It is obvious that the growing child manifests an increasing understanding of his language and facility to use it. A major part of the child lan guage literature is concerned with the child's developing linguistic and communicative competence. Scattered evidence also shows, however, that children become progressively more aware of language as Zanguage. It is interesting to consider in what ways the internal structure and mechanisms of language become more accessible. Little is known about linguistic aware ness of this kind, the role it plays, or how it develops. When the new Projektgruppe fUr Psycholinguistik of the Max-Planck Gesellschaft was founded, "the child's conception .of language," in analogy to Piaget's "child's conception of the physical world," become one of the research unit's topics of study. As previous work on linguistic awareness was largely amorphous, we first organized a kind of conference workshop with some of those who had worked in the area. The aims of this meeting were to map out the field of study, detail the phenomena of interest, and define major theoretical issues. The meeting took place just after the creation of the project group, on May 3-7, 1977. The participants were psychologists and linguists who had either published work on metalinguistic issues in child language, or who could be expected to contribute substantially to the discussion. This book is a direct outcome of that conference, though it is not a complete reflection of the papers presented, or of the discussion that took place.

It is obvious that the growing child manifests an increasing understanding of his language and facility to use it. A major part of the child lan guage literature is concerned with the child's developing linguistic and communicative competence. Scattered evidence also shows, however, that children become progressively more aware of language as Zanguage. It is interesting to consider in what ways the internal structure and mechanisms of language become more accessible. Little is known about linguistic aware ness of this kind, the role it plays, or how it develops. When the new Projektgruppe fUr Psycholinguistik of the Max-Planck Gesellschaft was founded, "the child's conception .of language," in analogy to Piaget's "child's conception of the physical world," become one of the research unit's topics of study. As previous work on linguistic awareness was largely amorphous, we first organized a kind of conference workshop with some of those who had worked in the area. The aims of this meeting were to map out the field of study, detail the phenomena of interest, and define major theoretical issues. The meeting took place just after the creation of the project group, on May 3-7, 1977. The participants were psychologists and linguists who had either published work on metalinguistic issues in child language, or who could be expected to contribute substantially to the discussion. This book is a direct outcome of that conference, though it is not a complete reflection of the papers presented, or of the discussion that took place.

Taking an accessible and cross-linguistic approach, Understanding Child Language Acquisition introduces readers to the most important research on child language acquisition over the last fifty years, as well as to some of the most influential theories in the field. Rather than just describing what children can do at different ages Rowland explains why these research findings are important and what they tell us about how children acquire language. Key features include: Cross-linguistic analysis of how language acquisition differs between languages A chapter on how multilingual children acquire several languages at once Exercises to test comprehension Chapters organised around key questions that summarise the critical issues posed by researchers in the field, with summaries at the end Further reading suggestions to broaden understanding of the subject With its particular focus on outlining key similarities and differences across languages and what this cross-linguistic variation means for our ideas about language acquisition, Understanding Child Language Acquisition forms a comprehensive introduction to the subject for students of linguistics, psychology and speech and language therapy. Students and instructors will benefit from the comprehensive companion website that includes a students’ section featuring interactive comprehension exercises, extension activities, chapter recaps and answers to the exercises within the book. Material for instructors includes sample essay questions, answers to the extension activities for students and a Powerpoint including all the figures from the book. www.routledge.com/cw/rowland

This classic examines the child's notions of reality and causality.

Psycholinguist Boysson-Bardies presents a broad picture of language development, from foetal development to the toddler years. She addresses questions of particular concern to parents, such as how one can facilitate language learning.

In recent years the field has seen an increasing realisation that the full complexity of language acquisition demands theories that (a) explain how children integrate information from multiple sources in the environment, (b) build linguistic representations at a number of different levels, and (c) learn how to combine these representations in order to communicate effectively. These new findings have stimulated new theoretical perspectives that are more centered on explaining learning as a complex dynamic interaction between the child and her environment. This book is the first attempt to bring some of these new perspectives together in one place. It is a collection of essays written by a group of researchers who all take an approach centered on child-environment interaction, and all of whom have been influenced by the work of Elena Lieven, to whom this collection is dedicated.