A data-driven exploration of how children's language learning varies across different languages, providing both a theoretical framework and reference.
A data-driven exploration of how children's language learning varies across different languages, providing both a theoretical framework and reference.
The Wordbank Project examines variability and consistency in children's language learning across different languages and cultures, drawing on Wordbank, an open database with data from more than 75,000 children and twenty-nine languages or dialects. This big data approach makes the book the most comprehensive cross-linguistic analysis to date of early language learning. Moreover, its data-driven picture of which aspects of language learning are consistent across languages suggests constraints on the nature of children's language learning mechanisms. The book provides both a theoretical framework for scholars of language learning, language, and human cognition, and a resource for future research.
By:
Michael C. Frank,
Mika Braginsky,
Daniel Yurovsky,
Virginia A Marchman
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions:
Height: 229mm,
Width: 178mm,
Weight: 567g
ISBN: 9780262045100
ISBN 10: 0262045109
Pages: 424
Publication Date: 01 June 2021
Audience:
General/trade
,
ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Preface ix Overview ix Outline xi How to Read This Book xiii Acknowledgments xiv 1 Theoretical Foundations 1 2 Practical Foundations 15 3 Methods and Data 27 4 Measurement Properties of the CDI 45 5 Vocabulary Size 65 6 Demographic Effects on Vocabulary Size 85 7 Gesture and Communication 111 8 Consistency in Early Vocabulary 125 9 Demographic Variation in Individual Words 139 10 Predictive Models of the Acquisition of Individual Words 165 11 Vocabulary Composition: Syntactic Categories 181 12 Vocabulary Composition: Semantic Categories 203 13 Morphology, Grammar, and the Lexicon 221 14 Morphological Overgeneralization 243 15 Individual Variation in Vocabulary 255 16 Variability and Consistency within and across Languages 283 17 Language Development at Scale 289 18 Beyond the CDI 303 Appendix A Individual Datasets 311 Appendix B Measures of Variability 325 Appendix C Stitching across Forms 329 Appendix D Estimating Age of Acquisition 333 References 337 Index 357
Michael C. Frank is David and Lucile Packard Professor of Human Biology and the Director of the Symbolic Systems Program at Stanford University. Virginia Marchman is Research Scientist at Stanford University. Daniel Yurovsky is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. Mika Braginsky is a PhD candidate in the Department of Brain and Cognitive Science at MIT.
