Language Acquisition

Linguistic Duopoly: A Case of Mewati

by Prerna Bakshi

Considerable attention has been drawn recently towards the plight of immigrant languages or minority languages. Much... more Considerable attention has been drawn recently towards the plight of immigrant languages or minority languages. Much is being done to maintain these languages and to bring the issues surrounding them to the public eye. However, not much has been done on linguistic varieties labelled as 'dialects'. This study seeks to fill this gap by exploring the issues surrounding a language variety called Mewati.

This paper examines the status of Mewati in relation to the other dominant languages of Hindi and Urdu and attempts to explain how social institutions like local state run schools and madrasas contribute towards language shift. Additionally, the study explores the relationship between language, religion and identity and the politics thereof. It is recommended that school curriculums must make a room for Mewati if its maintenance is to be ensured. 

Simulating others: the basis of human cognition?

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2004). Simulating others: the basis of human cognition? Language Sciences, 26/3: 273-299.

The paper critiques the argument of Michael Tomasello’s Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999). This culture-first... more The paper critiques the argument of Michael Tomasello’s Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999). This culture-first theory is judged to be a good sketch of how nature predisposes humans for talk. Above all, this is because if language mediated perspective-taking depends on cultural process, no innate linguistic representations are necessary in learning to talk. Unfortunately, the model is flawed by Tomasello’s claims for a putative species-specific competency. Rather than posit a simulation mechanism to link orthodox views of language with Gricean models of communication, I follow Dennett in treating ‘intentions’ as folk constructs. Talking, on this view, arises from encultured contextualizing. Situated, embodied activity turns infants into perspective-takers who, far from learning or acquiring ‘forms’, slowly become persons. Gradually, the infant’s developing social capacities produce activity that invites others to attribute linguistic knowledge to the child.

Contextualizing bodies: human infants and distributed cognition

by Stephen J. Cowley

This paper that appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2004). Contextualizing bodies: how human responsiveness constrains distributed cognition. Language Sciences, 26/6, 565-591

By their second birthday caregivers treat infants as ‘using’ words that have grammatical properties. How do... more By their second birthday caregivers treat infants as ‘using’ words that have grammatical properties. How do brain-bodies develop the relevant capacity? In addressing this issue, the paper stresses how babies exploit other people’s understanding. It is argued that joint activity uses ‘shallow thinking’ to gradually develop both caregiver biases and infant predispositions. Using how activity is integrated, the baby's skills are gradually transformed. Taking part in competitive and co-operative activity is sufficient to nudge the infant towards strategic syllable-use. Gradually, a baby’s contextualizing body comes to exploit vocalizing in ways heard as arrangements of arbitrary signs. Far from relying on ‘language acquisition’, telegraphic speech arises from co-ordination, affect and adult interpretation. It emerges in infant agents whose anticipative strategies allow them to distinguish, say, ‘gone dada’ [gondada]’ (e.g. “please get it back, dad”) from ‘dada gone’ [dadagon] (e.g. “father is hiding again”).

Vulnerable domains and cross-linguistic influence: The view from trilingual acquisition

by Megan Devlin

Co-authored with Raffaella Folli, Alison Henry and Christina Sevdali. 
In press, Proceedings of GALA 2011. Cambridge Scholars Press

Introduction to Thógamar le Gaeilge Iad

by Brian Ó Broin

Irish as a home language has come a long way since the seventies, when the vast majority of Irish-speaking families... more Irish as a home language has come a long way since the seventies, when the vast majority of Irish-speaking families lived in officially-recognised Gaeltacht areas on the western seaboard of Ireland. A very significant number of Irish-speaking families now live in towns and cities, and are becoming increasingly vocal in their demands for recognition and rights.
Such families were first represented by Na Teaghlaigh Gaelacha, a Conradh na Gaeilge-sponsored organisation, and then by Comhluadar, a government-sponsored Dublin-based organisation.
An increasing number of Irish-speaking households include parents who were themselves raised speaking English, and this raises important linguistic questions about the standard of Irish spoken in such homes and the influence of Ireland's education system on children who then go on to become Irish-speaking parents themselves.
A major challenge for such households is found in Gaelscoileanna. Since only about 3% of Gaelscoil children speak Irish at home, they are in great danger of being subsumed by the English-speaking majority who attend these schools on an immersion basis. There is some evidence that the Irish spoken by such children becomes an interlingual pidgin (although the children do seem to develop fluency in it).
The phenomenon of Urban Irish is partially causing a split among speakers. Household users of the language tend to speak an ad-hoc English-coloured variety often disdained as Gaeilge lofa líofa ("Rotten fluent Irish"), while hobbyists and purists continue to pedestalise a standardised written variety which is increasingly at variance with both urban and Gaeltacht spoken Irish.
There is no doubt that modern Irish is increasingly being influenced by English, and therefore changing rapidly, but there is little evidence as yet that the language is dying out as a result of this. In fact, while there is some evidence that Irish-speaking parents are afraid to speak Irish with those they consider "good" speakers, the very persistence of Gaeilge lofa líofa suggests that this new urban dialect may be garnering support.
Since most new native speakers of Irish will be coming from households in which the parents are not themselves natives, it is necessary for current speakers to adjust to this new variety of Irish.
Since Irish remains a minority language, however, and English is the undisputed default language of Ireland, Irish-speaking parents must be watchful activists and advocates for their children's linguistic welfare, particularly in a world where English-language media are available globally, for free, and around the clock.

How a Child Acquires Irish

by Brian Ó Broin

Children do not acquire Irish by accident, even in the Gaeltacht. In a world where there are no monolinguals of Irish... more Children do not acquire Irish by accident, even in the Gaeltacht. In a world where there are no monolinguals of Irish and where the borders of all linguistic zones are being destroyed by telecommunications and improved transportation, it takes a formal decision by parents to declare Irish a household language (or to continue with its use as a household language).
Such a decision cannot be made haphazardly or without planning, as the default language for almost all activity in Ireland (even in the Gaeltacht) is now English. Intending Irish-language parents should be discussing the linguistic structure of their homes before their children’s birth, and perhaps even before pregnancy.
Planning ahead is key, as parents must be considering things such as community, family structure, education, and access to media long before these become issues.
Parents whose native language is not Irish are faced with the added difficulty of trying to raise children in a language not their own, often with poor resources for such a task. The best option is to start using the language immediately, regardless of current ability, as those who put off ‘improving’ their Irish never actually get around to it.
Children are learning Irish from the moment of their first breath (and probably before!), so the earlier their access to the language, the better. They must be hearing the language from a parent as often as possible. Most Irish-speaking households outside the Gaeltacht are bilingual, and the recommended language structure is OPOL (‘One parent – one language’).
Children should never be punished for speaking English, but by the same token, they must be highly encouraged to use Irish, even to the point of pretending not to understand them unless they speak Irish. Otherwise they will develop the habit of speaking English to the parent and the linguistic structure of the family will collapse.
Young children will often, perhaps even usually, speak English together if they live in bilingual communities, but there are possible strategies (although a little artificial) that may get them to speak Irish together.
Parents worry a lot about their children developing an English/Irish pidgin (particularly from their interactions with non-native speakers at Gaelscoileanna), but that fear is unfounded. Most Irish-speaking children develop fluency, even if their Irish, lacking the usual native-speaker’s phonetics, does not sound like that of the Gaeltacht.
Parents observe what they think is ‘bad’ Irish from young children, but the structure of Irish means that children develop perfect grammar only gradually (as opposed to English, which has an extremely simple morphology and ‘sounds’ more correct from an earlier age). There is, in fact, little cause to worry about Irish-speaking children, particularly given the number of children now being raised in the language.

Acquisiton of the Verbal Domain in Child Greek: Evidence from a new child Greek corpus

by Thomas Doukas

Contextual factors affect absent reference comprehension in 14-month olds.

by Patricia Ganea

Child Development (2005)

Infants interpret ambiguous requests for absent objects.

by Patricia Ganea

Developmental Psychology (2007)

Infants’ use of shared linguistic information to clarify ambiguous requests.

by Patricia Ganea

Child Development (2007)

What’s mine is mine: Twelve month-olds use possessive pronouns to identify referents.

by Patricia Ganea

Developmental Science (2011)

When familiar is not better: 12-month-old infants respond to talk about absent objects.

by Patricia Ganea

Developmental Psychology (2012)

A developmental study of the acquisition of Russian colour terms

by Greville G. Corbett

How human infants deal with symbol grounding

by Stephen J. Cowley

These proofs appeared as:
Cowley, S. J. (2007). How human infants deal with symbol grounding. Interaction Studies, 8/1: 81-104.

Taking a distributed view of language, this paper naturalizes symbol grounding. Learning to talk is traced to — not... more Taking a distributed view of language, this paper naturalizes symbol grounding. Learning to talk is traced to — not categorizing speech sounds — but events that shape the rise of human-style autonomy. On the extended symbol hypothesis, this happens as babies integrate micro-activity with slow and deliberate adult action. As they discover social norms, intrinsic motive formation enables them to reshape co-action. Because infants link affect to contingencies, dyads develop norm-referenced routines. Over time, infant doings become analysis amenable. The caregiver of a nine-month-old may, for example, prompt the baby to fetch objects. Once she concludes that the baby uses ‘words’ to understand what she says, the infant can use this belief in orienting to more abstract contingencies. New cognitive powers will develop as the baby learns to act in ways that are consistent with a caregiver’s false belief that her baby uses ‘words.’

Distributed cognition at three months: caregiver-infant dyads in kwaZulu-Natal

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as:
Cowley, S.J. (2003). Distributed cognition at three months: mother-infant dyads in kwaZulu Natal. Alternation, 10.2: 229-257.

Until recently, cognitive science adopted what has been challenged as an ‘Input-Output’ (I-O) model (Hurley, 1998).... more Until recently, cognitive science adopted what has been challenged as an ‘Input-Output’ (I-O) model (Hurley, 1998). Conflating brain and person, cognitive processes were presented as problems or tasks that are dealt with independently of affect, perception and action. Using a narrow concept of causation together with the belief that, somehow, mind is realised at a ‘level’ of the brain, I-O models had thirty years of hegemony. In spite of their interdisciplinary claims, cognitive internalism relies on a mind-world dualism that is incompatible with much anthropology, linguistics and psychology. It overlooks the fact that many cognitive processes occur between body and world. In examining 3 month old babies, it is argued that the distributed nature of cognition is especially important in development. Rather than appeal to ‘competencies’ or developmental stages, it is possible to examine how their worlds impinge on their brains and behaviour. Body-world activity can thus be seen necessary, but not sufficient, to becoming minded: cognition is both derived and transformed by joint activity. The paper pursues the distributed approach by focusing on individual and cultural differences in the fourth month. In KwaZulu Natal, there are clearly cultural influences by this age. These help to establish a person level of function. For, when a baby is seen as, say, ‘wanting to play’ or ‘being uncomfortable’, human engagement depends on meshing with the baby’s neural and bodily activity. Biomechanical systems control baby behaviour to invite judgements that will dominate interindividual co-ordination and learning. During simultaneous speech, for example, babies in English speaking settings already vocalize quite differently from those growing up in an isiZulu speaking world.

Global Citizenship in 2040: Six Scenarios

by Vahid V. Motlagh

1- Placeless Brains Triumph, 2-Planetary Second Life, 3-Multicultural City Islands, 4-Cherished Mental Model, 5-Lagging Global Education, 6-Tribal Towers Tremble

After listening to a presentation that reviewed the scientific discoveries and technological developments,... more After listening to a presentation that reviewed the scientific discoveries and technological developments, participants in the workshop titled Global Placeless Brains at the conference Reconciling Babel – Education for cosmopolitanism were directed in a brief method based scenario planning exercise that was designed and run by the author.They were encouraged to do some “disciplined imagination” about the alternative futures of the global citizenship in 2040. One week after the workshop was concluded their written inputs were analyzed and subsequently six scenarios were developed and named. For more detail about how the tacit knowledge of the participants was tapped and thus documented as explicit knowledge see the Method section below

The baby, the bathwater and the

by Stephen J. Cowley

This appeared as :
Cowley, S.J. (2001). The baby, the bathwater and the “language instinct” debate. Language Sciences 23: 69-91.

Reviewing the "language instinct" debate, the paper identifies generativist views with the baby's proverbial... more Reviewing the "language instinct" debate, the paper identifies generativist views with the baby's proverbial bathwater. As Sampson suggests, empirical evidence can lend no support to the claim that grammatical analysis illuminates the study of development, evolution, or the brain. Language instinct theory is coherent only if we adopt Pinker's (dubious) hypothesis that syntax possesses 'inner' reality. However, it is argued that it is equally unsatisfactory to regard grammar as purely 'cultural'. In order to avoid these kinds of cichotomy, it is suggested that we reject the idea that language consists in form-based units and, in its stead, treat it as an aspect of social life that derives from the human capacity to contextualize experience.

Contrast is the Name of the Game: Contrast-Based Semi-Structured Elicitation Techniques for Studies on Children’s Language Acquisition.

by Sonja Eisenbeiss

Essex Research Reports in Linguistics 57 (7). NOTE: This paper is aimed at a wider audience, including teachers, speech therapists, and parents.

This paper discusses a series of so-called “elicitation” games that encourage children to
talk in a situation... more This paper discusses a series of so-called “elicitation” games that encourage children to
talk in a situation that is as natural and relaxed as possible. Such games have played a
central role in language teaching and speech therapy, where they have been employed to
provide language training or to assess children’s linguistic development without putting
them under stress. Recently, such games have become more widely used in language
acquisition research. Here they are employed to obtain rich sets of language production
data from children who are too young to take part in controlled experiments on language
production. Moreover, they can be used in longitudinal studies where children are
recorded over longer periods of time and might develop strategies in experiments. Most
of these elicitation games target a specific construction or domain of grammar and so
language teachers, speech therapists and researchers spend a lot of their time developing
new games for each individual construction they would like to elicit from children. As
this can be very time-consuming, there is a demand for games that can be adapted to a
broad range of phenomena and situations (for instance, situations with one or several
players). In this paper, I will present three such games, which might be useful for
acquisition researchers, language teachers and speech therapists: the Bag Task, the
Picture-Pairing Task and the Puzzle Task. In addition, I will discuss the advantages and
disadvantages of using such games in a research context.

An acquisitional approach to disharmonic word-order/affixation pairings

by Lachlan Mackenzie

Co-authored with Michael Fortescue; published in Annual Review of Cognitive Linguistics 2. 31-71.

Various proposals have been put forward to explain the typological skewing produced by the universal preference for... more Various proposals have been put forward to explain the typological skewing produced by the universal preference for suffixing as opposed to prefixing. These proposals have focused either on processing or on diachronic explanations (or a combination of both). In the present paper it is argued that a developmental approach is more comprehensive than either of these. It can explain exceptions from typologically universal tendencies as well as the tendencies themselves in terms of alternative ways of balancing off basic acquisitional principles involved already at the holophrastic stage of development. The long-term stability of certain a priori ‘disharmonic’ or unusual combinations of features is emphasised. What is needed to give support to the model is data from the acquisition of languages with rich morphologies. The available data is examined for evidence and a framework is proposed as a guide to future investigations.

Phonological Features of Specialized Baby Lexicon (Caucasian Data). Фонологические черты специализированного детского лексикона (кавказские данные).

by Viacheslav Chirikba