First Language Acquisition

Now in its fourth edition, this textbook provides a chronological account of first language acquisition, showing how young children acquire language in their conversational interactions with adult speakers. It draws on diary records and experimental studies from leaders in the field to document different stages and different aspects of what children master. Successive chapters detail infants' and young children's progression from attending to adult faces, gaze, and hand motions, to their first attempts at communicating with gaze and gesture, then adding words and constructions. It comprehensively covers the acquisition of the core areas of language - phonetics and phonology, lexicon, grammar and sentence structure, and meaning - as well as how children acquire discourse and conversational skills. This edition includes new sections on how children build 'common ground' with adults and other children, individual differences in children's language development, how they collaborate with adults in constructing utterances, and how they qualify beliefs.

這本教科書的第四版，提供了第一語言習得的時間順序記錄，展示了年幼兒童如何在與成人談話互動中習得語言。它依賴於領域內的領導者的日記記錄和實驗研究，以記錄兒童掌握的不同階段和不同方面。連續的章節詳細描述了嬰兒和幼兒從關注成人的臉部、凝視和手勢，到他們首次嘗試通過凝視和手勢進行溝通，然後添加詞語和結構的進展。它全面涵蓋了語言核心領域的習得 - 語音和音韻學、詞彙、語法和句子結構以及意義 - 以及兒童如何習得話語和對話技巧。本版還包括了關於兒童如何與成人和其他兒童建立“共同基礎”，兒童語言發展中的個體差異，他們如何與成人合作構建語句，以及他們如何修飾信念的新章節。