The best survey of the subject available, The Cambridge Handbook of Child Language brings together the world's foremost researchers to provide a one-stop resource for the study of language acquisition and development. Grouped into five thematic sections, the Handbook is organised by topic, making it easier for students and researchers to use when looking up specific in-depth information. It covers a wider range of subjects than any other handbook on the market, with chapters covering both theories and methods in child language research, and tracing the development of language from pre-linguistic infancy to teenager. Drawing on both established and more recent research, the Handbook surveys statistical learning, the cross-linguistic study of language acquisition, pre-linguistic development, and topics in semantic, pragmatic and narrative development, bilingualism, sign languages, specific language impairment, language and autism, Down Syndrome and Williams Syndrome. The field of child language research is multi-disciplinary: the book will be an essential reference for students and researchers working in linguistics, psychology, cognitive science, speech pathology, education and anthropology.
Contents
1. Introduction: perspectives on child language Edith L. Bavin; Part I. Theoretical and Methodological Approaches: 2. Innateness and learnability Virginia Valian; 3. Statistical learning Eric Thiessen; 4. Neurocognition of language development Angela D. Friederici; 5. The usage-based theory of language acquisition Michael Tomasello; 6. Crosslinguistic approaches to language acquisition Sabine Stoll; Part II. Early Developments: 7. Speech perception Dan Hufnagle and Suzanne Curtin; 8. Crosslinguistic perspectives on segmentation and categorization in early language acquisition Barbara Höhle; 9. From gesture to word Susan Goldin-Meadow; Part III. Phonology, Morphology and Syntax: 10. A dynamic systems approach to babbling and words Marilyn M. Vihman, Rory A. DePaolis and Tamar Keren-Portnoy; 11. The prosody of syllables, words and morphemes Katherine Demuth; 12. Grammatical categories Heike Behrens; 13. Verb argument structure Shanley Allen; 14. The first language acquisition of complex sentences Barbara C. Lust, Claire Foley and Cristina Dye; 15. The morphosyntax interface Kamil Ud Deen; Part IV. Semantics, Pragmatics and Discourse: 16. Lexical meaning Eve V. Clark; 17. Sentence scope Stephen Crain; 18. Sentence processing Jesse Snedeker; 19. Pragmatic development Judith Becker-Bryant; 20. Language development in narrative contexts Ruth A. Berman; Part V. Varieties of Development: 21. Children with two languages Barbara Zurer Pearson; 22. Sign language acquisition studies Diane Lillo-Martin; 23. Children with specific language impairment J. Bruce Tomblin; 24. Language symptoms and their possible sources in specific language impairment Laurance B. Leonard; 25. The language of children with autism Rhiannon J. Luyster and Catherine Lord; 26. Language development in genetic disorders Fiona M. Richardson and Michael S. C. Thomas.
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