A Computational Model of First Language Acquisition

A Computational Model of First Language Acquisition
Author: Nobuo Satake
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 214
Release: 1990
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9789810201395

This book describes a study on the question of what sort of innate knowledge it is that enables children to acquire a first language. The author, using a computational approach, builds a model, named BUD (Bring Up a Daughter), on the basis of the data linguists and psychologists have collected.BUD is based on the empirists, view of first language acquisition (as opposed to that of the nativists'), that children make a number of rules in acquiring a first language and that over generalizations can be found in the acquisition of every aspect of a language. Thus, BUD has no built-in procedure by which it computes the structures of a language. A detailed description of the BUD model and its workings answers the question on which the study is based.

A Computational Model Of First Language Acquisition

A Computational Model Of First Language Acquisition
Author: Nobuo Satake
Publisher: World Scientific
Total Pages: 211
Release: 1990-01-01
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 9814507040

This book describes a study on the question of what sort of innate knowledge it is that enables children to acquire a first language. The author, using a computational approach, builds a model, named BUD (Bring Up a Daughter), on the basis of the data linguists and psychologists have collected.BUD is based on the empirists, view of first language acquisition (as opposed to that of the nativists'), that children make a number of rules in acquiring a first language and that over generalizations can be found in the acquisition of every aspect of a language. Thus, BUD has no built-in procedure by which it computes the structures of a language. A detailed description of the BUD model and its workings answers the question on which the study is based.

Language Acquisition

Language Acquisition
Author: Susan Foster-Cohen
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2009-07-16
Genre: Education
ISBN: 023024078X

This book provides a snapshot of the field of language acquisition at the beginning of the 21st Century. It represents the multiplicity of approaches that characterize the field and provides a review of current topics and debates, as well as addressing some of the connections between sub-fields and possible future directions for research.

Language, Cognition, and Computational Models

Language, Cognition, and Computational Models
Author: Thierry Poibeau
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2018-01-25
Genre: Computers
ISBN: 110850678X

How do infants learn a language? Why and how do languages evolve? How do we understand a sentence? This book explores these questions using recent computational models that shed new light on issues related to language and cognition. The chapters in this collection propose original analyses of specific problems and develop computational models that have been tested and evaluated on real data. Featuring contributions from a diverse group of experts, this interdisciplinary book bridges the gap between natural language processing and cognitive sciences. It is divided into three sections, focusing respectively on models of neural and cognitive processing, data driven methods, and social issues in language evolution. This book will be useful to any researcher and advanced student interested in the analysis of the links between the brain and the language faculty.

First Language Acquisition

First Language Acquisition
Author: David Ingram
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 588
Release: 1989-09-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9780521349161

This major textbook, setting new standards of clarity and comprehensiveness, will be welcomed by all serious students of first language acquisition. Written from a linguistic perspective, it provides detailed accounts of the development of children's receptive and productive abilities in all the core areas of language - phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. With a critical acuity drawn from long experience, and without attempting to offer a survey of all the huge mass of child language literature, David Ingram directs students to the fundamental studies and sets these in broad perspective. Students are thereby introduced to the history of the field and the current state of our knowledge in respect of three main themes: method, description and explanation. Whilst the descriptive facts that are currently available on first language acquisition are central to the book, its emphasis on methodology and explanation gives it a particular distinction. The various ways in which research is conducted is discussed in detail, as well as the strengths and weaknesses of various approaches, leading to new perspectives on key theoretical issues. First Language Acquisition provides advanced undergraduate and graduate students alike with a cogent and closely analysed exposition of how children acquire language in real time. Equally importantly, readers will have acquired the fundamental knowledge and skill not only to interpret primary literature but also to approach their own research with sophistication.

Child Language

Child Language
Author: Barbara C. Lust
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 411
Release: 2006-09-21
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1139459279

The remarkable way in which young children acquire language has long fascinated linguists and developmental psychologists alike. Language is a skill that we have essentially mastered by the age of three, and with incredible ease and speed, despite the complexity of the task. This accessible textbook introduces the field of child language acquisition, exploring language development from birth. Setting out the key theoretical debates, it considers questions such as what characteristics of the human mind make it possible to acquire language; how far acquisition is biologically programmed and how far it is influenced by our environment; what makes second language learning (in adulthood) different from first language acquisition; and whether the specific stages in language development are universal across languages. Clear and comprehensive, it is set to become a key text for all courses in child language acquisition, within linguistics, developmental psychology and cognitive science.

First Language Acquisition

First Language Acquisition
Author: Eve V. Clark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 503
Release: 2009-01-22
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0521514134

In this volume, Eve V. Clark takes a comprehensive look at where and when children acquire a first language. All the major findings and debates are presented in a highly readable form.

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition

Development of Modality in First Language Acquisition
Author: Ursula Stephany
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Total Pages: 685
Release: 2021-03-08
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 1501504355

This book deals with the development of modality from a crosslinguistic perspective and is closely related to two earlier volumes on the development of verb and nominal inflection in first language acquisition (SOLA 21 and 30) both methodologically and theoretically. Each of the fourteen contributions studies the early development of the form and function of expressions of deontic and dynamic agent-oriented modality or epistemic and evidential propositional modality in one of fourteen languages belonging to different morphological types and language families (seven Indo-European and seven non-Indo-European). The analyses are mainly based on longitudinal observations of children in their 2nd and 3rd years of life in conversational interaction with their caregivers, mostly the mothers. Main issues addressed are the development of directives and modulations of information in terms of certainty and evidentiality, also taking into account children’s developing social-pragmatic and cognitive skills. One of the main findings is that agent-oriented and propositional modality may develop in parallel depending on the typological characteristics of the language acquired. The decisive factor is whether notions of propositional modality are grammaticized and obligatorily expressed in the language. The findings are interpreted within non-nativist theoretical frameworks (Usage-based theories, Natural Morphology).

Third language acquisition

Third language acquisition
Author: Camilla Bardel
Publisher: Language Science Press
Total Pages: 276
Release:
Genre: Education
ISBN: 3961102805

This book deals with the phenomenon of third language (L3) acquisition. As a research field, L3 acquisition is established as a branch of multilingualism that is concerned with how multilinguals learn additional languages and the role that their multilingual background plays in the process of language learning. The volume points out some current directions in this particular research area with a number of studies that reveal the complexity of multilingual language learning and its typical variation and dynamics. The eight studies gathered in the book represent a wide range of theoretical positions and offer empirical evidence from learners belonging to different age groups, and with varying levels of proficiency in the target language, as well as in other non-native languages belonging to the learner’s repertoire. Diverse linguistic phenomena and language combinations are viewed from a perspective where all previously acquired languages have a potential role to play in the process of learning a new language. In the six empirical studies, contexts of language learning in school or at university level constitute the main outlet for data collection. These studies involve several language backgrounds and language combinations and focus on various linguistic features. The specific target languages in the empirical studies are English, French and Italian. The volume also includes two theoretical chapters. The first one conceptualizes and describes the different types of multilingual language learning investigated in the volume: i) third or additional language learning by learners who are bilinguals from an early age, and ii) third or additional language learning by people who have previous experience of one or more non-native languages learned after the critical period. In particular, issues related to the roles played by age and proficiency in multilingual acquisition are discussed. The other theoretical chapter conceptualizes the grammatical category of aspect, reviewing previous studies on second and third language acquisition of aspect. Different models for L3 learning and their relevance and implications for representations of aspect and for potential differences in the processing of second and third language acquisition are also examined in this chapter. As a whole, the book presents current research into third or additional language learning by young learners or adults, considering some of the most important factors for the complex process of multilingual language learning: the age of onset of the additional language and that of previously acquired languages, social and affective factors, instruction, language proficiency and literacy, the typology of the background languages and the role they play in shaping syntax, lexicon, and other components of a L3. The idea for this book emanates from the symposium Multilingualism, language proficiency and age, organized by Camilla Bardel and Laura Sánchez at Stockholm University, Department of Language Education, in December 2016.

Breaking the Language Barrier

Breaking the Language Barrier
Author: George Hollich
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Total Pages: 150
Release: 2000-10-26
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780631221548

How do children learn their first words? The field of language development has been polarized by responses to this question. Explanations range from accounts that emphasize the importance of cognitive heuristics in language acquisition, to those that highlight the role of "dumb attentional mechanisms" in word learning. This monograph offers an alternative to these accounts. A hybrid view of word-learning, called the emergentist coalition theory, combines cognitive constraints, social-pragmatic factors, and global attentional mechanisms to arrive at a balanced account of how children construct principles of word learning. In twelve experiments, with children ranging from 12 to 25 months of age, data are described that support the emergentist coalition theory.