New book from Multilingual Matters

[Kathryn King]

LEARNING TO REQUEST IN A SECOND LANGUAGE
Child Interlanguage Pragmatics

Machiko Achiba (Tokyo Woman's Christian University)

This book is a very important analysis of the developmental course of a
seven year old's learning in a second language  to make requests, a
domain of central importance in the study of pragmatics. There is a
superb survey of the literature and a subtle analysis of the issues
involved in such a study. The author finds stages in the development of
request forms, variation in forms according to addressee, and most novel
for a study of child speech, she finds that there is difference in the
developmental trajectory depending on the goals of the request.  The
book is a major contribution to the fields of child language pragmatics
and second language acquisition.
Susan M. Ervin-Tripp, Professor Emeritus, Psychology Department,
University of California

Key Features
q Aimed to discover what strategies and linguistic devices a child
second-language learner uses in  making requests in English and what
developmental path the learning process follows
q Attempts to clarify understanding of the pragmatic development of a
learner's interlanguage

Description
This book examines the acquisition of requests in English by a seven-
year-old Japanese girl during her seventeen-month residence in
Australia. The study focuses on the linguistic repertoire available to
the child as she attempts to make requests and vary these to suit
different goals and addressees. This book helps unravel features of
pragmatic development in the child's interlanguage, a subject about
which we yet know very little.

Contents
Introduction; 1. Literature Review; 2. Methodology; 3. Development of
Request Realisation; 4. Requestive Hints; 5. Variation in Use: 6.
Requestive Goals; 7. Variation in Use: Addressees; 8. Modification; 9.
Summary and Conclusions

Author information
Machiko Achiba is a Professor of Applied Linguistics at Tokyo Woman's
Christian University (Tokyo Joshi Daigaku) in Japan and has been
teaching for many years in the field. Her research interests are
pragmatics, second language acquisition, and the methodologies of
teaching English as a foreign language. She received her master's degree
from Southern Illinois University in the United States and holds her
doctorate from La Trobe University in Australia. She is the mother of
this study's subject.

Second Language Acquisition 2 October 2002      Format 210 x148  240pp  
Hbk ISBN 1-85359-612-4           £42.95 / US$69.95 / CAN$99.95

This book (and all Multilingual Matters books) can be ordered via our
secure, fully searchable website www.multilingual-matters.com. This
offers 20% discount to any address in the world, plus shipping (airmail
where appropriate). Alternatively, it can be ordered through any
bookshop, or in case of difficulty contact the publisher for further
details of how to order.

-- 
Kathryn King
Multilingual Matters Ltd
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Tel: +44 (0) 1275-876519; Fax: +44 (0) 1275-871673
Email: kathryn at multilingual-matters.com
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