JOURNAL OF CHILD LANGUAGE

Volume 50, Issue 1-3, January 2023

Jounal of Child Language（SSCI一区，2023 IF:2.2，排名：45/194）2023年第1-3期共刊文39篇。其中，2023年第1期共发文9篇，其中研究性论文8篇，简要研究报告1篇。研究论文主题涉及语言障碍、边缘特征、多模态模仿、因果语言等。2023年第2期发文14篇，其中研究性论文11篇，论文更正3篇。研究论文涉及自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）、保加利亚语、语料库分析、社会语用学账户、语音表示等。2023年第3期发文16篇，其中研究性论文11篇，特邀评论4篇，简要研究报告1篇。研究论文主题涉及纵向语料库、受语习得、语言发展等。欢迎转发扩散！

往期推荐：

刊讯｜SSCI 期刊《儿童语言研究》2022年第1-6期

目录

ISSUE 01

ARTICLES

■The comprehension of relative clauses in Mandarin Children with suspected specific language impairment, by Haopeng YU, Haiyan WANG, Xiaowei HE, Pages 1–26.

■Developmental change in children’s speech processing of auditory and visual cues: An eyetracking study, by Tania S. ZAMUNER, Theresa RABIDEAU, Margarethe MCDONALD, Pages 27–51.

■Narrative Performance and Sociopragmatic Abilities in Preschool Children are Linked to Multimodal Imitation Skills, by Eva CASTILLO, Mariia PRONINA, Iris HÜBSCHER, Pilar PRIETO, Pages 52–77.

■Spontaneous speech intelligibility: early cochlear implanted children versus their normally hearing peers at seven years of age, by Nathalie BOONEN, Hanne KLOOTS, Pietro NURZIA， Steven GILLIS Pages 78-103.

■ Parent-child interaction during storybook reading: wordless narrative books versus books with text, by Abigail PETRIE, Robert MAYR, Fei ZHAO, Pages 104–131.

■Internal and external factors contributing to variability in consonant accuracy of Arabic–French simultaneous bilingual children, by Rabia Sabah MEZIANE, Andrea A.N. MACLEOD, Pages 132–154.

■Connecting perception and production in early Catalan–Spanish bilingual children: language dominance and quality of input effects, by Marta RAMON-CASAS, Susana CORTÉS, Ariadna BENET, Conxita LLEÓ, Laura BOSCH, Pages 155–176.

■Early parental causal language input predicts children’s later causal verb understanding, by Aslı AKTAN-ERCIYES, Tilbe GÖKSUN, Pages 177–197.

Brief Research Report

■Contributions of Abstract Extratextual Talk and Interactive Style to Preschoolers’ Vocabulary Development, by Amber MUHINYI, Caroline F. ROWLAND, Pages 198–213.

ISSUE 02

Articles

■Referential expressions in monolingual and bilingual children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A study of informativeness and definiteness, by Natalia MEIR, Rama NOVOGRODSKY, Pages 215-244.

■The timescales of word learning in children with language delays: In-the-moment mapping, retention, and generalization

, by Sarah C. KUCKER, Erin SEIDLER, Pages 245-273.

■How do parents refer to their children while playing? A cross-linguistic comparison of parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with ASD, by Mihaela D. BAROKOVA, Helen TAGER-FLUSBERG, Pages 274–295.

■Marked pointing facilitates learning part names: A test of lexical constraint versus social pragmatic accounts of word learning, by Harumi KOBAYASHI, Tetsuya YASUDA, Ulf LISZKOWSKI, Pages 296–310.

■Korean-speaking children’s constructional knowledge about a transitive event: Corpus analysis and Bayesian modelling, by Gyu-Ho SHIN, Seongmin MUN, Pages 311-337.

■ Speech representation used by Mandarin Chinese-speaking children aged three to six years, by Wei GUAN, Haitao LIU, Pages 338–364.

■Adapting to children’s individual language proficiency: An observational study of preschool teacher talk addressing monolinguals and children learning English as an additional language, by Kin Chung Jacky CHAN, Padraic MONAGHAN, Marije MICHEL, Pages 365–390.

■The influence of the temporal characteristics of events on adults’ and children’s pronoun resolution, by Gillian FRANCEY, Kate CAIN, Pages 391–416.

■Cognitive predictors of language abilities in primary school children: A cascaded developmental view, by Joana ACHA, Ainhize AGIRREGOIKOA, Florencia BARRETO-ZARZA, Pages 417–436.

■Analogy is indispensable but rule is a must: Insights from Turkish, by Mine NAKIPOĞLU, Berna A. UZUNDAĞ, F. Nihan KETREZ, Pages 437-463.

■Task difficulty and private speech in typically developing and at-risk preschool children, by Aisling MULVIHILL, Natasha MATTHEWS, Paul E. DUX, Annemaree CARROLL, Pages 464–491.

Issue 03

Articles

■Combining observational and experimental approaches to the development of language and communication in rural samples: Opportunities and challenges, by Alejandrina CRISTIA, Ruthe FOUSHEE, Paulina ARAVENA-BRAVO, Margaret CYCHOSZ, Pages 495–517.

■About me, you and her: Personal pronouns are developmentally preceded by mental state language, by Filip SMOLÍK, Anna CHROMÁ, Pages 537-554.

■The nature and frequency of relative clauses in the language children hear and the language children read: A developmental cross-corpus analysis of English complex grammar, by Yaling HSIAO, Nicola J. DAWSON, Nilanjana BANERJI, Kate NATION, Pages 555-580.

■Produced, but not ‘productive’: Mandarin-speaking pre-schoolers’ challenges acquiring L2 English plural morphology

, by Nan XU RATTANASONE, Katherine DEMUTH, Pages 581–609.

■Receptive and expressive vocabulary development in children learning English as an additional language: Converging evidence from multiple datasets, by Chris DIXON, Annina HESSEL, Natalie SMITH, Dea NIELSEN, Marta WESIERSKA, Emily OXLEY, Pages 610–631.

■Learning speaker- and addressee-centered demonstratives in Ticuna, by Amalia SKILTON,Pages 632-661.

■ Can gesture input support toddlers’ fast mapping?, by Lori G. FORAN, Brenda L. BEVERLY, John SHELLEY-TREMBLAY, Julie M. ESTIS, Pages 662–684.

■Lexical restructuring stimulates phonological awareness among emerging English–French bilingual children’s literacy, by Klaudia KRENCA, Padraic MONAGHAN, Eliane SEGERS, Ludo VERHOEVEN, Jeffrey STEELE, Sharry SHAKORY, Xi CHEN, Pages 685–709.

■Children’s disambiguation of novel words varies by the number and position of phonological contrasts, by Catanya G. STAGER, Laura M. MORETT, Audrey STELMACH, Anna Grace PARENTE, Josh MICKLER, Jason SCOFIELD, Pages 710–735.

■L1 acquisition of the tense-aspect markers -ess (past-perfective) and -ko iss (imperfective) in Korean, by Ju-Yeon RYU, Yasuhiro SHIRAI, Pages 736–756.

■Factors structuring lexical development in toddlers: The effects of parental education, language exposure, and age, by Camila SCAFF, Laia FIBLA, Alejandrina CRISTIA, Pages 757-777.

Invited Commentary

■Uncovering the development of linguistic knowledge in lesser studied languages, by Katherine DEMUTH, Francina MOLOI, Litsepiso MATLOSA, Mark JOHNSON, Pages 518–521.

■Collecting language acquisition data from understudied urban communities: A reply to Cristia et al., by Rowena GARCIA, Hannah Maria D. ALBERT, Jocelyn Christina B. MARZAN, Pages 522-526.

■ The acquisition of sign languages in rural contexts – what can we do when samples will always be ‘too small’?, by Hannah LUTZENBERGER, Pages 527–531.

■Diversifying language acquisition research can be (partly) achieved in urban societies and with simplified methodologies: Insights from multilingual Ghana, by Paul Okyere OMANE, Titia BENDERS, Reginald Akuoko DUAH, Natalie BOLL-AVETISYAN,  Pages 532–536.

Brief Research Report

• Assessing the Quantity and Quality of Language Used by Mothers and Fathers of Children with Down Syndrome During Shared Book Reading, Elizabeth HILVERT, Waisman Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, by Emily LORANG, Nell MALTMAN, Audra STERLING, Pages 778-790.

摘要

The comprehension of relative clauses in Mandarin Children with suspected specific language impairment

Haopeng YU, Faculty of International Studies, Henan Normal University, China

Haiyan WANG, School of Foreign Languages, Xinxiang Medical University, China

Xiaowei HE, Faculty of English Language and Culture, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, China

Abstract

This paper investigates the comprehension of Relative Clauses (RCs) in 15 Mandarin children with suspected Specific Language Impairment (SLI) (aged between 4; 5 and 6; 0) and 29 typically developing (TD) controls. Results from a Character Picture Matching Task indicate that (i) the subject RC was better understood than the object RC in children with SLI, but there was no asymmetry in the comprehension of the two RCs in TD children; (ii) the performance of children with SLI was significantly worse than that of their TD peers; (iii) children with SLI were prone to committing thematic role reversal errors and middle errors. In order to overcome the shortcomings of previous accounts, we therefore put forward the Edge Feature Underspecification Hypothesis, which can not only explain the asymmetry of comprehension seen in children with SLI but also shed light on the nature of errors committed by them in the task.

Key words relative clauses; specific language impairment; edge feature underspecification hypothesis

Developmental change in children’s speech processing of auditory and visual cues: An eyetracking study

Tania S. ZAMUNER, Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, Canada

Theresa RABIDEAU, Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, Canada

Margarethe MCDONALD, Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, Canada

H. Henny YEUNG, Department of Linguistics, Simon Fraser University, Canada 

Abstract

This study investigates how children aged two to eight years (N = 129) and adults (N = 29) use auditory and visual speech for word recognition. The goal was to bridge the gap between apparent successes of visual speech processing in young children in visual-looking tasks, with apparent difficulties of speech processing in older children from explicit behavioural measures. Participants were presented with familiar words in audio-visual (AV), audio-only (A-only) or visual-only (V-only) speech modalities, then presented with target and distractor images, and looking to targets was measured. Adults showed high accuracy, with slightly less target-image looking in the V-only modality. Developmentally, looking was above chance for both AV and A-only modalities, but not in the V-only modality until 6 years of age (earlier on /k/-initial words). Flexible use of visual cues for lexical access develops throughout childhood.

Key words audiovisual speech, word recognition, lipreading

Narrative Performance and Sociopragmatic Abilities in Preschool Children are Linked to Multimodal Imitation Skills

Eva CASTILLO, Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Mariia PRONINA, Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Iris HÜBSCHER, URPP Language and Space, University of Zurich

Pilar PRIETO, Department of Translation and Language Sciences, Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Abstract

Over recent decades much research has analyzed the relevance of 9- to 20- month-old infants’ early imitation skills (object- and language-based imitation) for language development. Yet there have been few systematic comparisons of the joint relevance of these imitative behaviors later on in development. This correlational study investigated whether multimodal imitation (gestural, prosodic, and lexical components) and object-based imitation are related to narratives and sociopragmatics in preschoolers. Thirty-one typically developing 3- to 4-year-old children performed four tasks to assess multimodal imitation, object-based imitation, narrative abilities, and sociopragmatic abilities. Results revealed that both narrative and sociopragmatic skills were significantly related to multimodal imitation, but not to object-based imitation, indicating that preschoolers’ ability to imitate socially relevant multimodal cues is strongly related to language and sociocommunicative skills. Therefore, this evidence supports a broader conceptualization of imitation behaviors in the field of language development that systematically integrates prosodic, gestural, and verbal linguistic patterns.

Key words multimodal imitation, narrative performance, sociopragmatic abilities object-based imitation, preschool children

Spontaneous speech intelligibility: early cochlear implanted children versus their normally hearing peers at seven years of age

Nathalie BOONEN, Computational Linguistics, & Psycholinguistics Research Centre, University of Antwerp

Hanne KLOOTS, Computational Linguistics, & Psycholinguistics Research Centre, University of Antwerp

Pietro NURZIA, Computational Linguistics, & Psycholinguistics Research Centre, University of Antwerp

Steven GILLIS, Computational Linguistics, & Psycholinguistics Research Centre, University of Antwerp

Abstract

Speaking intelligibly is an important achievement in children’s language development. How far do congenitally severe-to-profound hearing-impaired children who received a cochlear implant (CI) in the first two years of their life advance on the path to intelligibility in comparison to children with typical hearing (NH)? Spontaneous speech samples of children with CI and children with NH were orthographically transcribed by naïve transcribers. The entropy of the transcriptions was computed to analyze their degree of uniformity. The same samples were also rated on a continuous rating scale by another group of adult listeners. The transcriptions of the NH children’s speech were more uniform, i.e., had significantly lower entropy, than those of the CI children, suggesting that the latter group displayed lower intelligibility. This was confirmed by the ratings on the continuous scale. Despite the relatively restricted age ranges, older children reached better intelligibility scores in both groups.

Key words intelligibility, spontaneous speech, children with a cochlear implant

Parent-child interaction during storybook reading: wordless narrative books versus books with text

Abigail PETRIE, Centre for Speech and Language Therapy and Hearing Science, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK

Robert MAYR, Centre for Speech and Language Therapy and Hearing Science, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK

Fei ZHAO, Centre for Speech and Language Therapy and Hearing Science, Cardiff Metropolitan University, UK

Simona MONTANARI, Department of Child & Family Studies, California State University, Los Angeles, USA

Abstract

This study examines the content and function of parent-child talk while engaging in shared storybook reading with two narrative books: a wordless book versus a book with text. Thirty-six parents audio-recorded themselves reading one of the books at home with their 3.5–5.5-year-old children. Pragmatic and linguistic measures of parental and child talk during both narrative storytelling and dialogic interactions were compared between the wordless and book-with-text conditions. The results show that the wordless book engendered more interaction than the book-with-text, with a higher rate of parental prompts and responsive feedback, and significantly more child contributions, although lexical diversity and grammatical complexity of parental language were higher during narration using a book-with-text. The findings contribute to research on shared storybook reading suggesting that different book formats can promote qualitatively different language learning environments.

Internal and external factors contributing to variability in consonant accuracy of Arabic–French simultaneous bilingual children

Rabia Sabah MEZIANE, Affiliation:Université de Montréal, Canada

Andrea A.N. MACLEOD, University of Alberta, Canada

Abstract

This study aims to describe the relationships between child-internal and child-external factors and the consonant accuracy of bilingual children. More specifically, the study looks at internal factors: expressive and receptive vocabulary, and external factors: language exposure and language status, of a group of 4-year-old bilingual Arabic–French children. We measured the consonant accuracy of the children by the percentage of correct consonants in a Picture-Naming Task and a Non-Word Repetition Task in each language. The results suggest a significant relationship between vocabulary and consonant accuracy. A cross-language correlation was observed between the expressive vocabulary level of the majority language (French) and the consonant accuracy of the minority language (Arabic). Also, a significant correlation was found between Arabic language exposure and Arabic consonant accuracy. Finally, consonant accuracy was significantly higher in French tasks than in Arabic, despite the individual differences of the children.

Key words children, bilingual, phonology, Arabic, French

Connecting perception and production in early Catalan–Spanish bilingual children: language dominance and quality of input effects

Marta RAMON-CASAS, Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona (Spain)

Susana CORTÉS, University of the Balearic Islands (Spain)

Ariadna BENET, University of the Balearic Islands (Spain)

Conxita LLEÓ, University of Hamburg (Germany)

Laura BOSCH, Department of Cognition, Development and Educational Psychology, University of Barcelona (Spain)

Abstract

This study investigates perception and production of the Catalan mid-vowel /e/-/ɛ/ contrast by two groups of 4.5-year-old Catalan–Spanish bilingual children, differing in language dominance. Perception was assessed with an XAB discrimination task involving familiar words and non-words. Production accuracy was measured using a familiar-word elicitation task. Overall, Catalan-dominant bilingual children outperformed Spanish-dominant bilinguals, the latter showing high variability in production accuracy, while being slightly above chance level in perception. No correlation between perception and production performance could be established in this group. The effect of language dominance alone could not explain the Spanish-dominant participants’ performance, but quality of Catalan input (native vs. accented speech) was identified as an important factor behind familiar-word production and the inaccurate representation of the target contrast in the lexicon of the bilinguals’ less-dominant language. More fine-grained measurements of experience-related factors are needed for a full understanding of the acquisition of challenging contrasts in bilingual contexts.

Key words Bilingual preschoolers, perception, production, phonological encoding, language dominance

Early parental causal language input predicts children’s later causal verb understanding

Aslı AKTAN-ERCIYES, Kadir Has University, Turkey

Tilbe GÖKSUN, Koç University, Turkey

Abstract

How does parental causal input relate to children’s later comprehension of causal verbs? Causal constructions in verbs differ across languages. Turkish has both lexical and morphological causatives. We asked whether (1) parental causal language input varied for different types of play (guided vs. free play), (2) early parental causal language input predicted children’s causal verb understanding. Twenty-nine infants participated at three timepoints. Parents used lexical causatives more than morphological ones for guided-play for both timepoints, but for free-play, the same difference was only found at Time 2. For Time 3, children were tested on a verb comprehension and a vocabulary task. Morphological causative input, but not lexical causative input, during free-play predicted children’s causal verb comprehension. For guided-play, the same relation did not hold. Findings suggest a role of specific types of causal input on children’s understanding of causal verbs that are received in certain play contexts.

Key words causal language, causal input, play types, causal verb comprehension

Contributions of Abstract Extratextual Talk and Interactive Style to Preschoolers’ Vocabulary Development

Amber MUHINYI, University of Manchester, UK

Caroline F. ROWLAND, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, University of Liverpool, UK & Donders Institute for Brain Cognition and Neuroscience at Radboud University, Netherlands

Abstract

Caregiver abstract talk during shared reading predicts preschool-age children’s vocabulary development. However, previous research has focused on level of abstraction with less consideration of the style of extratextual talk. Here, we investigated the relation between these two dimensions of extratextual talk, and their contributions to variance in children’s vocabulary skills. Caregiver level of abstraction was associated with an interactive reading style. Controlling for socioeconomic status and child age, high interactivity predicted children’s concurrent vocabulary skills whereas abstraction did not. Controlling for earlier vocabulary skills, neither dimension of the extratextual talk predicted later vocabulary. Theoretical and practical relevance are discussed.

.

Key words shared reading, preschoolers, extratextual talk

Referential expressions in monolingual and bilingual children with and without Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD): A study of informativeness and definiteness

Natalia MEIR, Department of English Literature and Linguistics, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Rama NOVOGRODSKY, The Gonda Multidisciplinary Brain Research Center, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel

Abstract The current study evaluated the separate and combined effects of bilingualism and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) on informativeness and definiteness marking of referential expressions. Hebrew-speaking monolingual children (21 with ASD and 28 with typical language development) and Russian–Hebrew-speaking bilingual children (13 with ASD and 30 with typical language development) aged 4–9 years participated. Informativeness, indexed by referential contrasts, was affected by ASD, but not by bilingualism. Definiteness use was non-target-like in children with ASD and in bilingual children, and it was mainly predicted by children’s morpho-syntactic abilities in Hebrew. Language-universal and language-specific properties of referential use are discussed.

Key words referential expressions, Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), informativeness, definiteness, Hebrew

The timescales of word learning in children with language delays: In-the-moment mapping, retention, and generalization

Sarah C. KUCKER, Oklahoma State University, USA

Erin SEIDLER, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, USA

Abstract Learning new words and, subsequently, a lexicon, is a time-extended process requiring encoding of word-referent pairs, retention of that information, and generalization to other exemplars of the category. Some children, however, fail in one or more of these processes resulting in language delays. The present study examines the abilities of children who vary in vocabulary size (including both children with normal language (NL) and late talking (LT) children) across multiple timescales/processes – known and novel word mapping, novel word retention, and novel noun generalization. Results indicate that children with lower language skills suffer from deficits in quick in-the-moment mapping of known words compared to their NL peers, but age and vocabulary size rather than normative vocabulary ranking or NL/LT status better predicts performance on retention and generalization processes. Implications for understanding language development as a holistic process with multiple interacting variables are discussed.

Key words late talkers, word learning, referent selection, generalization

How do parents refer to their children while playing? A cross-linguistic comparison of parental input to Bulgarian- and English-speaking children with ASD

Mihaela D. BAROKOVA, Center for Autism Research Excellence, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University

Helen TAGER-FLUSBERG, Center for Autism Research Excellence, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Boston University

Abstract 

Instances of person-reference, in the form of personal pronouns, names, or terms of endearment, are frequently used in child-directed speech. Examining this aspect of parental input is especially relevant to children with autism, who experience difficulties with person-reference. In this study, we compared the person-reference during parent-child interactions of Bulgarian (N=37) and English-speaking (N=37) parents of children with autism, who were matched on the language ability of their child. English-speaking parents used significantly more personal pronouns to refer to their children, while Bulgarian-speaking parents used the child’s name more along with kinship terms. Furthermore, Bulgarian-speaking parents used significantly more different ways to refer to their child. These group differences were interpreted in the context of structural differences in the pronominal systems of Bulgarian and English, and in terms of culturally different discourse practices.

Key words autism spectrum disorder, parental input, personal pronouns, person-reference, Bulgarian

Marked pointing facilitates learning part names: A test of lexical constraint versus social pragmatic accounts of word learning

Harumi KOBAYASHI, Tokyo Denki University, Japan

Tetsuya YASUDA, Tokyo Denki University, Japan

Ulf LISZKOWSKI, University of Hamburg, Germany

Abstract 

The empirical study of word learning is driven by a theoretical debate between lexical constraint and social-pragmatic accounts; it has still not been determined which of these two best explains the evidence. We investigated whether the markedness of a pointing accompanying a verbal reference could help to learn a part name. Participants were 35 two-and-a-half-year-olds, 42 four-and-a-half-year-olds, and 38 undergraduate university students in Japan. The experimenter pointed to a novel part (embedded in a novel whole object) with either “marked” pointing, which was touching the part with a small circular motion, or with usual pointing. Touch accompanied by circular motion reliably elicited learning of part names in all age groups. Usual distal pointing without motion reliably elicited learning of whole object names. The pattern of findings rejects a whole-object constraint in early word learning and demonstrates that marked pointing can promote learning novel part names, supporting a social-pragmatic account.

Key words social-pragmatic account, word learning, markedness, pointing gesture, part names

Korean-speaking children’s constructional knowledge about a transitive event: Corpus analysis and Bayesian modelling

Gyu-Ho SHIN, Department of Asian Studies, Palacký University Olomouc, tř. Svobody 26, 779 00 Olomouc, Czech Republic

Seongmin MUN, Department of English Language and Literature, Chosun University, 309, Pilmun-daero, Dong-gu, Gwangju, 61452, Republic of Korea

Abstract 

We investigate Korean-speaking children’s knowledge about clause-level constructions involving a transitive event – active transitive and suffixal passive – through corpus analysis and Bayesian modelling. The analysis of Korean caregiver input and children’s production in CHILDES revealed that the rates of constructional patterns produced by the children mirrored those uttered by the caregivers to a considerable degree and that the caregivers’ use of case-marking was skewed towards single form-function pairings (despite the multiple form-function associations that the markers manifest). Based on these characteristics, we modelled a Bayesian learner by employing construction-based input (without considering lexical information). This simulation revealed the dominance of several constructional patterns, occupying most of the input, and their inhibitory effects on the development of the other patterns. Our findings illuminate how children shape clause-level constructional knowledge in Korean, an understudied language for this topic, as a function of input properties and domain-general learning capacities, appealing to the usage-based constructionist approach.

Key words corpus analysis, Bayesian simulation, constructional knowledge, Korean

Speech representation used by Mandarin Chinese-speaking children aged three to six years

Wei GUAN, School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics, China

Haitao LIU, Zhejiang University, China

Abstract 

This study investigates how Mandarin Chinese-speaking children use Mandarin Chinese, a language lacking tense markers, to represent characters’ speech in their story narratives. Eighty participants, from three to six years of age, completed an elicited narrative task based on a wordless picture book. The representing forms and signals that they employed in representing activities were assessed. The results showed a significant age-related increase in the overall use of speech representation by the cohort of children. Regarding representing forms, direct representation exhibited its expected dominance among all age groups, and its presence in children’s narratives grew significantly with age. Concerning representing signals, shuō ‘say’ was the most prevalent across all ages and susceptible to significant age effects, and, with advancing age, children’s representing signals expanded from single verbs to more complex syntactic constructions. In addition, no significant gender effects were observed regarding the representing forms or signals that Mandarin-speaking children used.

Key words speech representation, Mandarin Chinese-speaking children, forms of representation, representing signals

Adapting to children’s individual language proficiency: An observational study of preschool teacher talk addressing monolinguals and children learning English as an additional language

Kin Chung Jacky CHAN, Lancaster University, UK

Padraic MONAGHAN, Lancaster University, UK

Marije MICHEL, Lancaster University, UK

Abstract 

In an increasingly diverse society, young children are likely to speak different first languages that are not the majority language of society. Preschool might be one of the first and few environments where they experience the majority language. The present study investigated how preschool teachers communicate with monolingual English preschoolers and preschoolers learning English as an additional language (EAL). We recorded and transcribed four hours of naturalistic preschool classroom activities and observed whether and how preschool teachers tailored their speech to children of different language proficiency levels and linguistic backgrounds (monolingual English: n = 13; EAL: n = 10), using a suite of tools for analysing quantity and quality of speech. We found that teachers used more diverse vocabulary and more complex syntax with the monolingual children and children who were more proficient in English, showing sensitivity to individual children’s language capabilities and adapting their language use accordingly.

Key words 

child-directed speech, English as an additional language, language acquisition, naturalistic observation

The influence of the temporal characteristics of events on adults’ and children’s pronoun resolution

Gillian FRANCEY, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK

Kate CAIN, Department of Psychology, Lancaster University, UK

Abstract 

We examined the influence of the lexical and grammatical aspect of events on pronoun resolution in adults (18 to 23 years, N = 46), adolescents (13 to 14 years, N=66) and children (7 to 11 years, N=192). Participants were presented with 64 two-sentence stimuli: the first sentence described events with two same gender protagonists; the second began with a personal pronoun and described a status that could be attributed to either protagonist. Participants recorded to whom the pronoun referred, in a booklet. For all groups, Subject resolutions were more likely for events (a) without endpoints relative to those with endpoints, and (b) described as ongoing rather than completed, but this latter influence was restricted to events with endpoints for adults and adolescents. The findings provide support for the Event Structure Hypothesis of pronoun resolution (Rohde, Kehler & Elman, 2006) and provide new insights into the development of pronoun resolution.

Key words Lexical aspect, grammatical aspect, pronoun resolution, sentence comprehension

Cognitive predictors of language abilities in primary school children: A cascaded developmental view

Joana ACHA, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU 

Ainhize AGIRREGOIKOA, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU

Florencia BARRETO-ZARZA, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU

Abstract 

This study investigated the longitudinal relationship between children’s domain-general cognitive constraints underlying phonological and sentence processing development in a big sample of typically developing children. 104 children were tested on non-linguistic processing speed, phonological skills (phonological short term memory, phonological knowledge, phonological working memory), and sentence processing abilities (sentence repetition and receptive grammar) in 1st grade (aged 6 to 6.5) and one year later. A cross-lagged structural equation model showed that non-linguistic processing speed was a concurrent predictor of phonological skills, and that phonology had a powerful effect on the child’s sentence processing abilities concurrently and longitudinally, providing clear evidence for the role of domain-general processes in the developmental pathway of language. These findings support a cascaded cognitive view of language development and pose important challenges for evaluation and intervention strategies in childhood.

Key words processing speed, phonological skills, sentence processing, language development

Analogy is indispensable but rule is a must: Insights from Turkish

Mine NAKIPOĞLU, Department of Linguistics, Boğaziçi University, John Freely Hall 301, Bebek 34342, İstanbul, Turkey

Berna A. UZUNDAĞ, Department of Psychology, Kadir Has University, Fatih 34083, Istanbul, Turkey

F. Nihan KETREZ, Department of English Language and Literature, İstanbul Bilgi University, 34060, İstanbul, Turkey

Abstract 

Inflectional morphology provides a unique platform for a discussion of whether morphological productivity is rule-based or analogy-based. The present study testing 140 children (range = 29 to 97 months; M(SD) = 64.1(18.8)) on an elicited production task investigated the acquisition of the irregular distribution in the Turkish aorist. Results suggested that to discover the allomorphs of the Turkish aorist, children initially carried out similarity comparisons between analogous exemplars, which helped them tap into phonological features to induce generalizations for regulars and irregulars. Thereafter to tackle the irregularity, children entertained competing hypotheses yielding overregularizations and irregularizations. While the trajectory of overregularizations implicated the gradual formulation of an abstraction based on type-frequency, irregularizations suggested both intrusion of analogous exemplars and children’s attempts to default to an erroneous micro-generalization. Our findings supported a model of morphological learning that is driven by analogy at the outset and that invokes rule-induction in later stages.

Key words analogy, overregularization/ irregularization errors, type/token frequency, similarity comparison

Task difficulty and private speech in typically developing and at-risk preschool children

Aisling MULVIHILL, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Natasha MATTHEWS, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Paul E. DUX, School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Annemaree CARROLL, School of Education, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia

Abstract 

Private speech is a cognitive tool to guide thinking and behavior, yet its regulatory use in atypical development remains equivocal. This study investigated the influence of task difficulty on private speech in preschool children with attention or language difficulties. Measures of private speech use, form and content were obtained while 52 typically developing and 25 developmentally at-risk three- to four-year-old children completed Duplo construction and card sort tasks, each comprising two levels of challenge. In line with previous research, developmentally at-risk children used less internalized private speech than typically developing peers. However, both typically developing and at-risk children demonstrated a similar regulatory private speech response to difficulty with no systematic evidence of group difference. This was captured by an increase in all utterances, reduced private speech internalization, and more frequent forethought and self-reflective content. Results support the hypothesis of delayed private speech internalization but not regulatory deviance in atypical development.

Key words private speech, self-regulation, early childhood, language disorder, attention disorder

Cognitive predictors of language abilities in primary school children: A cascaded developmental view

Joana ACHA, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU 

Ainhize AGIRREGOIKOA, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU

Florencia BARRETO-ZARZA, Universidad del País Vasco UPV/EHU

Abstract 

This study investigated the longitudinal relationship between children’s domain-general cognitive constraints underlying phonological and sentence processing development in a big sample of typically developing children. 104 children were tested on non-linguistic processing speed, phonological skills (phonological short term memory, phonological knowledge, phonological working memory), and sentence processing abilities (sentence repetition and receptive grammar) in 1st grade (aged 6 to 6.5) and one year later. A cross-lagged structural equation model showed that non-linguistic processing speed was a concurrent predictor of phonological skills, and that phonology had a powerful effect on the child’s sentence processing abilities concurrently and longitudinally, providing clear evidence for the role of domain-general processes in the developmental pathway of language. These findings support a cascaded cognitive view of language development and pose important challenges for evaluation and intervention strategies in childhood.

Key words processing speed, phonological skills, sentence processing, language development

Combining observational and experimental approaches to the development of language and communication in rural samples: Opportunities and challenges

Alejandrina CRISTIA, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, Paris, France

Ruthe FOUSHEE,Department of Psychology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Paulina ARAVENA-BRAVO, Departamento de Fonoaudiología, Facultad de Medicina, Universidad de Chile, Santiago, Chile

Margaret CYCHOSZ, Department of Hearing and Speech Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, Maryland, USA

Camila SCAFF, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique, Département d’études cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, Paris, France

Institute of Evolutionary Medicine, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Marisa CASILLAS, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA

Abstract 

This study investigates how Mandarin Chinese-speaking children use Mandarin Chinese, a language lacking tense markers, to represent characters’ speech in their story narratives. Eighty participants, from three to six years of age, completed an elicited narrative task based on a wordless picture book. The representing forms and signals that they employed in representing activities were assessed. The results showed a significant age-related increase in the overall use of speech representation by the cohort of children. Regarding representing forms, direct representation exhibited its expected dominance among all age groups, and its presence in children’s narratives grew significantly with age. Concerning representing signals, shuō ‘say’ was the most prevalent across all ages and susceptible to significant age effects, and, with advancing age, children’s representing signals expanded from single verbs to more complex syntactic constructions. In addition, no significant gender effects were observed regarding the representing forms or signals that Mandarin-speaking children used.

Key words speech representation, Mandarin Chinese-speaking children, forms of representation, representing signals

About me, you and her: Personal pronouns are developmentally preceded by mental state language

Filip SMOLÍK, Institute of Psychology, Czech Academy of Sciences

Anna CHROMÁ, Faculty of Arts, Charles University

Abstract 

Person-referring pronouns in the first and second person (I, your) have been viewed as signs of increasing social understanding in children due to their shifting reference properties. However, they are linguistically complex elements and might depend on general language development. We used longitudinal transcript data from Manchester corpus (12 children aged 2 to 3 years) to examine concurrent and predictive relations between pronouns, general language development (MLU), and social understanding (indexed by the use of mental state language). In the key analysis, social understanding but not general language was found to be a developmental precursor of first-, second- and third-person pronoun mastery. Results suggest that social understanding is needed for acquisition of all person reference, not only in first and second person. Results for first- and third-person pronouns were more similar than for second person, suggesting that social-cognitive demands of person reference go beyond shifting reference of first- and second-person.

The nature and frequency of relative clauses in the language children hear and the language children read: A developmental cross-corpus analysis of English complex grammar

Yaling HSIAO, University of Oxford, UK

Nicola J. DAWSON, University of Oxford, UK

Nilanjana BANERJI, Oxford University Press, UK

Kate NATION, University of Oxford, UK

Abstract 

As written language contains more complex syntax than spoken language, exposure to written language provides opportunities for children to experience language input different from everyday speech. We investigated the distribution and nature of relative clauses in three large developmental corpora: one of child-directed speech (targeted at pre-schoolers) and two of text written for children – namely, picture books targeted at pre-schoolers for shared reading and children’s own reading books. Relative clauses were more common in both types of book language. Within text, relative clause usage increased with intended age, and was more frequent in nonfiction than fiction. The types of relative clause structures in text co-occurred with specific lexical properties, such as noun animacy and pronoun use. Book language provides unique access to grammar not easily encountered in speech. This has implications for the distributional lexical-syntactic features and associated discourse functions that children experience and, from this, consequences for language development.

Key words grammatical development, reading, child-directed speech, corpus analysis, relative clauses, sentence processing

Produced, but not ‘productive’: Mandarin-speaking pre-schoolers’ challenges acquiring L2 English plural morphology

Nan XU RATTANASONE, Macquarie University Centre for Language Sciences, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

Katherine DEMUTH, Macquarie University Centre for Language Sciences, Department of Linguistics, Macquarie University, NSW 2109, Australia

Abstract 

It is often assumed that pre-schoolers learn a second language (L2) with ease, even for structures that are absent in their L1, such as Mandarin-speaking pre-schoolers learning L2 English grammatical inflections (e.g., duck s , hors es ). However, while the results from Study 1 showed that such learners can IMITATE plural words (age = 3;5, N = 20), Studies 2 and 3 showed that they cannot yet GENERATE or COMPREHEND PLURAL morphology (Study 2: age = 4;8, N = 20; Study 3: age = 4;1, N = 20), raising questions about when this is achieved. These findings have important implications for school readiness, as well as for identifying those at risk of developmental language disorders.

Key words Child L2, morphology, plurals, coda consonants, L1 Mandarin

Receptive and expressive vocabulary development in children learning English as an additional language: Converging evidence from multiple datasets

Chris DIXON, University of Leeds, UK

Annina HESSEL, University of Goettingen, Germany

Natalie SMITH, York St. John University, UK

Dea NIELSEN, University of York, UK

Marta WESIERSKA, University of Warwick, UK

Emily OXLEY, University of Leeds, UK

Abstract 

Children learning English as an additional language (EAL) are a diverse and growing group of pupils in England’s schools. Relative to their monolingual (ML) peers, these children tend to show lower receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge in English, although interpretation of findings is limited by small and heterogeneous samples. In an effort to increase representativeness and power, the present study combined published and unpublished datasets from six cross-sectional and four longitudinal studies investigating the vocabulary development of 434 EAL learners and 342 ML peers (age range: 4;9–11;5) in 42 primary schools. Multilevel modelling confirmed previous findings of significantly lower English vocabulary scores of EAL learners and some degree of convergence in receptive but not expressive knowledge by the end of primary school. Evidence for narrowing of the gap in receptive knowledge was found only in datasets spanning a longer developmental period, hinting at the protracted nature of this convergence.

Key words bilingual, vocabulary, development, English as an additional language

Learning speaker- and addressee-centered demonstratives in Ticuna

Amalia SKILTON, Department of Linguistics, Cornell University, Ithaca, United States

Abstract 

This study investigated the acquisition of demonstratives (e.g., this/that, here/there) by 45 children (1;0 – 4;11) learning Ticuna, an Indigenous Amazonian language with an unusually complex demonstrative system. I analyzed 89 10-minute samples from video recordings of child-caregiver interaction, examining how often children and caregivers produced each demonstrative type, as well as relationships among children’s age, children’s demonstrative production, and caregivers’ production. Caregivers’ demonstrative production displayed few relationships with children’s age or production. Children produced speaker-proximal and speaker-distal demonstratives (this near me, that far from me) earlier in developmental time than addressee-proximal demonstratives (that near you), and nominal (this/that) demonstratives earlier than locative (here/there) ones. Compared to caregivers, children overused speaker-proximal demonstratives, but used other demonstrative types with adult-like frequency beginning at 2;0. These results support the view that cognitive biases toward egocentric, proximal, and semantically simpler items substantially influence children’s acquisition of demonstratives.

Key words demonstratives, deixis, pragmatics, language of space, indigenous languages

Can gesture input support toddlers’ fast mapping?

Lori G. FORAN, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

Brenda L. BEVERLY, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

John SHELLEY-TREMBLAY, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

Julie M. ESTIS, University of South Alabama, Mobile, AL, USA

Abstract 

Forty-eight toddlers participated in a word-learning task to assess gesture input on mapping nonce words to unfamiliar objects. Receptive fast mapping and expressive naming for target object-word pairs were tested in three conditions – with a point, with a shape gesture, and in a no-gesture, word-only condition. No statistically significant effect of gesture for receptive fast-mapping was found but age was a factor. Two year olds outperformed one year olds for both measures. Only one girl in the one-year-old group correctly named any items. There was a significant interaction between gesture and gender for expressive naming. Two-year-old girls were six times more likely than two-year-old boys to correctly name items given point and shape gestures; whereas, boys named more items taught with the word only than with a point or shape gesture. The role of gesture input remains unclear, particularly for children under two years and for toddler boys.

Key words gesture, language development, fast mapping, iconic, toddlers

Lexical restructuring stimulates phonological awareness among emerging English–French bilingual children’s literacy

Klaudia KRENCA, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Canada

Eliane SEGERS, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Netherlands

Ludo VERHOEVEN, Behavioural Science Institute, Radboud University, Netherlands

Jeffrey STEELE, Language Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, Canada

Sharry SHAKORY, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Canada

Xi CHEN, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Dalhousie University, Canada

Abstract 

This longitudinal study investigated how lexical restructuring can stimulate emerging bilingual children’s phonological awareness in their first (L1) and second (L2) languages. Sixty-two English (L1) – French (L2) bilingual children (Mage = 75.7 months, SD = 3.2) were taught new English and French word pairs differing minimally in phonological contrast. The results indicated that increasing lexical specificity in English mediated the relationship between English vocabulary and English phonological awareness both concurrently and longitudinally at the end of Grade 1. A longitudinal relationship was established among French vocabulary, French lexical specificity, and French phonological awareness at the end of Grade 1. Notably, cross-language transfer from English lexical specificity was a better predictor of development in French phonological awareness, especially for words that contained phonological contrasts that occurred in both languages. The results from this study highlight the phonological foundations of early literacy and extend the lexical restructuring hypothesis to emerging bilingual children.

early literacy

Key words French immersion, lexical restructuring, linguistic transfer, phonological awareness

Children’s disambiguation of novel words varies by the number and position of phonological contrasts

Catanya G. STAGER, University of Alabama

Laura M. MORETT, University of Alabama

Audrey STELMACH, University of Alabama

Anna Grace PARENTE, University of Alabama

Josh MICKLER, University of Alabama

Jason SCOFIELD, University of Alabama

Abstract 

Young children often make pragmatic assumptions when learning new words. For example, they assume that a speaker who uses different words intends to refer to different things – the so-called principle of contrast. We used a standard disambiguation task to explore whether children’s assumptions about contrast depend on how much words differ. Three- to 6-year-olds heard pairs of words that differed in terms of the number, position, and types of phonological contrasts. Results indicate that children were less likely to disambiguate words differing by one phoneme than words differing by two or more phonemes, particularly when those one-phoneme differences were located at the beginning or end of the words (as in fim/vim). Overall, the findings suggest that children’s pragmatic assumptions about two contrasting words depend not only on if words differ, but also on how they differ.

Key words disambiguation, contrast, children, word learning, pragmatics

L1 acquisition of the tense-aspect markers -ess (past-perfective) and -ko iss (imperfective) in Korean

Ju-Yeon RYU, Aichi Shukutoku University, JAPAN

Yasuhiro SHIRAI, Case Western Reserve University, USA

Abstract 

This study investigated whether Korean children follow the acquisition pattern predicted by the Aspect Hypothesis (Shirai & Andersen, 1995), and the relationship between caretakers’ and children’s speech. Accordingly, we analyzed a Korean corpus (Ryu-Corpus) on the CHILDES database (MacWhinney, 2000), which comprised longitudinal video-recorded interactions of three Korean children and their caregivers. Results indicate that the children used the past marker -ess principally with telic verbs, consistent with the Aspect Hypothesis. Each child’s usage closely reflects the caretaker’s frequency, yielding a high correlation (τb = 0.79). However, the acquisition of the imperfective marker -ko iss did not show a predicted association with activity verbs, contrary to the Aspect Hypothesis. Furthermore, caretakers’ input did not correlate with the children’s utterances of the imperfective marker (τb = 0.40). We argue that multiple factors such as input frequency, language-specific organization of aspectual semantics, and individual differences should be considered to explain tense-aspect acquisition.

Key words L1 acquisition, Korean, tense-aspect markers, the Aspect Hypothesis, corpus

Factors structuring lexical development in toddlers: The effects of parental education, language exposure, and age

Camila SCAFF, Human Ecology Group, Institute of Evolutionary Medicine (IEM), University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland

Laia FIBLA, School of Psychology, The University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK

Alejandrina CRISTIA, Laboratoire de Sciences Cognitives et de Psycholinguistique, Departement d’Etudes Cognitives, ENS, EHESS, CNRS, PSL University, Paris, France

Abstract 

A growing body of research suggests that individual variation in young children’s word comprehension (indexed by response times and accuracy) is structured and meaningful. In this paper, we assess how children’s word comprehension correlates with three factors: socio-economic status (indexed by maternal education), lingual status (based on language exposure), and age. We present results from 91 2- to 3-year-old children using a paired forced-choice task built on a child-friendly touch screen. Effects associated with maternal education and exposure to the tested language (French) were small, and they were greater for accuracy than response times. This pattern of results is compatible with an interpretation whereby the greatest effects of these two variables are on cumulative knowledge (vocabulary size) rather than on processing. Effects for age were larger and affected both accuracy and response times. Finally, response time variation did not mediate the effects of socio-economic status on accuracy or vice versa.

Key words word comprehension, individual differences, socio-economic status, language exposure, developmental changes

期刊简介

A key publication in the field, Journal of Child Language publishes articles on all aspects of the scientific study of language behaviour in children, the principles which underlie it, and the theories which may account for it. The international range of authors and breadth of coverage allow the journal to forge links between many different areas of research including psychology, linguistics, cognitive science and anthropology. This interdisciplinary approach spans a wide range of interests: phonology, phonetics, morphology, syntax, vocabulary, semantics, pragmatics, sociolinguistics, and any other recognised facet of language study. Aspects of reading development are considered when there is a clear language component. The journal normally publishes full-length empirical studies or General Articles as well as shorter Brief Research Reports. To be appropriate for this journal, articles should include some quantitative data analyses, and articles based on case studies need to have a convincing rationale for this design. The journal publishes thematic special issues on occasion, the topic and format of which are determined by the editorial team.

作为该领域的一个重要出版物，《儿童语言研究》发表了关于儿童语言行为科学研究的所有方面的文章，其基础原则，以及可能解释语言行为的理论。国际范围的作者和广泛的覆盖面使该杂志能够在许多不同的研究领域之间建立联系，包括心理学，语言学，认知科学和人类学。这种跨学科的方法跨越了广泛的兴趣：语音学，语音学、形态学、句法学、词汇学、语义学、语用学、社会语言学，以及任何其他公认的语言研究方面。当有一个明确的语言组成部分时，阅读发展的各个方面被考虑。该杂志通常出版完整长度的实证研究或一般文章以及较短的简要研究报告。为了适合这个杂志，文章应该包括一些定量的数据分析，基于案例研究的文章需要有一个令人信服的设计理由。本刊有时会出版专题特刊，其主题和版式由编辑团队决定。

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