Language Acquisition by Children

An up-to-date introduction to language acquisition for advanced undergraduates and beginning graduate students in linguistics and cognitive science

• Examples from a wide variety of languages including English, Chinese, Dutch, German, Kannada, Portuguese and Spanish
• A clear theoretical stance, adopting Chomskyan generative grammar as a framework
• Summary boxes, exercises and discussion questions at the end of each chapter to improve understanding, generate discussion and encourage reflection
• Appendices of research techniques and resources to aid further study

Helen Goodluck adopts Chomskyan generative grammar as a framework to guide students through the growth of language in a typically developing child. She presents competing viewpoints and introduces the central controversies in the field in order to give students the opportunity to evaluate and reflect on these in relation to the examples and data presented. Summary boxes, exercises, discussion questions, an appendix of research techniques and suggestions for further reading are also included to develop deeper understanding, generate reflective discussion and aid further study.

Taking into consideration recent developments and advances in the field, coverage includes the acquisition of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, the nature of innate knowledge and learning mechanisms and new developments in performance mechanisms. Illustrated with examples from a wide variety of languages, this book presents an accessible and essential guide to first language acquisition.