asking about language acquisition, the important experimental findings, and the key theoretical debates, suitable for students at advanced levels and scholars with a range of different perspectives and interests.

The readings are organized into six sections:- the onset of language development,- word learning,- syntax and semantics,- morphology,- acquisition in special circumstances, and- alternative perspectives. Each section serves as an introduction to a specific area and provides sufficient background for further reading.

Contributors
Dare A. Baldwin. Paul Bloom. Melissa Bowerman. Kathie L. Carpenter. Eve V. Clark. Stephen Crain. Richard F. Cromer. Anne Fernald. Lila Gleitman. Richard Goldberg. Susan Goldin-Meadow. Peter Gordon. Jess Gropen. Michelle Hollander. Janellen Huttenlocher. Annette Karmiloff-Smith. Ellen M.Markman. Peter Marler. Jay L. McClelland. Carolyn Mylander. Elissa L. Newport. Laura Ann Petitto. Steven Pinker. David E. Rumelhart. Patricia Smiley. A Bradford Book

Paul Bloom is Assistant Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Linguistics at the University of Arizona.