Download or read book Effects of Prior Discourse on Argument Realizations in Cantonese speaking Preschool Children written by 周曉欣 and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 29 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Given before new written by Nola Marie Stephens and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Child language researchers, particularly those studying the acquisition of syntax, have often viewed young children's utterances as isolated and self-contained units of analysis. But "language does not exist in a vacuum" (Clark & Clark 1978:227), and utterances don't either. This dissertation explores the influence of conversational context on early word order. Specifically, I consider how discourse givenness affects the order of postverbal arguments in the speech of preschool children. In three elicited production studies, I systematically varied the structure of the discourse children heard just before they were asked to describe a filmed vignette. Study 1 targeted verbs of locative transfer, both alternating locative verbs (cf. She squirted the hotdog with the ketchup. vs. She squirted the ketchup on the hotdog.) and non-alternating ones (cf. She filled the cup with sand. vs. *She filled sand into the cup.). Studies 2 and 3 targeted alternating dative verbs (cf. She gave the man the hat. vs. She gave the hat to the man.). These studies provide converging evidence that (i) givenness has a robust effect on early argument ordering--like adults, children tend to use given-before-new ordering, (ii) this discourse effect can be largely, but not fully, attributed to the effect of discourse on referring expressions (viz. that given arguments tend to be pronominal and new ones tend to be lexical), (iii) givenness does not influence all verbs and all arguments equally. I argue that several factors are needed to explain the asymmetrical effects of givenness across verbs and arguments. These include patterns of distribution in the input, conceptual biases, and semantic and pragmatic properties of the verbs. I also evaluate several mechanisms that might drive early given-before-new ordering: those that are addressee-based, speaker-based, or experience-based. My data do not decide between these, but they do offer preliminary evidence in favor of a speaker-based account. Ultimately, my dissertation highlights the importance of approaching syntactic acquisition from several directions simultaneously. Children must learn to attend to cues from form, function, and discourse and use their limited processing capacities to integrate these cues into a larger model of language production. Linguists must do likewise.
Download or read book REQUEST REALIZATIONS IN CANTON written by Chung-Wa Law and published by Open Dissertation Press. This book was released on 2017-01-26 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This dissertation, "Request Realizations in Cantonese-speaking School-aged Children" by Chung-wa, Law, 羅頌華, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: Request realizations have been mainly investigated in adults. Studies in Western languages consistently documented a preference for conventionally indirect strategies and this finding supports the notion of the universality of speech acts. Few studies have investigated request realizations in Cantonese, and these studies have focused only on capturing cross-linguistic pragmatic abilities rather than examining the profiles and patterns of Cantonese request realizations. Age and gender differences-crucial aspects in child language acquisition-have not been explored in studies of Cantonese request realizations by school-aged children. Other than the production of request realizations, factors affecting the choice of request strategies, alerters, internal modifications, and supportive moves remain unexplored in Cantonese. Power, social distance, and rank of imposition are the social variables noted in politeness theory (Brown & Levinson, 1987) that determine the weightiness of a face threatening act. This study aimed at documenting profiles and patterns of request strategies and all request constituents used by Cantonese-speaking school-aged children in diverse situations that also varied in two levels (i.e., high and low) for the social variables. This study recruited 120 students from four Hong Kong primary schools. Twenty boys and girls were each recruited from primary 1, primary 3, and primary 5. The participants verbally produced utterances based on the 32 situations presented by the Sequenced Cartoon Request Elicitation Task (SCaRET), which is a sampling tool specifically designed for eliciting request realizations from school-aged children. Quantitative and qualitative analyses were employed to analyze the request strategies and all request constituents. Results indicated that conventionally indirect strategies were the most preferred strategies, followed by direct and conventionally indirect strategies. This finding supported the notion of universality of speech acts. Secondly, more modifications were used in direct strategies than indirect strategies. Thirdly, alerters and internal modifications were commonly used in the requests. Supportive moves were used in around twenty-five percent of the sampled requests. The subtypes and the linguistic forms used in each of the request strategy types and constituents were documented. Age differences were identified in direct strategies, non-conventionally indirect strategies, alerters, and supportive moves. Statistically significant age differences from primary 1 to primary 3 indicated a decrease of direct strategies, and a decrease of non-conventionally indirect strategies and alerters. On the other hand, statistically significant age differences from primary 3 to primary 5 indicated an increase of direct strategies and supportive moves, and a decrease of non-conventionally indirect strategies between these two ages. Gender differences were not prominent in the sampled request strategies. Only the mood derivable and the want statement showed statistically group differences among all analyzed request strategies and constituents. However, subtle gender differences were found from qualitative analysis of the use of supportive moves. Girls produced the most complicated request realizations, with four and five supportive moves. More girls produced request realizations with three supportive moves than boys. The study identified that power, social
Download or read book Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts written by and published by . This book was released on 2008-02 with total page 542 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English written by National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2017-08-25 with total page 529 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Educating dual language learners (DLLs) and English learners (ELs) effectively is a national challenge with consequences both for individuals and for American society. Despite their linguistic, cognitive, and social potential, many ELsâ€"who account for more than 9 percent of enrollment in grades K-12 in U.S. schoolsâ€"are struggling to meet the requirements for academic success, and their prospects for success in postsecondary education and in the workforce are jeopardized as a result. Promoting the Educational Success of Children and Youth Learning English: Promising Futures examines how evidence based on research relevant to the development of DLLs/ELs from birth to age 21 can inform education and health policies and related practices that can result in better educational outcomes. This report makes recommendations for policy, practice, and research and data collection focused on addressing the challenges in caring for and educating DLLs/ELs from birth to grade 12.
Download or read book The Science of Reading written by Margaret J. Snowling and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2013-04-22 with total page 922 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Science of Reading: A Handbook brings together state-of-the-art reviews of reading research from leading names in the field, to create a highly authoritative, multidisciplinary overview of contemporary knowledge about reading and related skills. Provides comprehensive coverage of the subject, including theoretical approaches, reading processes, stage models of reading, cross-linguistic studies of reading, reading difficulties, the biology of reading, and reading instruction Divided into seven sections:Word Recognition Processes in Reading; Learning to Read and Spell; Reading Comprehension; Reading in Different Languages; Disorders of Reading and Spelling; Biological Bases of Reading; Teaching Reading Edited by well-respected senior figures in the field
Download or read book The Acquisition of Reference written by Ludovica Serratrice and published by John Benjamins Publishing Company. This book was released on 2015-11-15 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Referring to entities is one of the key functions of language; learning to understand and use the relevant referential expressions is one of children’s major linguistic achievements. The 13 chapters of this volume bring together a wealth of information on the acquisition of referential processes in infants, pre-schoolers and school-age children drawing on data from more than 25 languages ranging from Italian to Inuktitut, and from Norwegian to Turkish. This book presents the state-of-the-art of corpus and experimental research on the acquisition of reference. The breadth of aspects of referential acquisition will make the volume appealing to a wide audience of researchers, including linguists and psycholinguists working on phonological, morpho-syntactic, and discourse-pragmatic aspects of language development. The cross-linguistic perspective adopted by several of the contributors will be of particular interest to researchers investigating the relevance of typological differences. The state-of-the-art approach makes the research accessible to specialist and non-specialist researchers alike, and will provide an invaluable resource for graduate-level courses.
Download or read book The Step tongue written by Anthea Fraser Gupta and published by Multilingual Matters. This book was released on 1994-01-01 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Singapore, multilingualism is the norm, and English (often the local variety) is widely acquired and used. This book examines the social and historical context of children's English in Singapore, and traces the development of four Singaporean children who have English as a native language. The implications for education and speech therapy are discussed.
Download or read book Understanding Second Language Acquisition written by Lourdes Ortega and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2014-02-04 with total page 321 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whether we grow up with one, two, or several languages during our early years of life, many of us will learn a second, foreign, or heritage language in later years. The field of Second language acquisition (SLA, for short) investigates the human capacity to learn additional languages in late childhood, adolescence, or adulthood, after the first language --in the case of monolinguals-- or languages --in the case of bilinguals-- have already been acquired. Understanding Second Language Acquisition offers a wide-encompassing survey of this burgeoning field, its accumulated findings and proposed theories, its developed research paradigms, and its pending questions for the future. The book zooms in and out of universal, individual, and social forces, in each case evaluating the research findings that have been generated across diverse naturalistic and formal contexts for second language acquisition. It assumes no background in SLA and provides helpful chapter-by-chapter summaries and suggestions for further reading. Ideal as a textbook for students of applied linguistics, foreign language education, TESOL, and education, it is also recommended for students of linguistics, developmental psycholinguistics, psychology, and cognitive science. Supporting resources for tutors are available free at www.routledge.com/ortega.
Download or read book South and Southeast Asian Psycholinguistics written by Heather Winskel and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 491 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This groundbreaking volume explores the languages of South and Southeast Asia, which differ significantly from Indo-European languages in their grammar, lexicon and spoken forms. This book raises new questions in psycholinguistics and enables readers to re-evaluate previous models in light of new research.
Download or read book One Parent One Language written by Susanne Döpke and published by John Benjamins Publishing. This book was released on 1992-01-01 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the relationship between young children's degrees of bilingualism and features of the verbal input which these children receive from their parents. In particular, it seeks to explore the following question: to what extent are families who follow the 'one parent-one language' principle and whose children become active bilinguals this way, different from families who take the same approach but whose children never develop an active command of the minority language? Case studies of six first-born children growing up with German and English were done during the children's third year of life. The input the children received was examined for parents' consistency of language choice, parents' insistence that the children use the appropriate language, parents' sensitivity towards the children's interactional and attentional needs, and parents' orientation towards the teaching of formal aspects of the linguistic system. The findings support the notion that raising one's children bilingually according to the 'one parent-one language' principle involves great efforts on the side of the minority language-speaking parent. Importantly, they indicate that these efforts must be invested in the child's education turn-by-turn.
Download or read book German Sentence Processing written by B. Hemforth and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2013-04-17 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The German language offers a variety of possibilities for asking and answering new questions in psycholinguistic sentence comprehension research. The collection of papers in this volume contributes to the increasingly relevant crosslinguistic comparison of mechanisms of human sentence processing. The topics covered are incremental structure assembly, on-line ambiguity resolution, and phonological, contextual, and working memory aspects of reanalysis. The new theoretical and experimental insights presented in this volume should be of great interest to linguists and psychologists working on human language comprehension. The introductory information provided by the authors makes the volume easily accessible to advanced students.
Download or read book Introducing Second Language Acquisition written by Muriel Saville-Troike and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2012-04-05 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A clear and practical introduction to second language acquisition, written for students encountering the topic for the first time.
Download or read book Bilingual Acquisition written by Margaret Deuchar and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2001 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book presents a case study in bilingual acquisition in a child under the age of two and explores the case's implications for language acquisition theory. The data collection methodology is fully discussed, and the book includes an extensive list of the child's words in English and Spanish.
Download or read book Understanding Child Language Acquisition written by Caroline Rowland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-10-23 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Taking an accessible and cross-linguistic approach, Understanding Child Language Acquisition introduces readers to the most important research on child language acquisition over the last fifty years, as well as to some of the most influential theories in the field. Rather than just describing what children can do at different ages Rowland explains why these research findings are important and what they tell us about how children acquire language. Key features include: Cross-linguistic analysis of how language acquisition differs between languages A chapter on how multilingual children acquire several languages at once Exercises to test comprehension Chapters organised around key questions that summarise the critical issues posed by researchers in the field, with summaries at the end Further reading suggestions to broaden understanding of the subject With its particular focus on outlining key similarities and differences across languages and what this cross-linguistic variation means for our ideas about language acquisition, Understanding Child Language Acquisition forms a comprehensive introduction to the subject for students of linguistics, psychology and speech and language therapy. Students and instructors will benefit from the comprehensive companion website that includes a students’ section featuring interactive comprehension exercises, extension activities, chapter recaps and answers to the exercises within the book. Material for instructors includes sample essay questions, answers to the extension activities for students and a Powerpoint including all the figures from the book. www.routledge.com/cw/rowland
Download or read book BUCLD 44 Proceedings of the 44th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development written by Megan M. Brown and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 758 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This two-volume set contains 60 talks and posters from the 44th annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, held November 7-10, 2019.
Download or read book Funds of Knowledge written by Norma Gonzalez and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2006-04-21 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The concept of "funds of knowledge" is based on a simple premise: people are competent and have knowledge, and their life experiences have given them that knowledge. The claim in this book is that first-hand research experiences with families allow one to document this competence and knowledge, and that such engagement provides many possibilities for positive pedagogical actions. Drawing from both Vygotskian and neo-sociocultural perspectives in designing a methodology that views the everyday practices of language and action as constructing knowledge, the funds of knowledge approach facilitates a systematic and powerful way to represent communities in terms of the resources they possess and how to harness them for classroom teaching. This book accomplishes three objectives: It gives readers the basic methodology and techniques followed in the contributors' funds of knowledge research; it extends the boundaries of what these researchers have done; and it explores the applications to classroom practice that can result from teachers knowing the communities in which they work. In a time when national educational discourses focus on system reform and wholesale replicability across school sites, this book offers a counter-perspective stating that instruction must be linked to students' lives, and that details of effective pedagogy should be linked to local histories and community contexts. This approach should not be confused with parent participation programs, although that is often a fortuitous consequence of the work described. It is also not an attempt to teach parents "how to do school" although that could certainly be an outcome if the parents so desired. Instead, the funds of knowledge approach attempts to accomplish something that may be even more challenging: to alter the perceptions of working-class or poor communities by viewing their households primarily in terms of their strengths and resources, their defining pedagogical characteristics. Funds of Knowledge: Theorizing Practices in Households, Communities, and Classrooms is a critically important volume for all teachers and teachers-to-be, and for researchers and graduate students of language, culture, and education.
