Pub Date : 2022-03-28DOI: 10.1177/01427237221084505
C. Pye
The commentary amplifies Kidd and Garcia’s call for increased attention to language diversity in research on language acquisition by noting several implications of language diversity for acquisition theory and practice. An examination of the languages discussed in six recent articles on acquisition theory echos Kidd and Garcia’s observations on the inordinate role that better-studied languages play in acquisition research. Documenting the acquisition of 7,000 languages over the coming decade requires a new infrastructure for acquisition research. Sketches of child languages offer a community-based solution to processing bottlenecks and promote the use of indigenous languages.
{"title":"Exploring language diversity: A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022)","authors":"C. Pye","doi":"10.1177/01427237221084505","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221084505","url":null,"abstract":"The commentary amplifies Kidd and Garcia’s call for increased attention to language diversity in research on language acquisition by noting several implications of language diversity for acquisition theory and practice. An examination of the languages discussed in six recent articles on acquisition theory echos Kidd and Garcia’s observations on the inordinate role that better-studied languages play in acquisition research. Documenting the acquisition of 7,000 languages over the coming decade requires a new infrastructure for acquisition research. Sketches of child languages offer a community-based solution to processing bottlenecks and promote the use of indigenous languages.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"799 - 803"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48960635","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-24DOI: 10.1177/01427237221081201
E. Tonini, Serena Lecce, Paola Del Sette, Federica Bianco, P. Canal, V. Bambini
Although metaphors are essential tools in everyday communication and educational settings, the literature lacks evidence of effective training tools to promote metaphor comprehension in typical development. Grounding in theoretical pragmatics, we developed a novel metaphor comprehension training (MetaCom) for school-age children that focuses on inferential and contextual aspects of metaphors. The effects of the MetaCom were tested against a control training focusing on text comprehension in a randomized controlled trial involving 55 children aged between 8;8 and 9;8. Only children in the MetaCom group improved in the ability to verbally explain the meaning of a metaphor. Moreover, only the MetaCom showed transfer effects to reading comprehension. These findings suggest that targeting inference and attention to context is key to promote metaphor understanding, and that the benefits might extend to linguistic and communicative skills at large. The MetaCom training can thus represent a promising tool for educational programs, possibly also in atypical populations.
{"title":"Efficacy and benefits of the MetaCom training to promote metaphor comprehension in typical development","authors":"E. Tonini, Serena Lecce, Paola Del Sette, Federica Bianco, P. Canal, V. Bambini","doi":"10.1177/01427237221081201","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221081201","url":null,"abstract":"Although metaphors are essential tools in everyday communication and educational settings, the literature lacks evidence of effective training tools to promote metaphor comprehension in typical development. Grounding in theoretical pragmatics, we developed a novel metaphor comprehension training (MetaCom) for school-age children that focuses on inferential and contextual aspects of metaphors. The effects of the MetaCom were tested against a control training focusing on text comprehension in a randomized controlled trial involving 55 children aged between 8;8 and 9;8. Only children in the MetaCom group improved in the ability to verbally explain the meaning of a metaphor. Moreover, only the MetaCom showed transfer effects to reading comprehension. These findings suggest that targeting inference and attention to context is key to promote metaphor understanding, and that the benefits might extend to linguistic and communicative skills at large. The MetaCom training can thus represent a promising tool for educational programs, possibly also in atypical populations.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"466 - 496"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46328305","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-17DOI: 10.1177/01427237221079137
Yuanfan Ying, Xiaolu Yang, Rushen Shi
Previous studies show that infants store functional morphemes for inferring syntactic categories of adjacent words, and they generally perform better with nouns than with verbs. In this study, we tested whether toddlers can exploit phrasal groupings for syntactic categorization in the face of noisy co-occurrence patterns. Using a visual fixation procedure, we examined whether Mandarin-learning 19-month-olds can categorize word X to the left of functional morpheme a in a prosody-neutral 3-word sequence X-a-Y, where a structurally selects X (X and Y being unfamiliar words). Infants at 19 months were familiarized either with X-ye-Y (‘even XN YV’) or with X-le-Y (‘have XV-ed YN’). While le features a more mixed distribution than ye, 19-month-olds succeeded with both ye and le by preferring grammatical new contexts of X over ungrammatical ones, consistent with the hypothesis that phrasal groupings ([Xa. . .]) support syntactic categorization. Our findings provide initial evidence for infants’ ability to capture functional morphemes for backward syntactic categorization.
先前的研究表明，婴儿储存功能性词素用于推断相邻单词的句法类别，而且他们在名词方面的表现通常比在动词方面好。在这项研究中，我们测试了幼儿在面对嘈杂的共现模式时是否可以利用短语分组进行句法分类。使用视觉固定程序，我们检查了学习普通话的19个月大的孩子是否可以在韵律中性的3字序列X-a-Y中将单词X分类到功能语素a的左边，其中a在结构上选择X（X和Y是不熟悉的单词）。19岁的婴儿 月熟悉X-ye-Y（‘even XN YV’）或X-le-Y（“have XV ed YN”）。虽然le的分布比ye更为混合，但19个月大的孩子在ye和le方面都取得了成功，他们更喜欢X的语法新上下文，而不是非语法上下文，这与短语分组（[Xa…]）支持句法分类的假设一致。我们的研究结果为婴儿捕捉功能语素进行后向句法分类的能力提供了初步证据。
{"title":"Toddlers use functional morphemes for backward syntactic categorization","authors":"Yuanfan Ying, Xiaolu Yang, Rushen Shi","doi":"10.1177/01427237221079137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221079137","url":null,"abstract":"Previous studies show that infants store functional morphemes for inferring syntactic categories of adjacent words, and they generally perform better with nouns than with verbs. In this study, we tested whether toddlers can exploit phrasal groupings for syntactic categorization in the face of noisy co-occurrence patterns. Using a visual fixation procedure, we examined whether Mandarin-learning 19-month-olds can categorize word X to the left of functional morpheme a in a prosody-neutral 3-word sequence X-a-Y, where a structurally selects X (X and Y being unfamiliar words). Infants at 19 months were familiarized either with X-ye-Y (‘even XN YV’) or with X-le-Y (‘have XV-ed YN’). While le features a more mixed distribution than ye, 19-month-olds succeeded with both ye and le by preferring grammatical new contexts of X over ungrammatical ones, consistent with the hypothesis that phrasal groupings ([Xa. . .]) support syntactic categorization. Our findings provide initial evidence for infants’ ability to capture functional morphemes for backward syntactic categorization.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"448 - 465"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43559185","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
There is robust evidence that reading aloud with young children can help them learn new vocabulary. Building upon prior research, this study tested the effects of both book text features and readers’ spontaneous extra-textual word-highlighting strategies on 3- to 4-year-olds’ vocabulary retention from repeated read alouds of a story in their own homes. Parent–child dyads (n = 30) were provided with either a rhymed or unrhymed version of the same story featuring novel names and illustrations of eight imaginary monsters, along with an audio recorder to take home. Parents recorded reading the book aloud with their child daily for five consecutive days, then children were tested on their monster name recall. Recordings of each dyad’s five progressive read alouds were transcribed, and coded for conversational elements and novel word-highlighting strategies. Findings indicate that children retained the novel monster names with equal success from rhymed and unrhymed books. While individual variation among dyads in their extra-textual commentary was high, each tended to adopt a consistent amount while reading the book across days in both rhymed and unrhymed formats, even as they became more familiar. The one extra-textual vocabulary highlighting behavior during readings that was most predictive of children’s later monster name recall was their own frequency of making guesses of the monster names before they were heard during the read alouds. A close look at the interactions between book format, book familiarity, and the extra-textual commentary around a storybook, and the implications of these interactions for vocabulary building are discussed.
{"title":"Rhyme over time: Vocabulary learning through daily reading aloud at home with children","authors":"Kirsten Read, Alena Rogojina, Olivia Hauer-Richard","doi":"10.1177/01427237221079475","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221079475","url":null,"abstract":"There is robust evidence that reading aloud with young children can help them learn new vocabulary. Building upon prior research, this study tested the effects of both book text features and readers’ spontaneous extra-textual word-highlighting strategies on 3- to 4-year-olds’ vocabulary retention from repeated read alouds of a story in their own homes. Parent–child dyads (n = 30) were provided with either a rhymed or unrhymed version of the same story featuring novel names and illustrations of eight imaginary monsters, along with an audio recorder to take home. Parents recorded reading the book aloud with their child daily for five consecutive days, then children were tested on their monster name recall. Recordings of each dyad’s five progressive read alouds were transcribed, and coded for conversational elements and novel word-highlighting strategies. Findings indicate that children retained the novel monster names with equal success from rhymed and unrhymed books. While individual variation among dyads in their extra-textual commentary was high, each tended to adopt a consistent amount while reading the book across days in both rhymed and unrhymed formats, even as they became more familiar. The one extra-textual vocabulary highlighting behavior during readings that was most predictive of children’s later monster name recall was their own frequency of making guesses of the monster names before they were heard during the read alouds. A close look at the interactions between book format, book familiarity, and the extra-textual commentary around a storybook, and the implications of these interactions for vocabulary building are discussed.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"426 - 447"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42156000","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-03-04DOI: 10.1177/01427237221081731
Ryan E. Henke
Kidd and Garcia cogently articulate scientific problems related to intellectual merit that are associated with the lack of language diversity in L1 acquisition research. However, science must also consider stakes related to the broader impacts of research. Focusing on Indigenous language communities in North America, I discuss ways that the lack of language coverage causes linguistic science to fall short in making broader impacts in areas such as speech-language pathology and language revitalization programs.
{"title":"What about broader impacts for child language acquisition research? A commentary on Kidd and Garcia (2022)","authors":"Ryan E. Henke","doi":"10.1177/01427237221081731","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221081731","url":null,"abstract":"Kidd and Garcia cogently articulate scientific problems related to intellectual merit that are associated with the lack of language diversity in L1 acquisition research. However, science must also consider stakes related to the broader impacts of research. Focusing on Indigenous language communities in North America, I discuss ways that the lack of language coverage causes linguistic science to fall short in making broader impacts in areas such as speech-language pathology and language revitalization programs.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"774 - 778"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-03-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41685255","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-08DOI: 10.1177/01427237211072661
Hanne Røe-Indregård, M. Rowe, Veslemøy Rydland, Imac M Zambrana
Communication is best understood as occurring along three dimensions: interactional, conceptual, and linguistic. However, few studies have examined early parent–child communication along all three dimensions simultaneously. This study examines these three dimensions of communication in Norwegian parent–child interactions during play. Thirty-nine 2-year-old children participated in dyadic interactions with their fathers (N = 30) and mothers (N = 38). Of these 39 children, 29 engaged in separate interactions with both parents. Father–child and mother–child responsive communication, levels of abstract talk, and language complexity and diversity were examined and compared. Overall, the features of communication were very similar between father–child and mother–child interactions, and there were some noteworthy associations between the features of father–child and mother–child communication within families and dyads. We discuss these findings in reference to the three dimensions and in relation to the specific activity and cultural setting of the study.
{"title":"Features of communication in Norwegian parent–child play interactions","authors":"Hanne Røe-Indregård, M. Rowe, Veslemøy Rydland, Imac M Zambrana","doi":"10.1177/01427237211072661","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237211072661","url":null,"abstract":"Communication is best understood as occurring along three dimensions: interactional, conceptual, and linguistic. However, few studies have examined early parent–child communication along all three dimensions simultaneously. This study examines these three dimensions of communication in Norwegian parent–child interactions during play. Thirty-nine 2-year-old children participated in dyadic interactions with their fathers (N = 30) and mothers (N = 38). Of these 39 children, 29 engaged in separate interactions with both parents. Father–child and mother–child responsive communication, levels of abstract talk, and language complexity and diversity were examined and compared. Overall, the features of communication were very similar between father–child and mother–child interactions, and there were some noteworthy associations between the features of father–child and mother–child communication within families and dyads. We discuss these findings in reference to the three dimensions and in relation to the specific activity and cultural setting of the study.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"383 - 404"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45156022","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-07DOI: 10.1177/01427237221074141
Yi Zhang, P. Harris
Research on the development of children’s decontextualized language has focused primarily on their references to events displaced in time. Here, we examine children’s early emerging ability to talk about individuals who are elsewhere and therefore not participating in the conversation. We analyzed the references made by three Mandarin-speaking children aged 20–40 months to absent members of their social network. Even in the earliest period of the study (20–26 months), children produced a considerable number of such references, with the majority initiated either fully or partially by the children themselves. Thus, children were not simply echoing references made by their interlocutors. These early references often expressed attachment-related concerns with respect to absent family members. For example, children expressed a desire for the absent family member, called out their name, or asked about their location. Over time, however, they talked about absent individuals, including family members, in a more neutral or reflective fashion, commenting on their characteristics and activities. The findings highlight the early emergence of references that are displaced in space from the utterance context.
{"title":"Talking about people who are not there: Children’s early references to absent caregivers and absent friends","authors":"Yi Zhang, P. Harris","doi":"10.1177/01427237221074141","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237221074141","url":null,"abstract":"Research on the development of children’s decontextualized language has focused primarily on their references to events displaced in time. Here, we examine children’s early emerging ability to talk about individuals who are elsewhere and therefore not participating in the conversation. We analyzed the references made by three Mandarin-speaking children aged 20–40 months to absent members of their social network. Even in the earliest period of the study (20–26 months), children produced a considerable number of such references, with the majority initiated either fully or partially by the children themselves. Thus, children were not simply echoing references made by their interlocutors. These early references often expressed attachment-related concerns with respect to absent family members. For example, children expressed a desire for the absent family member, called out their name, or asked about their location. Over time, however, they talked about absent individuals, including family members, in a more neutral or reflective fashion, commenting on their characteristics and activities. The findings highlight the early emergence of references that are displaced in space from the utterance context.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"405 - 425"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-02-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46742544","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-28DOI: 10.1177/01427237211066405
E. Kidd, Rowena Garcia
A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in many of them. Here, we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for several variables, including (1) participant group (mono vs multilingual), (2) language(s), (3) topic(s) and (4) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing approximately 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-European languages, with the majority of non-Indo-European languages having just one paper. A majority of the papers focused on studies of monolingual children, although papers did not always explicitly report participant group status. The distribution of topics across language categories was more even. The number of articles published on non-Indo-European languages from countries outside of North America and Europe is increasing; however, this increase is driven by research conducted in relatively wealthy countries. Overall, the vast majority of the research was produced in the Global North. We conclude that, despite a proud history of crosslinguistic research, the goals of the discipline need to be recalibrated before we can lay claim to truly a representative account of child language acquisition.
{"title":"How diverse is child language acquisition research?","authors":"E. Kidd, Rowena Garcia","doi":"10.1177/01427237211066405","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237211066405","url":null,"abstract":"A comprehensive theory of child language acquisition requires an evidential base that is representative of the typological diversity present in the world’s 7000 or so languages. However, languages are dying at an alarming rate, and the next 50 years represents the last chance we have to document acquisition in many of them. Here, we take stock of the last 45 years of research published in the four main child language acquisition journals: Journal of Child Language, First Language, Language Acquisition and Language Learning and Development. We coded each article for several variables, including (1) participant group (mono vs multilingual), (2) language(s), (3) topic(s) and (4) country of author affiliation, from each journal’s inception until the end of 2020. We found that we have at least one article published on around 103 languages, representing approximately 1.5% of the world’s languages. The distribution of articles was highly skewed towards English and other well-studied Indo-European languages, with the majority of non-Indo-European languages having just one paper. A majority of the papers focused on studies of monolingual children, although papers did not always explicitly report participant group status. The distribution of topics across language categories was more even. The number of articles published on non-Indo-European languages from countries outside of North America and Europe is increasing; however, this increase is driven by research conducted in relatively wealthy countries. Overall, the vast majority of the research was produced in the Global North. We conclude that, despite a proud history of crosslinguistic research, the goals of the discipline need to be recalibrated before we can lay claim to truly a representative account of child language acquisition.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"703 - 735"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46586166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-16DOI: 10.1177/01427237211067574
Esther L. Brown, Naomi L. Shin
Child language acquisition research has provided ample evidence of lexical frequency effects. This corpus-based analysis introduces a novel frequency measure shown to significantly constrain adult language variation, but heretofore unexplored in child language acquisition research. Among adults, frequent occurrence of a form in a particular discourse context that conditions usage accumulates in memory over time and shapes the lexical representation of that form. This study contributes to the body of research on frequency effects in child language acquisition by testing whether such cumulative conditioning effects are also found among children, and, if so, at what age such effects appear. Specifically, the study investigates the influence of a distributional frequency measure (each verb form’s likelihood of use in a switch vs same-reference discourse context) on variable subject personal pronoun (SPP) expression (N = 2227) in Spanish (e.g. yo voy ~ voy, both meaning ‘I go’) in the speech of 65 monolingual children in two age cohorts. Results reveal sensitivity to the contextual conditioning of discourse continuity (switch reference) among both the younger (6- and 7-year-olds) and older (8- and 9-year-olds) children in support of previous research. In addition, each verb’s likelihood of use in a switch-reference context significantly predicted the SPP use among the older children, but not the younger ones, suggesting that the cumulative effect of a probabilistic pattern takes time to emerge during childhood. The lexically specific accumulation in memory of contextual conditioning effects supports exemplar models of child language acquisition: each instance of use in discourse contributes to the lexical representation of that form and, over time, plays a role in the creation of morphosyntactic patterns during language development.
{"title":"Acquisition of cumulative conditioning effects on words: Spanish-speaking children’s [subject pronoun + verb] usage","authors":"Esther L. Brown, Naomi L. Shin","doi":"10.1177/01427237211067574","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237211067574","url":null,"abstract":"Child language acquisition research has provided ample evidence of lexical frequency effects. This corpus-based analysis introduces a novel frequency measure shown to significantly constrain adult language variation, but heretofore unexplored in child language acquisition research. Among adults, frequent occurrence of a form in a particular discourse context that conditions usage accumulates in memory over time and shapes the lexical representation of that form. This study contributes to the body of research on frequency effects in child language acquisition by testing whether such cumulative conditioning effects are also found among children, and, if so, at what age such effects appear. Specifically, the study investigates the influence of a distributional frequency measure (each verb form’s likelihood of use in a switch vs same-reference discourse context) on variable subject personal pronoun (SPP) expression (N = 2227) in Spanish (e.g. yo voy ~ voy, both meaning ‘I go’) in the speech of 65 monolingual children in two age cohorts. Results reveal sensitivity to the contextual conditioning of discourse continuity (switch reference) among both the younger (6- and 7-year-olds) and older (8- and 9-year-olds) children in support of previous research. In addition, each verb’s likelihood of use in a switch-reference context significantly predicted the SPP use among the older children, but not the younger ones, suggesting that the cumulative effect of a probabilistic pattern takes time to emerge during childhood. The lexically specific accumulation in memory of contextual conditioning effects supports exemplar models of child language acquisition: each instance of use in discourse contributes to the lexical representation of that form and, over time, plays a role in the creation of morphosyntactic patterns during language development.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"361 - 382"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47951721","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-01-16DOI: 10.1177/01427237211064695
Cécile de Cat
The development of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) has no doubt contributed to prompting a renewed interest in children’s narratives. This carefully controlled test of narrative abilities elicits a rich set of measures spanning multiple linguistic domains and their interaction, including lexis, morphosyntax, discourse-pragmatics, as well as various aspects of narrative structure, communicative competence, and language use (such as code-switching). It is particularly well suited to the study of discourse cohesion, referential adequacy and informativeness, and of course to the study of narrative structure and richness, and the acquisition of a more formal or literary register. In this commentary article, I reflect on the five empirical papers included in the special issue. I focus on methodological challenges for the analysis of narratives and identify outstanding questions.
{"title":"Opportunities and challenges in the analysis of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN)","authors":"Cécile de Cat","doi":"10.1177/01427237211064695","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/01427237211064695","url":null,"abstract":"The development of the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN) has no doubt contributed to prompting a renewed interest in children’s narratives. This carefully controlled test of narrative abilities elicits a rich set of measures spanning multiple linguistic domains and their interaction, including lexis, morphosyntax, discourse-pragmatics, as well as various aspects of narrative structure, communicative competence, and language use (such as code-switching). It is particularly well suited to the study of discourse cohesion, referential adequacy and informativeness, and of course to the study of narrative structure and richness, and the acquisition of a more formal or literary register. In this commentary article, I reflect on the five empirical papers included in the special issue. I focus on methodological challenges for the analysis of narratives and identify outstanding questions.","PeriodicalId":47254,"journal":{"name":"First Language","volume":"42 1","pages":"321 - 329"},"PeriodicalIF":1.9,"publicationDate":"2022-01-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45533056","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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