1st Edition

Routes to Language Studies in Honor of Melissa Bowerman

Edited By Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole Copyright 2009
    488 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    488 Pages
    by Psychology Press

    This volume contains contributions from leaders in the field of child language in honor of one of the preeminent scholars in the field of child language acquisition, Melissa Bowerman. Melissa Bowerman has had a profound, widespread, and enduring influence on research conducted in the field for nearly 40 years.

    In addition to being a tribute to Professor Bowerman and her work, the chapters provide the most up-to-date statement of key positions by several leaders in the field of child language development. Fundamental questions in the field are explored in depth, and there are rich analyses of progress in the field in a number of areas, including learning words; crosslinguistic patterning and acquisition of lexical semantics; crosslinguistic patterning and events, paths, and causes; and influences on development.

    The volume is essential reading for researchers in child language and development, linguistics, psychology, education, and speech pathology, as well as researchers and practitioners specializing in the many specific languages discussed in the book.

    V.C. Mueller Gathercole, Preface. Part 1. Learning Words. D. Gentner, Personal Tribute. D. Gentner, L. Boroditsky, Early Acquisition of Nouns and Verbs: Evidence from Navajo. E. Dromi, Personal Tribute. E. Dromi, Old Data – New Eyes: Theories on Word Meaning Acquisition. Part 2. Crosslinguistic Patterning and Acquisition of Lexical Semantics. R. Berman, Personal Tribute. A. Wittek, Personal Tribute. L. de León, Personal Tribute. L. de León, Mayan Semantics in Early Lexical Development: The Case of the Tzotzil Verbs for "Eating" and "Falling Down". P. Brown, B. Narasimhan, Personal Tribute. B. Narasimhan, P. Brown, Getting the INSIDE Story: Learning to Express Containment in Tzeltal and Hindi. Part 3. Crosslinguistic Patterning and Events, Paths, and Causes. L. Talmy, Personal Tribute. J. Chen, Personal Tribute. W. Croft, Personal Tribute. W. Croft, Aspectual and Causal Structure in Event Representations. S. Choi, Personal Tribute. S. Choi, Typological Differences in Syntactic Expressions of Path and Causation. D.I. Slobin, Personal Tribute. D.I. Slobin, Relation between Paths of Motion and Paths of Vision: A Crosslinguistic and Developmental Exploration. Part 4. Influences on Development. R.P. Schaefer, Personal Tribute. M. Crago, Personal Tribute. E.V. Clark, Personal Tribute. E.V. Clark, What Shapes Children’s Language? Child-directed Speech and the Process of Acquisition. P. Li, Personal Tribute. P. Li, What’s in a Lexical System? Discovering Meaning through an Interactive Eye. M. Rice, Personal Tribute. M. Rice, Language Acquisition Lessons from Children with Specific Language Impairment: Revisiting the Discovery of Latent Structures. V.C. Mueller Gathercole, Personal Tribute. V.C. Mueller Gathercole, "It Was So Much Fun. It Was 20 Fun!" Cognitive and Linguistic Invitations to the Development of Scalar Predicates.

    Biography

    Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole

    "A comprehensive and diverse volume on language acquisition which includes detailed accounts and studies written by experts in the field. It is data rich, and benefits from the inclusion of a wide-range of contemporary studies, review material, cross-sectional and longitudinal data, and cross-linguistic perspectives. ... [Those] interested in language acquisition and child language should find this volume to be a useful reference source." - Sandra P. Whiteside, University of Sheffield, UK, in The Phonetician