From barriere at vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu Sun Feb 1 00:54:22 2004 From: barriere at vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu (Isabelle Barriere) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 19:54:22 -0500 Subject: using films to teach lg acquisition courses Message-ID: Hi, A while ago someone asks about films/documentaries on language development taht may be used to teach. I have often used F. Truffaut "the wild child" and this year, for a level 1 course that students from various backgrounds (humanities and hard science- some of whom chose it as a 'default' since there were not many courses offered in the intercession) took, I actually used it to develop a task they had to complete after they had had their first lecture on Hockett design features. More than 80 students completed the course and all of them commented positively on the film and this particular task, which is why I feel I want to share it with other people who may have to teach language acquisition courses (find task below) If you do: remember you need to stop at specific points in the film, in order to give a chance to students to answer the questions. If you or your library owns a DVD the subtitles are much clearer than in the video. The questions in which I ask students for their opinions, based on their experience did not really weigh anything in the mark: it was a way to make students think and to have an idea of their opinions on this topic. Yours, Isabelle Barriere Visiting faculty Department of Cognitive Science Johns Hopkins University Language acquisition 050.111 Your name:___________________ Mark: ________ In class 1 (4%): Observing a case of atypical development and characterizing a communication system according to Hockett (1969) Design Features Truffaut, F. (1969) The Wild Child based on and accurate reflection of the two reports produced by Itard (1801, 1806) for the French Academy of Science. The aims this task are a) to enable you to characterize a communication system on the basis of the design features defined in the lecture, b) to make you aware of the similarities and differences between the wild boy and typically developing children (with a focus on language and communication development and the contexts in which they are exposed to language). Bear in mind that there are sometimes more than one possible answer to the questions (and we will bear this in mind when we mark your work): it is therefore important that you explain in a few words how you reached your conclusion, where appropriate. I. BEFORE THE WILD BOY GOES TO LIVE IN ITARDS HOUSE I.a In a few words describe the vocalizations that the wild child produces at the beginning of the film and the contexts in which they are produced ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.b In a few words describe the way he interacts with people at the beginning of the film ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.c In a few words describes how the wild boy moves from one place to another ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.d In a few words describe the way he expresses his emotions ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II. HIS LIFE IN ITARDS HOUSE II. a How does Itard communicate to the wild boy that he is ready to take him out for a walk, to his friend Lemeris house? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II. b How does the wild boy express his joy on his way to Lemeris house? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.c At Lemeris house how does the lady with the baby communicate to the wild boy that she is going to give him a bowl of milk? Describe the behavior of the wild boy that constitutes evidence that at some level he has understoodthe message. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.d How does the wild child communicate to the same lady that he wants to play outside with Mathew? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.e How does he communicate the fact that he is hungry to Mrs Guérin? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.f On the basis of your answers to II.a, II.c, II.d, II.e would you say that the means of communication used by the wild child in these contexts exhibit the following design features (you may want to check the lecture hand-out). Why/Why not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Displacement__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Productivity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ II.g On the basis of your answers to II.a, II.c, II.d, II.e, would you say that the wild child is unable to communicate? Why/Why not? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ III. In the 2nd scene at Lemeris house, when the lady with the baby is not there to give him his milk, what does the wild boys behavior (hitting the cupboard to get his bowl of milk) reveal about his behavior: is it spontaneous or tied to the context? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ IV. Why was he named Victor? ____________________________________________________________________ V. Characterizing the language input Va. In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the attempt by Itards and Mrs Guérin to teach Victor the sound oat the dinner table similar or different to the way young typically developing children are exposed to a language/the sounds of a language? In what ways?_______________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ V.b In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the scene acted out by Mrs Guérin and Itard showing how to ask for a bowl of milksimilar or different to the way young typically developing children are exposed to a language/the words of their language? In what way?____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VI. The 1st word produced by Victor (lait/ milk) VI.a What is this 1st word used for, to request or to name? ____________________________________________________________________ VI.b Does the production of this 1st word provide evidence for the following design features? Why/why not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Displacement__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VII. In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the way Itard attempts to teach Victor to produce sounds similar or different to what happens in the language input to normally developing children? (that is do most parents do with their children what Itard does with Victor?) ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VII. Victors learning of names of tools (keys, hammer, brush) etc VII.a Does the fact that Victor is able to match each tool to its drawing constitute evidence of the following design feature? Why/not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VII.b Does the fact that Victor is able to match each tool to its written representation constitute evidence of the following design feature? Why/not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VIII Itard and Pinel have different ideas about how to account for Victors behavior and his potential. In your own words, briefly outline these two views. Itards views__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Pinels views____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ IX. What does Victor rely on in order to carry out the alphabet task(ie matching each block letter to letters on the board) the first times? How does Itard attempt to challenge this strategy? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ X. Does his ability to use block letters to request milk exhibit evidence of the following design features: Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XVII How does the doctor attempt to teach Victor to perceive distinctions between different vowels? Is Victors learning of vowels successful? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XVIII. When asked to bring a specific object to the doctor, does Victors good performance provide evidence of semanticity? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XIX In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the system of rewards and punishments developed and used by Itard to try to teach Victor language similar or different to what most parents do with their typically developing young children? In what way? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XX. On the basis of your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), how would you characterize Victorss a) non-verbal communication abilities (ie. whether he is good at understanding peoples intentions and responding to their non-verbal signals and communicating his needs/feelings/emotions) and b) language abilities (his ability to distinguish between language specific sounds, understand and produce words and/or their combinations): Like/inferior to a typical child aged between 1 year 6 months (1;6) and 2 years 6 months (2;6)_________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Like/Inferior to a child between 2;6 and 4____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Like/ Inferior to a child between 4 and 6____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Sun Feb 1 21:58:35 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 16:58:35 -0500 Subject: New Dutch corpus Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, I am happy to announce the addition to CHILDES of a new corpus of transcripts from four children aged 4;9-5 learning Dutch. This corpus was contributed by Annick De Houwer. One emphasis in the study is on features unique to the Antwerp dialect. Audio is available for the corpus although the audio has not yet been linked to the transcripts. The complete documentation for the corpus is as follows: **** This corpus of Dutch child language and child-directed speech was collected in Antwerp, Belgium. Transcription and coding of the Antwerp Dutch corpus was made possible through grants to the author from the Belgian Science Foundation and the University of Antwerp. The corpus consists of 15 recordings transcribed orthographically and phonetically. Some transcripts also contain variety codes, speaker codes, addressee codes and utterance numbers (see further below). Participants are four children between the ages of ca. 4;9 and 5;0 (two boys Dieter and Michiel, and two girls Kim and Katrien) and their families, with some other persons on occasion present as well. The families are lower-middle to middle-middle class. All children are addressed in some form of Dutch common around the city of Antwerp and go to school fulltime (second year of nursery school). They are being raised monolingually. The interactions are mostly free and spontaneous, but include some structured interactions as well, in which the mother or father had a conversation with the 4-year-old about the past day at school, or prompted the child to describe a picture and tell a picture book story. The transcripts consist of 13,602 utterances (children and adults combined). Both adult and child utterances were phonetically and orthographically transcribed by three separate coders: the first two made a transcript from scratch, and the third resolved any differences between the two. For each transcript there was at least one coder from the Antwerp area, and one coder not from the Antwerp region. Phonetic transcription was originally carried out in Dutch UNIBET as developed by Steven Gillis, and is fairly narrow, especially as regards vowel sounds. However, prosody was not transcribed. As most recently described in Nuyts (1989), Antwerp vowel phonemes differ quite substantially from standard Dutch phonemes both in their type and in their distribution. The Dutch UNIBET system first used for the phonological transcription could not handle all the phonemes. Rather than develop a new system, approximations were used where necessary, with an explanation in a following %exp line of how a particular phoneme symbol was best interpreted. The UNIBET symbols were converted in Unicode but researchers who prefer to work with the original UNIBET files are welcome to contact the author of the data for more information. Also, there remain 0Xfa symbols in the Unicode for sounds that could not be approximated with the UNIBET symbols. Finally, the files for the child MICHIEL may contain some inaccuracies on the %pho line with regard to the long low open vowel phoneme used in Antwerp renderings of HIJ, MIJN and the like. Researchers wanting to work with these data are welcome to contact the author of the data to resolve these problems. While Dutch standard spelling was generally used, the orthographic transcript stays as close to the phonetic transcript as possible, and indicates missing initial and final sounds between brackets. Where this is not the case, and there seems to be a mismatch between the phonetic and orthographic transcript lines, it is the phonetic line that should be taken as most closely resembling the original utterance. Utterance lines may be followed by comment lines. These are in Dutch. For 10 of the 15 data files there is an additional coding line for each utterance (5 of these are complete and double-checked; the other 5 are provisional). This line includes the following: - an utterance number followed by a slash - a three letter code, where the first letter refers to the speaker, the second letter refers to the kind of Dutch that is being used (variety neutral, or 'local', meaning that the utterance contained a form typical of Antwerp dialect), and the third letter refers to the addressee. More information on these codes can be found in De Houwer, 2003 (reference below), or can be obtained directly from the author of these data at annick.dehouwer at ua.ac.be. If the coding line indicated that the utterance contained material coded as 'local', an explanation line follows to identify what exactly it was in the utterance that led to that coding decision (e.g., a particular dialect phoneme, use of a dialect pronoun, use of specific dialect vocabulary, etc. - see De Houwer 2003). The data show that the following distinctions in usage emerge: 'local' utterances containing dialect elements tend to be used when older children and adults in the family address each other. 'Neutral' forms that are common all over Flanders may also be used, while 'distal' features, which are clear 'imports' from a Dutch variety outside Flanders are being avoided. However, when older children and adults address the younger members of the family, they increase their use of neutral forms, substantially reduce their use of local forms, and occasionally use distal forms. The younger children use mainly utterances categorized as neutral, dependent on who they are addressing. Implications of this variation across family members for language change are discussed. (Reference: Nuyts, Jan. (1989). Het Antwerps vokaalsysteem: een synchronische en diachronische schets. Taal en tongval 41(1-2): 22-48.) Researchers wishing to use these data should cite this publication: De Houwer, Annick (2003). Language variation and local elements in family discourse. Language Variation and Change 15: 327-347. From narvik at uwyo.edu Sun Feb 1 20:55:02 2004 From: narvik at uwyo.edu (narvik) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 13:55:02 -0700 Subject: development of moral language Message-ID: Hello, all, I am a graudate student working under Dr. Karen Bartsch at the University of Wyoming. Over the last year, I have been conducting an extensive analysis of the use of moral language (with the help of the CHILDES database), focusing on young children, 2-5 years old. This analysis has proved to be very interesting, but I am curious as to whether or not there are similar databases with a corpora of older children (I know Ross/Mark goes up into 7-8 years old, but are there any others?). I have been working on ideas for generating similar discussion structures for college students, using Psyc1000 students and an "online threaded discussion" format, but I think having access to actual natural langauge transcripts would be much more helpful and informative. Does anyone know of any such databases? FYI (since a few of you expressed interst in this project when I initiated it over a year ago) - I will be presenting the results of my pilot study, conducted during the summer of 2003, at the Conference on Human Development in Washington DC in April and hope to be presenting the full results of my thesis research at another conference soon. thanks in advance for any thoughts, information, suggestions - Jen Wright Graduate Student Departments of Psychology and Philosophy University of Wyoming From pm at sfsu.edu Mon Feb 2 03:13:10 2004 From: pm at sfsu.edu (Philip M Prinz) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 19:13:10 -0800 Subject: films on language acqusition In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031228205911.00b7ed70@psumail.pdx.edu> Message-ID: Hello, Many thanks for your suggestion. Philip Prinz On Dec 28, 2003, at 9:08 PM, Lynn Santelmann wrote: > One nice newer film is called: The Secret Life of the Brain. Episode 2 > focuses on language and the child's brain, and talks a bit about > children's language delay/disorder, lateralization and > hemispherectomies. There might be other things, it's been about a year > since I've shown it. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode2/index.html > > I also like several episodes from Scientific American Frontiers: > http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm > Growing up Different, from 2001; it has segments on children with > William Syndrome, Autism, and a Cochlear Implant: > http://www.pbs.org/saf/1205/index.html > There's also a program from this series that has a segment showing a > man with a split brain. I show this often in psycholinguistics. > > All of these videos are available from PBS for about $25. Some of the > Scientific American ones are also available online if you've got > access to a reliable internet connection on which to show it. > > Lynn > > > At 10:10 AM 12/27/2003 -0800, Philip M Prinz wrote: > > > >>> Hello! >>> >>> I will be teaching an upper division undergraduate course on >>> "language acquisition in children" spring semester 2004. Can anyone >>> recommend recent films on language acquisition/development? Any >>> information on the films and ordering information would be greatly >>> appreciated. >>> >>> Thank you. >>> >>> Philip Prinz >>> pm at sfsu.edu >> > > *********************************************************************** > ***** > Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Applied Linguistics > Portland State University > P.O. Box 751 > Portland, OR 97207-0751 > Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 > email: santelmannl at pdx.edu > web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls > *********************************************************************** > ****** > From mazzocco at kennedykrieger.org Mon Feb 2 16:00:25 2004 From: mazzocco at kennedykrieger.org (Michele Mazzocco) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:00:25 -0500 Subject: Postdoctoral Fellowship Position Available Message-ID: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Child Development needed to participate in ongoing, NICHD-funded longitudinal research on cognitive and genetic correlates of math ability and disability. Appointment will be through the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry. The fellow would contribute to one or more of the following: 1) an ongoing study of cognitive phenotypes in school age children with fragile X or Turner syndrome; 2) a normative study of math ability and cognitive correlates; and/or 3) a prospective longitudinal study of math learning disability. The postdoc would have opportunities to work directly with children, and will have many opportunities for manuscript preparation and, if desired, involvement with the grant application process. Minimal travel may occur for data collection or conference presentation. The position begins in 2004, for one to three years. Qualifications include a Ph.D. in Psychology or a related area, training in child development, interest in elementary school age children, working knowledge of statistical analyses, documented writing ability, and strong research interests. To apply, please send cover letter, curriculum vitae, three letters, and sample reprints/preprints if applicable to: Dr. Mazzocco, MSDP, 3825 Greenspring Ave., Painter Building Top Floor; Baltimore, MD. 21211. Email Address mazzocco at kennedykrieger.org Email inquiries are welcome. From boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de Mon Feb 2 16:08:47 2004 From: boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Marita_B=F6hning?=) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 17:08:47 +0100 Subject: 5th meeting "The Science of Aphasia" Message-ID: 5th meeting "The Science of Aphasia" Short title: SoA5 Date: 16-Sep-2004 - 21-Sep-2004 Location: Potsdam, Germany Organised by: Potsdam University, ESF Network #115 Meeting description : SoA5, the 5th meeting of "The Science of Aphasia", will be held at Potsdam University, Germany, Sep 16 - Sep 21 Call for papers: Science of Aphasia V invites submission of abstracts either for free papers or poster presentations presenting high quality, previously unpublished work on any neurolinguistic research topic. Abstracts should contain information about the research question, the design of the study, the results, including the data and a discussion of the results. Submission can only be done via the conference website: http://www.soa5.de. The page also contains guidelines for submission. Important Deadlines: April 15, 2004: abstract submission deadline. Submission received after this date will not be considered. May 15, 2004: notification of acceptance to authors Please contact the conference website http://www.soa5.de for further information. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cchaney at sfsu.edu Mon Feb 2 21:28:12 2004 From: cchaney at sfsu.edu (Carolyn Chaney) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 13:28:12 -0800 Subject: using films to teach lg acquisition courses In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040131195025.01df6d48@vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Isabelle and Info-childes: Thanks for send us your interesting task for teaching language acquisition. Maybe it will spur another round of ideas for teaching language to undergraduates. Carolyn Chaney From cchaney at sfsu.edu Mon Feb 2 21:33:39 2004 From: cchaney at sfsu.edu (Carolyn Chaney) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 13:33:39 -0800 Subject: using films to teach lg acquisition courses In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040131195025.01df6d48@vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Isabelle and Info-childes: A p.s. to my last message...I have had some good results with the film THE PINKS AND THE BLUES, an oldie about gender socialization. After students watch it they are SURE that it is totally outdated and that parents would never treat boys and girls so differently. Then I send them out to observe family language interaction in their local park and write a comparison between language predicted by the film and language observed. Students are amazed to see that gendered language input to children has not changed much since this oldie was made. Carolyn Chaney From ykchang24 at hanmail.net Tue Feb 3 02:45:23 2004 From: ykchang24 at hanmail.net (You-Kyung Chang) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 11:45:23 +0900 Subject: influence of lexical categories in mothers' input Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ellmcf at nus.edu.sg Tue Feb 3 03:43:40 2004 From: ellmcf at nus.edu.sg (Madalena Cruz-Ferreira) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 11:43:40 +0800 Subject: Looking for B. Luetke-Stahlman Message-ID: Dear all, Would any of you know Barbara Luetke-Stahlman's most recent email address? A student of mine is doing research on bilingual deaf children, and says that all of Barbara L-S's addresses found online bounced messages back. Thank you for your help! Madalena ====================================== Madalena Cruz-Ferreira Dept. English Language and Literature National University of Singapore ellmcf at nus.edu.sg ====================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From santelmannl at pdx.edu Tue Feb 3 05:08:27 2004 From: santelmannl at pdx.edu (Lynn Santelmann) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 21:08:27 -0800 Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) Message-ID: Hi, I'm in a position where I'm suddenly faced with teaching a seminar on the acquisition of the lexicon for spring quarter (starting the end of March), and I need to get a reading list/books ASAP. I'm hoping to cover first language, adult second language and bilingual issues. This is a senior seminar for students in a applied linguistics, so they've got a good grounding in basic issues, but aren't very sophisticated yet. Any recommendations for good readings for this level class would be greatly appreciated -- I'm looking for both classics and recent work. I'm fairly up on the FLA literature, but can always use suggestions. I'm less familiar with the others. Thanks very much for your help. Lynn **************************************************************************** Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Applied Linguistics Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 email: santelmannl at pdx.edu web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls ***************************************************************************** From asanord at ling.gu.se Tue Feb 3 11:50:28 2004 From: asanord at ling.gu.se (Asa Nordqvist) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:50:28 +0200 Subject: deafblind children and their communication In-Reply-To: <40155577.5000701@hpl.hp.com> Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Do you know if anyone has used CHAT for transcribing communication between deafblind children and their caretakers? Are there (other) computer readable transcription and coding systems around for the purpose of studying deafblind communication? Thanks in advance, Asa Nordqvist =============================================== Asa Nordqvist, PhD Department of Languages / Finnish P.O. Box 35 (F) FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland tel. +358-14-260-1438 fax: +358-14-260-1431 e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ Also affiliated at: Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University Box 200 SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden =============================================== -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From roberta at UDel.Edu Tue Feb 3 12:52:32 2004 From: roberta at UDel.Edu (Roberta Golinkoff) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:52:32 -0500 Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20040202210200.00b88fb8@psumail.pdx.edu> Message-ID: Hi Lynn! There's a book from Oxford that captures the various theoretical positions and some data: Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Bloom, L., Smith, L., Woodward, A., Akhtar, N. Tomasello, M.,& Hollich, G. (Eds.) (2000). Becoming a word learner: A debate on lexical acquisition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. And there's our SRCD Monograph that also reviews theory and explores how kids break into lex. acqu. at the very beginning -- 12 months: Hollich, G. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M. (Eds.) (With Hennon, E., Chung, H. L., Rocroi, C., Brand, R. J., & Brown, E.) (2000). Breaking the language barrier: An emergentist coalition model for the origins of word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 65 (3, Serial No. 262). And any papers you want, just ask! All best, Roberta On Tuesday, February 3, 2004, at 12:08 AM, Lynn Santelmann wrote: > Hi, > > I'm in a position where I'm suddenly faced with teaching a seminar on > the acquisition of the lexicon for spring quarter (starting the end of > March), and I need to get a reading list/books ASAP. I'm hoping to > cover first language, adult second language and bilingual issues. This > is a senior seminar for students in a applied linguistics, so they've > got a good grounding in basic issues, but aren't very sophisticated > yet. > > Any recommendations for good readings for this level class would be > greatly appreciated -- I'm looking for both classics and recent work. > I'm fairly up on the FLA literature, but can always use suggestions. > I'm less familiar with the others. > > Thanks very much for your help. > > Lynn > > *********************************************************************** > ***** > Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Applied Linguistics > Portland State University > P.O. Box 751 > Portland, OR 97207-0751 > Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 > email: santelmannl at pdx.edu > web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls > *********************************************************************** > ****** > > _____________________________________________________ Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph. D. H. Rodney Sharp Professor School of Education and Departments of Psychology and Linguistics University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 Office: 302-831-1634; Fax: 302-831-4110 Web page: http://udel.edu/~roberta/ Please check out our doctoral program at http://www.udel.edu/educ/graduate/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2546 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Mewcscr at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk Tue Feb 3 13:46:58 2004 From: Mewcscr at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk (Gina Conti-Ramsden) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:46:58 +0000 Subject: Ph.D. studentships Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4149 bytes Desc: not available URL: From centenoj at stjohns.edu Tue Feb 3 15:45:38 2004 From: centenoj at stjohns.edu (Jose Centeno) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 10:45:38 -0500 Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) Message-ID: Lynn, Here are some refs in bilingualism you might find worth looking at. I'd love to know what else you find. Good luck! Jose Kohnert, K. L., & Bates, E. (2002). Balancing bilinguals: lexical ... J Speech, Lang, Hearing Research, 45, 347-359. Kroll, J. F., & de Groot, M. B. (1997). Lexical and conceptual memory in the bilingual. In A.M. B. de Groot & J. F. Kroll (Eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistics perspectives (pp. 169-200). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Marchman, V. A., & Martínez-Sussmann, C. (2002). Concurrent validity of caregiver/parent report measures of language for children who are learning both English and Spanish. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 983-997. Oller, D. K., and Eilers, R. E. (Eds.) (2002). Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon, UK: Multingual Matters. Patterson, J. L. (2002). Relationships of expressive vocabulary to frequency of reading and television experience among bilingual toddlers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 493-508. Pearson. B., Fernandez, Lewedeg, V., & Oller, K. (1997). The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 41-58. Jose G. Centeno, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology Program Dept. of Speech, Communication Sciences, & Theatre St. John's University 8000 Utopia Parkway Jamaica, NY 11439 Tel: 718-990-2629 Fax: 212-677-2127 E-mail: centenoj at stjohns.edu -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Lynn Santelmann Sent: Tue 2/3/2004 12:08 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Cc: Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) Hi, I'm in a position where I'm suddenly faced with teaching a seminar on the acquisition of the lexicon for spring quarter (starting the end of March), and I need to get a reading list/books ASAP. I'm hoping to cover first language, adult second language and bilingual issues. This is a senior seminar for students in a applied linguistics, so they've got a good grounding in basic issues, but aren't very sophisticated yet. Any recommendations for good readings for this level class would be greatly appreciated -- I'm looking for both classics and recent work. I'm fairly up on the FLA literature, but can always use suggestions. I'm less familiar with the others. Thanks very much for your help. Lynn **************************************************************************** Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Applied Linguistics Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 email: santelmannl at pdx.edu web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls ***************************************************************************** From Mewssls2 at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk Tue Feb 3 16:30:18 2004 From: Mewssls2 at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk (Ludovica Serratrice) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:30:18 +0000 Subject: aspect in English Message-ID: Dear colleagues, is anyone aware of studies that have looked at English-speaking children's sensitivity to the aspectual distinction between present tense forms [-progressive] and -ing forms [+progressive]? I would like to know whether there is any evidence that monolingual English-speaking children would use a present tense form such as "she swims", instead of "she's swimming", for a [+progressive] event. Thanks in advance for any help. Ludovica Serratrice University of Manchester From santelmannl at pdx.edu Tue Feb 3 22:36:30 2004 From: santelmannl at pdx.edu (Lynn Santelmann) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 14:36:30 -0800 Subject: AAAL 2004 Conference Announcment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 2004 Annual Conference Announcement This year's conference will welcome five Plenary Speakers and over six hundred paper and poster presentations. Date and Location: May 1-4, 2004 Marriott Hotel, Downtown on the Waterfront 1401 SW Naito Parkway Portland, Oregon, 97201 USA Phone: (503) 226-7600 Plenary Speakers: Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Indiana University. Tense-Mood-Aspect and the Study of Second Language Acquisition Deborah Cameron, Institute of Education, University of London. Language, Gender and Sexuality: Current Issues and Future Directions Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology, Sydney. Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows Ron Scollon, Georgetown University. Activity, Action, Activism, and Linguistics Peter Smagorinsky, University of Georgia. Composing Multimedia Texts in the Disciplines For additional conference information, visit the conference website, http://www.aaal.org/aaal2004/. Hotel, Reservation, and Registration Information: The Marriott Hotel, Downtown on the Waterfront is located at 1401 SW Naito Parkway, in downtown Portland. The hotel is adjacent to the beautiful Willamette River, which runs directly through downtown Portland. Enjoy a riverfront stroll or a quick bite to eat at the waterfront park, just across the street from the hotel. There are several shops and restaurants within walking distance of the hotel. The AAAL has secured a special sleeping room rate of $115* US Dollars for all conference attendees. You may reserve your room online at: https://www.marriott.com/reservations/init/asp?marshacode=pdxor&gc=aalaala *The conference rate of $115 USD is for a standard single/double room, higher rates may apply for suites, upgrades, club level rooms, etc. Higher rates may apply if more that 2 people share 1 room. You may register for the conference online at: http://www.aaal.org/cgi-bin/OrderForm.cgi Registration fees vary: AAAL Members: $155 Non AAAL Member: $175 All Students: $70 (all US Dollars) The registration deadline is April 1, 2004. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Wed Feb 4 23:47:41 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:47:41 -0500 Subject: New Thai corpus Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, I am happy to announce the addition to CHILDES of a new corpus studying the development of language and communicative interactions in Thai children from 6-24 months. This corpus is the collaboration of the Centre for Research in Speech and Language Processing (CRSLP), Chulalongkorn University, Thailand led by Assistant Professor Dr. Sudaporn Luksaneeyanawin, and MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, Australia led by Professor Dr. Denis Burnham. To recognize this collaboration, we call it the CRSLP-MARCS corpus. The data consist of video-linked transcriptions of 18 Thai adult-child dyads from the child age of 6 to 24 months, at three monthly intervals. Sessions at each age were of 20 minutes duration and for CHILDES these have been split into 10 minute files, a total of 242 files. The data comprised the major part of a doctoral thesis by Sorabud Rungrojsuwan - ŒFirst Words: Communicative Development of 9- to 24-Month-Old Thai Children¹. Data were collected by Sorabud Rungrojsuwan and Nirattisai Krajaikiat, postgraduate research assistants at CRSLP, during the period January 2000-January 2002, using a SONY Digital Handicam DCR-TRV320E video camera. The videotaped data were then computerized and converted into 242 video files (in .mpg format) using the Ulead Video Studio 4.0 SE Basic program. Using the CLAN program (CHAT mode), Sorabud transcribed the data in Thai script. Roman phonological representations of these Thai transcriptions were automatically added by the use of a Thai text-to-phonological representation program developed by the CRSLP, by Assistant Professor Dr. Sudaporn Luksaneeyanawin. The transcripts can be found at http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/eastasian/thai/ And the video can be browsed from the "directly browsable" link at http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/ I would like to add an editorial note here. Even if you cannot speak Thai, the videos should be of rather universal interest for exploring ideas about early vocalizations and mother-child interactions. Many thanks to both of these work groups for contributing this new corpus. --Brian MacWhinney From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Fri Feb 6 15:28:21 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 10:28:21 -0500 Subject: FW: ARLA Vol. 4 Deadline Extension: March 15 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> >> ARLA Vol. 4 Deadline Extension: March 15 >> >> THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION VOL. 4 (2004) >> >> Editors >> Clara C. Levelt, Leiden University >> Lynn Santelmann, Portland State University >> Maaike Verrips, Taalstudio, the Netherlands >> >> ARLA is devoted to research in the domain of first language >> acquisition, >> i.e., the process of acquiring command of a first language. It focuses >> on >> research reported in recently defended PhD theses. The major share of >> contributions to the yearbook consists of excerpts from, or edited >> summaries >> of, dissertations addressing issues in first language acquisition, >> including >> bilingual first language acquisition. These papers should be written by >> the >> original author of the dissertation, conform to the format of a journal >> article, and thus be comprehensible without reference to the source >> text. >> >> ARLA publishes reports of original research pertaining to various >> approaches >> to first language and bilingual first language acquisition, be it >> experimental, observational, computational, clinical or theoretical, >> provided that the work is of high quality. The Annual Review also >> welcomes >> studies in which first language acquisition is compared to second >> language >> acquisition, as well as studies on language acquisition under abnormal >> conditions. In all of the areas covered, ARLA is dedicated to creative >> and >> groundbreaking research. >> >> The yearbook, in its printed form, will be supplemented by an >> attractive >> website. The website will give access to electronic copies of the >> printed > > Your message could not be processed because you are not allowed to post > messages to the list. > For more information, you can contact the list administrator at: > sacco at cmu.edu > > ------ End of Forwarded Message From ccore at fau.edu Fri Feb 6 20:16:16 2004 From: ccore at fau.edu (Cynthia W Core) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:16:16 -0500 Subject: Child-directed speech across languages/cultures Message-ID: Hello all - I was asked today about specific cultural influences on child-directed speech and influence of child-directed speech on literacy acquisition. The questions I have are 1. "What are differences across cultures in terms of the amount of linguistic input that children receive?" I phrase it this way to allow for the possibility that although some children are receiving less child-directed speech, they may be getting input from the environment. 2. "What (besides mother's ed level) influences how much a mother in the United States speaks to her child? Is SES more important than cultural background or vice versa?" I would like to compile a list of resources on this topic, and though I have been able to find some references on-line, I'm sure this group will provide the best resources. Most recently, I have seen Johnston, J. and Wong, M-Y., A. (2002) Cultural Differences in Beliefs and Practices Concerning Talk to Children. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 916-926. I appreciate the input, and I will compile and post a list of references provided. Thank you. Cynthia Core, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Florida Atlantic University 777 Glades Road PO Box 3091 Boca Raton, FL 33431 (561) 297-1138 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rpulverm at UDel.Edu Fri Feb 6 23:47:31 2004 From: rpulverm at UDel.Edu (Rachel Pulverman) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 17:47:31 -0600 Subject: Coding Preferential Looking Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Does anyone know of a computer program for coding preferential looking studies in real time off of video tapes? I'm currently running some experiments in Mexico and I would like to add a preferential looking study, but my resources here are limited. I will be recording my subjects' eye movements with a VHS camera and have no way of digitizing the recordings, so I cannot use a program for coding frame by frame. I don't have access to a special timing device for coding either. What I'm looking for is a way to use my computer as a timing device that will work for coding preferential looking in real time. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Thank you, Rachel Pulverman From sabahsafi at hotmail.com Sun Feb 8 07:40:46 2004 From: sabahsafi at hotmail.com (Sabah Safi) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 07:40:46 -0000 Subject: language pathology Message-ID: Please post the following request: Dear Colleagues: I am in the process of doing a comprehensive review of research on Arabic Language Pathologies for the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Any references, suggestions, citations, etc., that I should not overlook would be most appreciated. Please send info to me directly at sabahsafi at hotmail.com. Many thanks, Sabah M.Z. Safi Associate Professor of Linguistics Dept. of European Lang. & Lit. King Abdulaziz University Jeddah -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Mon Feb 9 15:19:09 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:19:09 -0500 Subject: FW: Extended Deadline ARLA Vol. 4 Call for Papers: March 14th In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Extended Deadline ARLA Vol. 4 Call for Papers: March 14th > > THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION > VOL. 4 (2004) > > Editors > Clartje Levelt, Leiden University > Lynn Santelmann, Portland State University > Maaike Verrips, Taalstudio, the Netherlands > > ARLA is devoted to research in the domain of first language acquisition, > i.e., the process of acquiring command of a first language. It focuses on > research reported in recently defended PhD theses. The major share of > contributions to the yearbook consists of excerpts from, or edited summaries > of, dissertations addressing issues in first language acquisition, including > bilingual first language acquisition. These papers should be written by the > original author of the dissertation, conform to the format of a journal > article, and thus be comprehensible without reference to the source text. > > ARLA publishes reports of original research pertaining to various approaches > to first language and bilingual first language acquisition, be it > experimental, observational, computational, clinical or theoretical, > provided that the work is of high quality. The Annual Review also welcomes > studies in which first language acquisition is compared to second language > acquisition, as well as studies on language acquisition under abnormal > conditions. In all of the areas covered, ARLA is dedicated to creative and > groundbreaking research. > > The yearbook, in its printed form, will be supplemented by an attractive > website. The website will give access to electronic copies of the printed > papers, but, more importantly, will also present background materials such > as a resume for the author, excerpts of audio or video materials related to > the reported research, tips for further reading, and links to relevant > websites. In addition to the research reports sketched above, each issue of > the Annual Review contains one state-of-the-art review in a subdomain of > first language acquisition research. This paper is commissioned by the > editors. > > Any student who has completed a dissertation in 2002 or 2003 is invited to > submit a manuscript based on this work. In order to be eligible for > publication, the manuscript should be of outstanding quality. Particularly, > contributions are sought which excel with regard to the integration of > behavioral data and (psycho)linguistic theorizing. More specifically, the > Annual Review solicits papers which: > * develop new theoretical ideas to account for a set of facts; > * open up a new empirical domain or new set of data, e.g. explore a > relatively unknown language, or apply a new or unknown experimental > approach; > * report findings that are considered important for pertinent debates > in the field. > > Submitted papers will be thoroughly reviewed by at least two members of the > editorial board and/or external advisers. > > Deadline for submissions to the 2004 issue (Vol. 4): March 15, 2004 > > Address for correspondence: Editors of ARLA > UIL-OTS, Utrecht University > Trans 10 > 3512 JK Utrecht > The Netherlands > > For further information, write to: ARLA at let.uu.nl > , or visit the journals section at www.benjamins.com > > > ARLA Editorial Board > Peter Culicover, The Ohio State University > Katherine Demuth, Brown University > Jeff Elman, UCSD > Louann Gerken, University of Arizona > Marco Haverkort, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen > Jack Hoeksema, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen > Angeliek van Hout, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen > Nina Hyams, UCLA > Laurence B. Leonard, Purdue University > Natascha Müller, Universität Hamburg > Johanne Paradis, University of Alberta > William Philip, Universiteit Utrecht > Thomas Roeper, University of Massachusetts, Amherst > Petra Schulz, Universität Konstanz > Ann Senghas, Barnard College > William Snyder, University of Connecticut > Daniel Swingley, Univerity of Pennsylvania > Karin Stromswold, Rutgers University > Jill de Villiers, Smith College > ___________________________________ > ARLA GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS > > 1. All manuscripts should be addressed to the editors. All submission > letters must specify that the manuscript submitted is not under > consideration elsewhere and has not been published elsewhere in this or a > substantially similar form. > 2. Contributions should be in English. If not written by a native > speaker, it is advisable to have the paper checked by a native speaker. > 3. No page other than the cover pages should give the author's name. > The review of the manuscript will be anonymous. > 4. Submit four double-spaced typewritten copies (preferably 12-point > font) in conformance to APA style. The length of the manuscript should not > exceed 10.000 words. Include author name, title, full mailing address, > e-mail address and telephone numbers. > 5. An abstract should be included. This should not exceed 200 words. > 6. For the delivery of the final version, the article should be > presented on disk and saved on IBM-PC compatible or Mac disk. Material > should be saved in ASCII mode or 'non-document' mode, or 'text-only' mode. > It should also be saved as a separate file in the author's normal > word-processor format together with a note indicating the names of the word > processor used. The format of the disk (PC or Mac) should also be labeled on > the disk. An identical hard copy of the manuscript should be included. > 7. References in text - follow APA style. Cite references by last name > and year of publication. Three or more authors, cite complete names at > first mention. Then use et al. If there are more than 7 authors use et al. > first time. If there is more than one citation in text, list publications > chronologically (Bellugi, 1971, Brown, 1968, Klima & Bellugi,1966). > 8. Reference style - follow APA style, e.g., Single author works, list > chronologically; co-authored works, list alphabetically and then > chronologically; co-authored works (three or more authors) list > chronologically. List all authors, last name first, followed by initials. Do > not use et al. Spell out all journal names. > 9. Sample references: > Davies, I., Corbett, G., McGurk H. & Jerret, D. T. (1994). A > developmental study of the acquisition of colour terms in Setswana. Journal > of Child Language, 21, 693-712. > > Harris, T. & Wexler K. (1996). The optional-infinitive stage in > child English: Evidence from negation. In H. Clahsen (Ed.), Generative > perspectives on language acquisition. (pp.1-42). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. > > 10. Essential notes (Footnotes/Endnotes) should be numbered in the text > and grouped together at the end of the article. Diagrams and figures should > not be embedded within the text. Hard copy of all figures must be provided > along with any electronic files, for gray scales TIFF format is preferred, > for line drawings EPS format. > 11. A typescript not presented in accordance with these guidelines will > not undergo the reviewing process. It will be returned to the author for > appropriate modification. > > > > ------ End of Forwarded Message From sakas at hunter.cuny.edu Mon Feb 9 19:12:23 2004 From: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu (William Gregory Sakas) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:12:23 -0500 Subject: Call for papers: Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition Message-ID: **************************************************************************** Call for Papers COLING-2004 Workshop: Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition Geneva Switzerland 28 August 2004 http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/ Workshop Topic -------------- The workshop will be devoted to psychologically motivated computational models of language acquisition -- models that are compatible with research in psycholinguistics, developmental psychology and linguistics -- with particular emphasis on the acquisition of syntax. Invited panel: Learning Biases in Language Acquisition Models ---------------------------------------------------------------- Walter Daelemans, Antwerp and Tilburg Charles D. Yang, Yale Invited speaker --------------- Elan Dresher, Toronto Workshop Description and Motivation ----------------------------------- In recent decades there has been a great deal of successful research that applies computational learning techniques to emerging natural language technologies, along with many meetings, conferences and workshops in which to present such research. However, there have been few venues in which psycho- computational models of how humans acquire their native language(s) are the focus. Psycho-computational models of language acquisition are of particular interest in light of recent results in developmental psychology which suggest that very young infants are adept at detecting statistical patterns in an audible input stream. However, this begs the question of whether or not a psychologically plausible statistical learning strategy can be successfully exploited in a full- blown psycho-computational acquisition model. Although there has been a significant amount of presented research targeted at modeling the acquisition of word categories and phonology, research aimed at psychologically motivated modeling of syntax acquisition has just begun to emerge. The principal goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers who work within computational linguistics, formal learning theory, machine learning, artificial intelligence, linguistics, psycholinguistics and other fields, and who have created or are investigating computational models of language acquisition. In particular, it will provide a forum for establishing links and common themes between diverse paradigms. Although research which directly addresses the acquisition of syntax is strongly encouraged, related studies that inform research on the acquisition of syntax are also welcome. Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics: * Acquisition models that contain a parsing component * Models that have a cross-linguistic or bilingual perspective * Models that address the question of learning bias in terms of innate linguistic knowledge versus statistical regularity in the input * Models that can acquire natural language word-order * Hybrid models that cross established paradigms * Models that directly make use of or can be used to evaluate existing linguistic or developmental theories in a computational framework (e.g. the principles & parameters framework or Optimality Theory) * Empirical models that make use of child-directed corpora * Formal models that incorporate psychologically plausible constraints * Comparative surveys, across multiple paradigms, that critique previously published studies Paper Length: Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (A4 or the equivalent). High-quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5 pages are encouraged. Submission and format details are below. Lunch session: Word-order acquisition -------------------------------------- The topic of this session will be the acquisition of different natural language word-orders. The workshop will provide a common test-bed of abstract sentence patterns from word order divergent languages. The shared data contains the sentence patterns and cross-linguistic fully-specified parses for each sentence pattern. The patterns are available at: www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar/data/allsentences.zip General information and a web interface for perusing the data can be found at: www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar Due to the limited amount of time available to work with novel data, pilot studies are encouraged. The session will consist of short presentations and roundtable discussion. Submissions for this session are limited to 2 pages. Those who may be interested in submitting to this session should contact the workshop organizer before the submission deadline for further details. Dates of submissions Submission deadline: 30 March 2004 Acceptance notification: 14 May 2004 Camera-ready deadline: 10 June 2004 Workshop date: 28 August 2004 Workshop Organizer William Gregory Sakas, City University of New York (sakas at hunter.cuny.edu) Program Committee * Robert Berwick, MIT, USA * Antal van den Bosch, Tilburg University, The Netherlands * Ted Briscoe, University of Cambridge, UK * Damir Cavar, Indiana University, USA * Morten H. Christiansen, Cornell University, USA * Stephen Clark, University of Edinburgh, UK * James Cussens, University of York, UK * Walter Daelemans, University of Antwerp, Belgium and Tilburg University, The Netherlands * Jeffrey Elman, University of California, San Diego, USA * Janet Dean Fodor, City University of New York, USA * Gerard Kempen, Leiden University, The Netherlands and The Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen * Vincenzo Lombardo, University of Torino, Italy * Larry Moss, University of Indiana, USA * Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK * Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA * Ivan Sag, Stanford University, USA * Jeffrey Siskind, Purdue University, USA * Mark Steedman, University of Edinburgh, UK * Menno van Zaanen, Tilburg University, The Netherlands * Charles Yang, Yale University, USA Paper Submission ---------------- Length: Submissions should be no more than 8 pages (A4 or equivalent). High- quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5 pages are encouraged. Submissions to the lunch session on word-order should be up no more that 2 pages. (If accepted, final camera ready versions may be up to 8 pages or 5 pages for the word-order submissions.) Layout: Papers must conform to COLING 2004 formatting guidelines, available at: http://www.issco.unige.ch/coling2004/coling2004downloads.html Electronic Submission: All submissions will be by email. Reviews will be blind, so be careful not to disclose authorship or affiliation. PDF submissions are preferred and will be required for the final camera-ready copy. Submissions should be sent as an attachment to: Psycho.Comp at hunter.cuny.edu. The subject line must contain the single word: Submission. Please be sure to include accurate contact information in the body of the email. Contact: Psycho.Comp at hunter.cuny.edu or sakas at hunter.cuny.edu http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/ From eva.m.berglund at home.se Tue Feb 10 15:41:14 2004 From: eva.m.berglund at home.se (Eva Berglund) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:41:14 +0100 Subject: Word order in two-word child utterances Message-ID: Greetings, We are interested in the question of how or if the normal word order of a language affects the word order expressed in the earliest two word utterences children produce. The data we work with is from Swedish, which has the normal pattern of SVO, and we would like to look at comparable data from languages with other standard patterns. We have tentatively identified CHILDES data from Turkish, Farsi, Hungarian, Irish, Hebrew, Tamil, and Japanese for comparison. However, we suspect that we're not the first to think of this, and would like to hear from or of anyone who has looked at this question before, or anyone with advice on the best methodology to follow in approaching the question. Thanks in advance if anyone can be of help. Eva Berglund, Richard Fannon From j.lum at latrobe.edu.au Tue Feb 10 17:52:50 2004 From: j.lum at latrobe.edu.au (Jarrad Lum) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 04:52:50 +1100 Subject: Computer software & Head-Turning Task Message-ID: Dear Info-Childes, ' I am currently in the process of writing a computer program to run a 'Head-Turning Preference Task' to examine word recognition in young infants. Ideally, it was hoped to use E-Prime to write the experiment but I have come across a few problems using this software (especially in relation to the on-line scoring of the duration of children's head turns). Given this, I was wondering what software has been used in other labs. Any assistance that could be provided would be very much appreciated. Many thanks, Jarrad ------------------------------------------------------- Jarrad Lum School of Psychology, University of Wales Adeilad Brigantia Penrallt Road Gwynedd LL57 2AS United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1248 38 3621 Fax: +44 (0) 1248 38 2599 Email: j.lum at bangor.ac.uk From gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu Wed Feb 11 17:18:56 2004 From: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu (Gigliana Melzi) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 12:18:56 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic skills. Thanks, Gigliana Melzi **************************************************************************** ************ Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu New York University 239 Greene St., 5th fl. New York, NY 10003 **************************************************************************** ************ From gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu Wed Feb 11 18:17:28 2004 From: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu (Gigliana Melzi) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:17:28 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: <8779D38E-5CB8-11D8-9E99-000A959BF324@comdis.umass.edu> Message-ID: Dear all, We will be using the measure on children age 3. Thanks, Gigliana At 12:34 PM 2/11/04 -0500, Barbara Pearson wrote: >Dear Gigliana, >What age children??! > >Barbara > > P.S. Hi >On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Gigliana Melzi wrote: > >>Dear Colleagues, >> >>We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly >>Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the >>IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages >>other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if >>there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) >>that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic >>skills. >> >>Thanks, >> >>Gigliana Melzi >> >> >>*********************************************************************** >>***** ************ >>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>School of Education E-MAIL: >>gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>New York University >>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>New York, NY 10003 >>*********************************************************************** >>***** ************ >> >> > >***************************************** >Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. >Project Manager, Research Assistant >Dept. of Communication Disorders >University of Massachusetts >Amherst MA 01003 > >413.545.5023 >fax: 545.0803 > >bpearson at comdis.umass.edu >http://www.umass.edu/aae/ > **************************************************************************** ************ Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu New York University 239 Greene St., 5th fl. New York, NY 10003 **************************************************************************** ************ From ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu Wed Feb 11 19:44:35 2004 From: ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu (Ellina Chernobilsky) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:44:35 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20040211131610.00df2a80@pop3.norton.antivirus> Message-ID: >Dear all, > >We will be using the measure on children age 3. > >Thanks, > >Gigliana > >At 12:34 PM 2/11/04 -0500, Barbara Pearson wrote: >>Dear Gigliana, >>What age children??! >> >>Barbara >> >> P.S. Hi >>On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Gigliana Melzi wrote: >> >>>Dear Colleagues, >>> >>>We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly >>>Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the >>>IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages >>>other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if >>>there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) >>>that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic >>>skills. >>> >>>Thanks, >>> >>>Gigliana Melzi >>> >>> >>>*********************************************************************** >>>***** ************ >>>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>>School of Education E-MAIL: >>>gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>>New York University >>>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>>New York, NY 10003 >>>*********************************************************************** >>>***** ************ >>> >> >>***************************************** >>Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. >>Project Manager, Research Assistant >>Dept. of Communication Disorders >>University of Massachusetts >>Amherst MA 01003 >> >>413.545.5023 >>fax: 545.0803 >> >>bpearson at comdis.umass.edu >>http://www.umass.edu/aae/ >> > >**************************************************************************** >************ >Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >New York University >239 Greene St., 5th fl. >New York, NY 10003 >**************************************************************************** >************ -- Dear Gigliana: I have not founf IPSyn for other languages, however, in my recent research we have adapted IPSyn to look at the language competencies of bilingual 4-6 year olds. We looked at Russian/English speaking kids, and I am not pretty sure that IPSyn can be adapted to other languages as well. From ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu Wed Feb 11 19:51:49 2004 From: ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu (Ellina Chernobilsky) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:51:49 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am sorry, there was a typo in the message I had just sent. It shoudl read: We looked at Russian/English speaking kids, and I am NOW (not "not") pretty sure that IPSyn can be adapted to other languages as well. Sorry about that. Ellina >>Dear all, >> >>We will be using the measure on children age 3. >> >>Thanks, >> >>Gigliana >> >>At 12:34 PM 2/11/04 -0500, Barbara Pearson wrote: >>>Dear Gigliana, >>>What age children??! >>> >>>Barbara >>> >>> P.S. Hi >>>On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Gigliana Melzi wrote: >>> >>>>Dear Colleagues, >>>> >>>>We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly >>>>Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the >>>>IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages >>>>other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if >>>>there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) >>>>that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic >>>>skills. >>>> >>>>Thanks, >>>> >>>>Gigliana Melzi >>>> >>>> >>>>*********************************************************************** >>>>***** ************ >>>>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>>>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>>>School of Education E-MAIL: >>>>gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>>>New York University >>>>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>>>New York, NY 10003 >>>>*********************************************************************** >>>>***** ************ >>>> >>> >>>***************************************** >>>Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. >>>Project Manager, Research Assistant >>>Dept. of Communication Disorders >>>University of Massachusetts >>>Amherst MA 01003 >>> >>>413.545.5023 >>>fax: 545.0803 >>> >>>bpearson at comdis.umass.edu >>>http://www.umass.edu/aae/ >>> >> >>**************************************************************************** >>************ >>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>New York University >>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>New York, NY 10003 >>**************************************************************************** >>************ > > >-- >Dear Gigliana: >I have not founf IPSyn for other languages, however, in my recent >research we have adapted IPSyn to look at the language competencies >of bilingual 4-6 year olds. We looked at Russian/English speaking >kids, and I am not pretty sure that IPSyn can be adapted to other >languages as well. -- From mminami at sfsu.edu Thu Feb 12 02:26:15 2004 From: mminami at sfsu.edu (mminami at sfsu.edu) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 18:26:15 -0800 Subject: ICPLJ Message-ID: Can I ask post the following information? Thank you. --Masahiko Minami The Fourth Biennial International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) April 3 & 4, 2004 San Francisco State University Keynote Speakers: Timothy J. Vance, University of Arizona Harumi Befu, Stanford University ************************************************************************ Aims and Scope * ICPLJ is intended to bring together researchers on the cutting edge of Japanese linguistics and to offer a forum in which their research results can be presented in a form that is useful to those desiring practical applications in the fields of teaching Japanese as a second/foreign language and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology. * All topics in linguistics will be presented, including: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicon, pragmatics (discourse analysis), second language acquisition (bilingualism). Dear Colleague, The Fourth Biennial International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) will be held on April 3-4, 2002 (Saturday and Sunday) at San Francisco State University (Humanities Auditorium). This conference is intended to bring together researchers on the cutting edge of Japanese linguistics and to offer a forum in which their research results can be presented in a form that is applicable to those desiring practical applications in the fields of teaching Japanese as a second/foreign language and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology. The invited keynote speaker is Prof. Timothy Vance (University of Arizona) and Prof. Harumi Befu (Stanford University). The Fourth ICPLJ program is shown below. For details, visit our web sites: http://www.sfsu.edu/~japanese/conference/ http://www.sfsu.edu/~japanese/conference/ConfProgram.html For further information, contact: Dr. Masahiko Minami, Conference Chair Fourth Biennial International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 Telephone: (415) 338-7451 e-mail: icplj at sfsu.edu -- ********************************** Dr. Masahiko Minami Department of Foreign Languages San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 (415) 338-7451 http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~mminami/ ********************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ophe at hkusua.hku.hk Fri Feb 13 04:47:56 2004 From: ophe at hkusua.hku.hk (Ophelia Mak) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:47:56 +0800 Subject: About Null Subjects in Autistic Children Message-ID: Dear all, I am now doing a thesis on the topic of null subjects in autistic children. Could anyone kindly suggest some related papers? Thank you. Regards, Ophelia Mak From ophe at hkusua.hku.hk Fri Feb 13 05:19:58 2004 From: ophe at hkusua.hku.hk (Ophelia Mak) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:19:58 +0800 Subject: About pronoun reversal and name substitution Message-ID: Dear all, When I am analyzing the corpus of an autistic children, I find that pronoun reversal and name substitution occur in the same sentence. Is there any specific term for such a case? Thank you. Regards, Ophelia Mak From kei at aya.yale.edu Fri Feb 13 07:17:51 2004 From: kei at aya.yale.edu (Kei Nakamura) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:17:51 +0900 Subject: Call for papers for JSLS2004- please post to list Message-ID: Dear Ms. Sacco, Please post the following final call for papers for JSLS2004 to the info-childes mailing list. Thank you for your help. Sincerely, Kei Nakamura Keio University Final Call for Papers: JSLS2004 6th Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Languages July 17-18, 2004 Nagoya, Japan Deadline for abstracts: February 28, 2004 http://cow.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jsls/2004/cfp-e.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Japanese Society for Language Sciences invites proposals for our Sixth Annual International Conference, JSLS 2004. We welcome proposals for paper and poster presentations and for one symposium. As keynote speakers, we will invite Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) and Yukio Otsu (Keio University). JSLS2004 Conference Committee Chair Susanne Miyata (Aichi Shukutoku University) Conference Dates/ Location The Sixth Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences will be held as follows: (1) July 17 (Saturday)- 18 (Sunday), 2004 (2) Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, Japan Submissions We would like to encourage submissions on research pertaining to language sciences, including linguistics, psychology, education, computer science, brain science, and philosophy, among others. We will not commit ourselves to one or a few particular theoretical frameworks. We will respect any scientific endeavor that aims to contribute to a better understanding of the human mind and the brain through language. Submission Deadline All submissions should be e-mailed by February 28, 2004 (Sunday). Submission guidelines are available on the JSLS 2004 website at: http://cow.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jsls/2004/cfp-e.htm All questions regarding the JSLS 2004 conference should be addressed to: Kei Nakamura JSLS 2004 Conference Coordinator 14-21 Sarugakucho Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033 JAPAN e-mail: kei at aya.yale.edu Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, Japan The Japanese Society for Language Sciences invites proposals for our Sixth Annual International Conference, JSLS 2004. We welcome proposals for paper and poster presentations. As keynote speakers, we will invite Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) and Yukio Otsu (Keio University). JSLS2004 Committee Chair: Susanne Miyata (Aichi Shukutoku University) Qualifications for Presenters All presenters should be members of JSLS by May 24, 2004. (It is not necessary for co-presenters to be members.) Please refer to the following website for membership information: http://jchat.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp/JSLS/ All presenters should pre-register for the JSLS 2004 conference by May 24, 2004. Papers should be original and unpublished. We will accept multiple submissions from the same individual, however, you can only be the single or first author of one paper. Each presentation will be 25 minutes long. (20 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for Q&A). The language of presentations may be either Japanese or English. Submission Deadline & Review Process All submissions should be e-mailed by February 28, 2004 (Sunday). Please send the following items to the review committee chairperson, Hirohide Mori. Paper and poster presentations We will only accept submissions via e-mail. Please send your submissions to the following address, in the following manner: To: jsls2004-submission at nausicaa.cyber.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp Subject: Paper Submission (or Poster Submission) Send the following application form in the main text, and your abstract as an attachment. (1) Application form presentation title presentation category (paper or poster) name of presenter(s), affiliation(s) mailing address email address telephone number language of the paper/poster language of the presentation (only for papers) keywords (about 5 words) (2) Title and Abstract (a) Format paper: maximum 4 pages (including title, tables, figures, & references) poster: 2 pages (including title, tables, figures, & references) (Do not include any information which may reveal your identity.) paper size: A4 or letter-size margins: in the case of A4: Up and Bottom: 30mm Left and Right: 25mm In the case of letter-size All: 1 inch font style: Times New Roman (or similar one) font size: Body: 12 point Notes & References:10 point (b) save the file as ''pdf file'' or ''text file''. Please note that other formats will not be accepted. (c) save your file under your own name (eg.: brown-roger.pdf). Each abstract will be reviewed anonymously by several reviewers. Notification of acceptance will be made by early May. (Some ''paper'' proposals might be accepted as ''poster'' presentations.) If your proposal is accepted, you will be requested to send a copy of your paper (Maximum length for papers is 6-pages, for posters 2-pages) by May 24. This paper will appear in the Conference Handbook. Excellent papers may be published as a collection of papers titled ''Studies in Language Sciences''. Symposium We will only accept submissions via e-mail for the symposium until February 28, 2004. Please send an e-mail proposal to the following address, in the following manner: To: hiromori at dc4.so-net.ne.jp Subject: Symposium Proposal Please send your abstract in the main text (not as an attachment). (1) Application Form symposium title name of the organizer(s) and affiliation(s) email address telephone number name and affiliations of symposium speakers (2) a detailed abstract consisting of an outline of the symposium with abstracts from each speaker. Overall length: 800 to 1600 words in English or 3000 to 6000 characters (moji)in Japanese (equivalent to two to four pages on A4 or letter-size paper). All questions regarding the JSLS 2004 conference should be addressed to: Kei Nakamura JSLS 2004 Conference Coordinator 14-21 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033 JAPAN e-mail: kei at aya.yale.edu Inquiries by phone will not be accepted. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Fri Feb 13 15:35:26 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:35:26 -0500 Subject: Tenth National/International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome Message-ID: Meeting Announcement - Call for Papers Tenth National/International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome July 25 & 26, 2004 Hosted by the Williams Syndrome Association The Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome (WS) will feature keynote speakers as well as platform and poster presentations on a variety of topics relating to Williams syndrome. We are particularly interested in receiving abstracts on the following topics: molecular genetics of WS; genotype-phenotype correlations; natural history and medical management; brain structure and neuroimaging;behavioral and psychiatric issues; language and cognition; developmental/vocational assessments and interventions. To receive the meeting announcement and call for papers, please contact: Teresa F. Doyle, PhD, Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute, doyle at lcn.salk.edu, (858) 453-4100, ext 1662. Abstract submission deadline is March 26, 2004. From asanord at ling.gu.se Mon Feb 16 09:37:14 2004 From: asanord at ling.gu.se (Asa Nordqvist) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:37:14 +0200 Subject: ref on blind children's lang dev Message-ID: Dear colleagues, I am searching for references on blind children's early language and conceptual development, can anyone help me? Thanks on beforehand Asa N -- =============================================== Asa Nordqvist, PhD Department of Languages / Finnish P.O. Box 35 (F) FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland tel. +358-14-260-1438 fax: +358-14-260-1431 e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ Also affiliated at: Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University Box 200 SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden =============================================== From sglennen at towson.edu Mon Feb 16 16:49:32 2004 From: sglennen at towson.edu (Glennen, Sharon) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:49:32 -0500 Subject: Russian Language Development Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I am seeking information on the developmental chronology of morphological acquisition in Russian. Does anyone have any resources on this topic? Thanks! Sharon Glennen, Ph.D Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders Towson University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hyams at humnet.ucla.edu Tue Feb 17 23:05:51 2004 From: hyams at humnet.ucla.edu (Hyams, Nina) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:05:51 -0800 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Can anyone point me to a set of guidelines/instructions on calculating MLU in morphologically rich languages. Thanks, Nina Hyams From ykchang24 at hanmail.net Wed Feb 18 04:18:52 2004 From: ykchang24 at hanmail.net (You-Kyung Chang) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:18:52 +0900 Subject: wordless picture book reading Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Feb 18 08:39:55 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:39:55 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Dear Nina, We have struggled with the issue of MLU for Hebrew - a morphologically complex language- and here are a few of the more general principles which were adopted: - I am not stating here language specific characteristics but there are also some general things which I think would be relevant to most languages even if their typology is unlike that of the Semitic languages. The problem is how not to have inflated counts, since you want to be able to compare children cross-linguistically and how not to give credit for rote learnt morphologically complex forms. Here is what we do: 1. MLU of a single utterance can never be more than 9 2. MLU of a single word cannot be more than 2 3. If the language has grammatical gender which is extensively marked on various parts of speech, the count varies according to the sex of the child since a girl is addressed in the feminine and a boy in the mas. and thus, early on they encounter different forms with different frequency. a few specific decisions are required with respect to such forms. 4. Inflected pronouns are counted as 1 5. First person forms are counted as 1 I hope this helps! Yonata. *********************************************** Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (w) 972-2-6424957 (h) Fax: 972-2-5881159 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hyams, Nina" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 1:05 AM Subject: MLU counts > Can anyone point me to a set of guidelines/instructions on calculating MLU > in morphologically rich languages. > > Thanks, > Nina Hyams > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Feb 18 15:51:15 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:51:15 -0500 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <001c01c3f5fa$c927e550$11ba4084@WIN2000PRO> Message-ID: Dear Nina, Yonata, and Info-CHILDES, The discussion of how to handle MLU in morphologically rich languages has been on the table since the 1960s without any real resolution. Yonata's guidelines seem to reflect current state of the art and seem just about right. However, it seems to me that people working with morphologically rich languages should really compute two indices. The first would not be cross-linguistically meaningful, but would be maximally meaningful within the language. That index would count morphemes in terms of what they express. Here, you still may wish to be a bit conservative. For example, do you really want to count the German article "die" as four morphemes (definite, case, number, gender)? I would say not. Maybe two morphemes would be about right (definiteness and case-number-gender). The second MLU for morphologically rich languages should be constructed on the basis of a real comparative program of research. Comparing normal children of similar ages in similar urban (or rural) environments and similar (mutually culturally relevant) activities, can you come up with a method of scoring that yields parallel counts across morphologically rich language (Hebrew, Inuktitut, Hungarian) and an analytic one (English, Chinese). As far as I can tell no one has yet attempted this obviously important but perfectly feasible study. --Brian MacWhinney From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Feb 18 16:13:21 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 18:13:21 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Dear Brian, What you say is exactly what we have been trying to accomplish - there are details that pertain to the language which guide one in the decision of which morphemes should be counted - gender, root, case - however, the ultimate goal of MLU is comparability both within a language and cross-linguistically. To achieve that, or come close to it, one has to set some ad hoc rules like the ones I suggested - never count a single lexical item as longer than 2 or a single utterance as longer than 9. I am not sure about the 9 though - it may be too high. Why do you think that there might be a way to count MLU that will work for diverse languages with rich morphologies? My understanding of comparative grammar is that there is no such dividing line between syntax and morphology. therefore a system should be constructed that will enable comparative studies regardless of the typology of the language. So, here we are again - we need to propose language specific+language general ways of reducing the count to the levels which have been set mostly by developmental studies of English . Alternatively, we may try to construct a generalized scale that will be based on a sample of languages for the sake of cross linguistic research. Yonata ________________________ Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (o) Fax: 972-2-5881159 972-2-6424957 (h) e-mail: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian MacWhinney" To: "Yonata Levy" ; "Hyams, Nina" ; Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 5:51 PM Subject: Re: MLU counts > Dear Nina, Yonata, and Info-CHILDES, > The discussion of how to handle MLU in morphologically rich languages has > been on the table since the 1960s without any real resolution. Yonata's > guidelines seem to reflect current state of the art and seem just about > right. However, it seems to me that people working with morphologically > rich languages should really compute two indices. The first would not be > cross-linguistically meaningful, but would be maximally meaningful within > the language. That index would count morphemes in terms of what they > express. Here, you still may wish to be a bit conservative. For example, > do you really want to count the German article "die" as four morphemes > (definite, case, number, gender)? I would say not. Maybe two morphemes > would be about right (definiteness and case-number-gender). > The second MLU for morphologically rich languages should be constructed on > the basis of a real comparative program of research. Comparing normal > children of similar ages in similar urban (or rural) environments and > similar (mutually culturally relevant) activities, can you come up with a > method of scoring that yields parallel counts across morphologically rich > language (Hebrew, Inuktitut, Hungarian) and an analytic one (English, > Chinese). As far as I can tell no one has yet attempted this obviously > important but perfectly feasible study. > > --Brian MacWhinney > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Feb 18 16:19:25 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:19:25 -0500 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <000f01c3f63a$20df3160$2f204084@WIN2000PRO> Message-ID: Dear Yonata, Great to know you are working to accomplish just this. I agree that the ultimate goal of MLU is comparability within a language and cross-linguistically. However, I am just wondering whether it may be best to consider these comparisons as two separate goals. The great thing about computer technology like CLAN is that, with the right set of dashes, ampersands, and pluses (and perhaps liberal use of CHSTRING), you can compute both sets of MLUs on a data set in either minutes or perhaps hours. It may be that the two different MLUs (the rich language-internal one and the leaner crossl-linguistic one) work equivalently for language-internal comparisons and predictions, but my guess is that the language-internal MLU will be best for language-internal purposes. I think your second point is that we need to recalibrate each morphologically-rich language MLU for comparison with the English standard. I agree completely with that. There is no single algorithm that will work across all languages for that task. --Brian MacWhinney From dalep at health.missouri.edu Wed Feb 18 17:17:00 2004 From: dalep at health.missouri.edu (Dale, Philip S.) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:17:00 -0600 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: I, too, think it is essential to distinguish the within-language use of MLU or similar measures from the cross-linguistic use. But the latter use has a whole set of challenges, of which the primary one is knowing what is the proper criterion or set of criteria for judging how satisfactory the measure is. That is, if we are using the measure to "line up" children acquiring different languages, how do we do know we're doing it appropriately? We can't use chronological age as a benchmark (i.e., the relation of the measure to age), because that assumes a uniformity of rate of acquisition of grammar across languages. We can't use rate of vocabulary growth as the benchmark, even though there is a high correlation of grammar with vocabulary, because rates of vocabulary growth show some substantial variation across language (compare English, Chinese, Danish). In general, we can't use a comparison of similar, specific grammatical forms across languages (i.e., do suffixes expressing tense/aspect appear at the same level of the measure?), because the most common use of such a measure across languages is precisely to compare *different* forms expressing similar meanings. I'd be interesting in hearing suggestions about proposed evaluation criteria for a new measure. Philip Dale From hyams at humnet.ucla.edu Wed Feb 18 17:50:10 2004 From: hyams at humnet.ucla.edu (Hyams, Nina) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:50:10 -0800 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Thank you all for your input on MLU counts. I am aware of all the difficulties in using MLU cross-linguistically from my early work on Italian and English, languages with quite different morphological systems. What I was interested in now was MLU as a measure within a single language with very rich verbal inflection, one that has not been studied to my knowledge -- Malagasy. With respect to the issue of devising a valid cross-linguistic measure, it is likely that any such measure will have to consist of several factors. This was done by Kamil Ud Deen (University of Hawaii) in his UCLA dissertation on acquisition of Nairobi Swahili. Kamil devised a composite measure of linguistic development that consisted of 3 factors -- MLU, verbs per utterance (suggested by Virginia Valian), and frequency of mono-syllabic place holders (as per Bottari et al). He ranked his children on each individual measure and then on all 3 measures together, which resulted in a similar ranking, leading some credibility to the system. In such a system the degree of morphological richness of the language will not weigh as heavily. It might be worthwhile to try a system like Kamil's in other languages to see whether it is reliable cross-linguistically. Thanks again for all the advice. Nina - From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Feb 18 18:11:33 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 20:11:33 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Hi Nina, I think you are right in that a composite measure will require not just MLU but other measures. This should begin to answer Phil's query too - we use MLU as well as percent of sentences longer than 5 when we equate children as per developmental stage. The latter is suppose to addressed the problems that central measures usually have. I think that the aim is to suggest measures that are theory-free and that can be achieved independent of grammatical analysis. Would you consider verbs per utterance such a measure? Yonata. ________________________ Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (o) Fax: 972-2-5881159 972-2-6424957 (h) e-mail: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hyams, Nina" To: "'Brian MacWhinney'" ; "Yonata Levy" ; Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 7:50 PM Subject: RE: MLU counts > Thank you all for your input on MLU counts. I am aware of all the > difficulties in using MLU cross-linguistically from my early work on Italian > and English, languages with quite different morphological systems. What I > was interested in now was MLU as a measure within a single language with > very rich verbal inflection, one that has not been studied to my knowledge > -- Malagasy. > > With respect to the issue of devising a valid cross-linguistic measure, it > is likely that any such measure will have to consist of several factors. > This was done by Kamil Ud Deen (University of Hawaii) in his UCLA > dissertation on acquisition of Nairobi Swahili. Kamil devised a composite > measure of linguistic development that consisted of 3 factors -- MLU, verbs > per utterance (suggested by Virginia Valian), and frequency of mono-syllabic > place holders (as per Bottari et al). He ranked his children on each > individual measure and then on all 3 measures together, which resulted in a > similar ranking, leading some credibility to the system. In such a system > the degree of morphological richness of the language will not weigh as > heavily. It might be worthwhile to try a system like Kamil's in other > languages to see whether it is reliable cross-linguistically. > > Thanks again for all the advice. > Nina > > - > From margaretmfleck at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 23:33:01 2004 From: margaretmfleck at yahoo.com (Margaret Fleck) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:33:01 -0800 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <959F5DC74A30D511BFE600D0B77E5199055856AA@bert.humnet.ucla.edu> Message-ID: How (briefly) was "verb" defined here? E.g. does it include words describing states (e.g. tall) which act as verbs in some languages but require an easily-omitted auxiliary verb in others (e.g. English)? How does one decide what to count as a verb in a language like English which has many words whose part of speech is ambiguous due to lack of morphological markings? ???? Margaret --- "Hyams, Nina" wrote: > With respect to the issue of devising a valid cross-linguistic measure, it > is likely that any such measure will have to consist of several factors. > This was done by Kamil Ud Deen (University of Hawaii) in his UCLA > dissertation on acquisition of Nairobi Swahili. Kamil devised a composite > measure of linguistic development that consisted of 3 factors -- MLU, verbs > per utterance (suggested by Virginia Valian), ..... From joko.k at polmed.ac.id Thu Feb 19 04:21:52 2004 From: joko.k at polmed.ac.id (Joko Kusmanto Damanhuri) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:21:52 +0700 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <20040218233301.25635.qmail@web60303.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: dear all, Thank to Nina Hyams for raising this issue here and all who have made the contribution on this issue. I also have had problems with MLU to measure the acquisition of Indonesian, particularly pertaining to the acquisition of verbal affixation. Then, I tried to take a look at Predominant Lenght of Utterance (PLU)which is said to be more flexible. I like to know what you all think about PLU. Which one can work across languages? This is one of papers on PLU that I found at www.cog.jhu.edu/faculty/legendre/papers/techreport-mlu.pdf and I quote the abstract. Best, Joko K. Damanhuri PLU-Stages: An Independent Measure of Early Syntactic Development ABSTRACT This paper describes a new method for determining early syntactic stages. The method is related to the traditional notion of MLU (Mean Length of Utterance), and relies on the traditional idea of a one-word stage, a two-word stage, and a multiword stage. At each stage, the predominant length of utterance is determined, resulting in our PLU-stages (Predominant Length of Utterance). The proposed method reflects our best attempt to construct a standard of early syntactic development that is independent of the child’s age, and is also independent of any particular syntactic construction. Such an independent measure should facilitate comparison of naturalistic data across children within the same language, as well as comparison of data across languages. The measure we have developed does indeed show promise in cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic development for languages such as French, Swedish, English, Polish and Russian. From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Thu Feb 19 07:01:12 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:01:12 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Hi, Concerning Nina and Kamil's suggestions - I don't think verbs are theory free - wouldn't you want to take predicates rather than verbs? - but perhaps they are a good measure nevertheless, given the inherent difficulties in all other measures. In fact it seems that what we are looking for are domain general measures such as length or place holders (which should not be a trick that is unique to language. On can conceive of other systems that require place holders for awhile, until the child has acquired the correct feature. Drawing, reading and writing and event recall are examples that come to mind). These domain general measures that are accessible to the researchers should be highly correlated with linguistic structure with the latter being construed as descriptive, rather than theory dependent . This I think is somewhat different than thinking about MLU as language general vs. langauge specific. Yonata. From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Thu Feb 19 13:08:11 2004 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Mueller Gathercole) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:08:11 +0000 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu Thu Feb 19 13:37:39 2004 From: swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:37:39 -0500 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Folks, Didn't Joseph Greenberg write something in the late fifties or early sixties in which he tried to count morphemes and compare complexity across languages? Sorry to be so vague, but all I really remember about the article was that it was interesting and somewhat involved. I've searched but can no longer reconstruct the reference to the original work. Does anyone know the article I'm thinking about? Sheri Sheri At 10:51 AM 2/18/04 -0500, you wrote: >Dear Nina, Yonata, and Info-CHILDES, > The discussion of how to handle MLU in morphologically rich languages has >been on the table since the 1960s without any real resolution. Yonata's >guidelines seem to reflect current state of the art and seem just about >right. However, it seems to me that people working with morphologically >rich languages should really compute two indices. The first would not be >cross-linguistically meaningful, but would be maximally meaningful within >the language. That index would count morphemes in terms of what they >express. Here, you still may wish to be a bit conservative. For example, >do you really want to count the German article "die" as four morphemes >(definite, case, number, gender)? I would say not. Maybe two morphemes >would be about right (definiteness and case-number-gender). > The second MLU for morphologically rich languages should be constructed on >the basis of a real comparative program of research. Comparing normal >children of similar ages in similar urban (or rural) environments and >similar (mutually culturally relevant) activities, can you come up with a >method of scoring that yields parallel counts across morphologically rich >language (Hebrew, Inuktitut, Hungarian) and an analytic one (English, >Chinese). As far as I can tell no one has yet attempted this obviously >important but perfectly feasible study. > >--Brian MacWhinney * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Bowling Green State University MA TESL Program http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tesl/ Office: 423 East Hall (419) 372-8935 Homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From plahey at mindspring.com Thu Feb 19 21:54:22 2004 From: plahey at mindspring.com (Peg Lahey) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:54:22 -0500 Subject: BLCF scholarships Message-ID: I would appreciate it if you would remind any eligible doctoral students focusing on children's language disorders that scholarships from the Bamford-Lahey Children's Foundation are available on our website http://bamford-lahey.org/scholarships.html and are due April 1, 2004. Thanks, Peg Lahey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ann at hawaii.edu Fri Feb 20 00:22:50 2004 From: ann at hawaii.edu (Ann Peters) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:22:50 -1000 Subject: more thoughts on MLU Message-ID: I would like to add some thoughts following on from Ginny's. A basic issue for me has been: how many *separate pieces* of language can a particular child assemble at a given time? Asking such a question would lead me to count both 'fall' and 'fell' as single units. It would further lead me to ask whether an expression such as 'pi(ck)-ya-up' always occurred as an unanalyzed unit (in which case I would count it as one) or if it contrasted with 'pick it/them up' etc. Similarly I would count the German article 'die' as one, unless I were directly dealing with issues of contrast in number, case, and/or gender. The down side of such an approach is that one can't make an automatic count of a child's MLU, since it requires knowing which collocations are productive for a particular child. Of course, one can ask other kinds of questions, such as: how many contrastive *meanings* can a child encode into a sentence? in which case one might need different rules for counting. This suggests that there is not one single "MLU" measure that suffices for all purposes. One problem I have been struggling with is how to count "filler syllables", that seem to be separate "units" in a phonological sense, but don't carry much (if anything) in the way of meaning. I find that I want more than one count - at a minimum MLU in open-class "words", MLU in number of identifiable morphemes, and a measure that counts fillers as well. A final cross-linguistic thought: even if one took a construction grammar approach, it might turn out that the number of "meaningful units" that a child could *combine* might be more or less equatable across languages, and that "stages" could be computable in that way. ann **************************** Dr. Ann M. Peters, Professor Emeritus Graduate Chair http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/ Department of Linguistics University of Hawai`i email: ann at hawaii.edu 1890 East West Road, Rm 569 phone: 808 956-3241 Honolulu, HI 96822 fax: 808 956-9166 http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/ann/ From stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca Fri Feb 20 01:03:22 2004 From: stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca (Joseph Stemberger) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:03:22 -0800 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A few thoughts about adult language and its relevance to MLU counts: I agree with Ann Peters when she says: > A basic issue for me has been: how many *separate pieces* of language can > a particular child assemble at a given time? Asking such a question would > lead me to count both 'fall' and 'fell' as single units. But what about WALKED, in the speech of a child who uses -ED over 90% of the time in obligatory environments and makes overregularization errors? I think that many or even most would be tempted to count WALKED as two morphemes. But there are numerous papers on adult processing that suggest that at least some regularly inflected forms are stored in the lexicon. Alegre & Gordon suggest that any regular past tense form with a frequency over 6 tokens per million words of speech is stored. Ullman argues that forms like BLINKED, with bases that rime with families of irregular forms, are stored in the lexicon. Other researchers go even further. Are these regular forms stored in such a way that they are processed like single units, or is processing complex enough that they still count as "separate pieces of language"? I don't think that we know the answer to that question FOR ADULTS, much less for children. I think that we're going to have to accept that the facts are complex enough that we aren't going to have a resolution of this anytime soon. A question about comparing MLU across languages. Presumably, if we calculate the MLU of the speech of adults to adults in different languages, we'll get different mean MLU's for different languages. Presumably, we'll find those same differences in speech by adults to children. Is there any way to take the differences in MLU in adult speech in different languages, and create a way to adjust child MLU's to equate for inherent differences between the languages? ---Joe Stemberger UBC From macw at cmu.edu Fri Feb 20 03:14:11 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:14:11 -0500 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: <40355CDA.60605@interchange.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On 2/19/04 8:03 PM, "Joseph Stemberger" wrote: > Is there any way to take the differences in MLU in adult speech in > different languages, and create a way to adjust child MLU's to equate > for inherent differences between the languages? > Joe, How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. Since you would have a complete morphemicization of both your child corpora and the Bible, you could just vary strings in CLAN or run global replacements, as I suggested in my earlier message. Using this method you can compute Brown MLU, Peters MLU, Stemberger-cautious MLU, Stemberger-Radical MLU, dual-system MLU, and whatever. For each, you would correct by the Bible using the matching system. However, the real proof of the pudding is whether MLU predicts anything. I think that, despite many papers to the contrary in books on developmental methodology, the obvious candidate is age (across some large sample, of course). For me, the MLU measure that correlates best with age is the best language-internal MLU measure. What would be really neat is getting a Bible-corrected MLU that ended up not only predicting age within the language, but which yields corrected values that actually look similar cross-linguistically. However, as Yonata noted in an offline message to me, all of this becomes impossible if you have to do hand computation of morphemes. It only works if you have automatic morphological analysis as we now have for English, Japanese, and Spanish. (Cantonese, Italian, and French are still not good enough for this). Oh, yes, one other thing is that you would have to add a bunch of rather strange words for Bible, such as "gnash" and "disciple", probably sticking with the New Testament. --Brian From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Fri Feb 20 07:18:25 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:18:25 +0200 Subject: more thoughts on MLU Message-ID: Hi, I too find MLU an interesting theoretical question however, there is the practical problem too - until we figure out what MLU really is, what it should correlate with, how it connects to variability in adult speech and to language typology - all of which are fascinating issues! - we need a way to calculate MLU in the morphologically rich languages that are currently under study, that will enable comparability. I believe this is doable and it is something that we need to provide our community with. Yonata. ________________________ Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (o) Fax: 972-2-5881159 972-2-6424957 (h) e-mail: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian MacWhinney" To: "Joseph Stemberger" ; Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 5:14 AM Subject: Re: more thoughts on MLU > On 2/19/04 8:03 PM, "Joseph Stemberger" wrote: > > > Is there any way to take the differences in MLU in adult speech in > > different languages, and create a way to adjust child MLU's to equate > > for inherent differences between the languages? > > > Joe, > > How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, > morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then > compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. > > Since you would have a complete morphemicization of both your child corpora > and the Bible, you could just vary strings in CLAN or run global > replacements, as I suggested in my earlier message. Using this method you > can compute Brown MLU, Peters MLU, Stemberger-cautious MLU, > Stemberger-Radical MLU, dual-system MLU, and whatever. For each, you would > correct by the Bible using the matching system. > > However, the real proof of the pudding is whether MLU predicts anything. I > think that, despite many papers to the contrary in books on developmental > methodology, the obvious candidate is age (across some large sample, of > course). For me, the MLU measure that correlates best with age is the best > language-internal MLU measure. What would be really neat is getting a > Bible-corrected MLU that ended up not only predicting age within the > language, but which yields corrected values that actually look similar > cross-linguistically. > > However, as Yonata noted in an offline message to me, all of this becomes > impossible if you have to do hand computation of morphemes. It only works > if you have automatic morphological analysis as we now have for English, > Japanese, and Spanish. (Cantonese, Italian, and French are still not good > enough for this). Oh, yes, one other thing is that you would have to add a > bunch of rather strange words for Bible, such as "gnash" and "disciple", > probably sticking with the New Testament. > > --Brian > > From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 08:46:21 2004 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Mueller Gathercole) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:46:21 +0000 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, >morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then >compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. Hi, Brian, The Bible may not work for all languages. An important case would be Arabic. First of all, the religious text is the Koran, which is written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. So even getting MLU counts from the Koran may not reflect the MLU counts in vernacular speech of adults (whether adult-adult or adult-child). It is possible that there are translations of the Bible into Arabic, but (apart from any concerns for cultural sensitivities in using the Bible instead of the Koran) it is likely that such a translation would still be written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. Ginny -- Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Ph.D. Reader Ysgol Seicoleg School of Psychology Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor University of Wales, Bangor Adeilad Brigantia The Brigantia Building Ffordd Penrallt Penrallt Road Bangor LL57 2AS Bangor LL57 2AS Cymru Wales | /\ | / \/\ Tel: 44 (0)1248 382624 | /\/ \ \ Fax: 44 (0)1248 382599 | / ======\=\ | B A N G O R From k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 11:52:39 2004 From: k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk (Alcock, Katherine) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:52:39 -0000 Subject: more thoughts on MLU Message-ID: There are almost certainly translations of the Christian Bible into more languages than any other document, and one of these is Modern Arabic. Languages that have an orthography often have it because it has been used to translate the Bible or portions of it. When this is done, it is always into the version of the language that is current at the time, although this can date extremely rapidly in many cases, so there should not be a problem with recent translations, about the version of the language used being up-to-date. However, the style in different translations in English varies considerably and therefore I would imagine also the MLU. For example the first half verse of the gospel of John in (first) the King James version and (second) the Contemporary English version: In the beginning was the Word In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. As translators who have written the (only, or most recent) translation of a bible into a particular language have had to make a decision about what style to write in, some will have chosen a more literal or literary style (as in the KJV) and some a more casual, spoken style or a more explanatory style (as in the CEV). So in some languages only one or the other will exist. Many languages in addition do not have orthographies - one of the languages that I have worked on, and tried to get measures of MLU (Kigiriama), does not have an orthography of its own, and literacy specialists are trying to construct one more suited to its phonology. However, most of the languages that we work on do have orthographies and extensive portions of ancient and modern literature. In looking at verb frames in Kiswahili, which does have some ancient and modern literature, we used three corpora: an oral history that had been written down (current, conversational language), newspaper articles (current, more literary language) and the published version of 1001 Nights, that we chose because we would also be able to find an English version (older, more literary language). Although newspaper articles are not going to have exactly the same concepts in them, given the variety of ways of expressing the same concept that exist in different English translations of the bible, these might be a helpful resource for comparison, too. Katie Alcock -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Ginny Mueller Gathercole Sent: Fri 2/20/2004 11:46 AM To: Brian MacWhinney; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Cc: Subject: Re: more thoughts on MLU >How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, >morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then >compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. Hi, Brian, The Bible may not work for all languages. An important case would be Arabic. First of all, the religious text is the Koran, which is written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. So even getting MLU counts from the Koran may not reflect the MLU counts in vernacular speech of adults (whether adult-adult or adult-child). It is possible that there are translations of the Bible into Arabic, but (apart from any concerns for cultural sensitivities in using the Bible instead of the Koran) it is likely that such a translation would still be written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. Ginny -- Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Ph.D. Reader Ysgol Seicoleg School of Psychology Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor University of Wales, Bangor Adeilad Brigantia The Brigantia Building Ffordd Penrallt Penrallt Road Bangor LL57 2AS Bangor LL57 2AS Cymru Wales | /\ | / \/\ Tel: 44 (0)1248 382624 | /\/ \ \ Fax: 44 (0)1248 382599 | / ======\=\ | B A N G O R From ann.dowker at psy.ox.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 12:33:24 2004 From: ann.dowker at psy.ox.ac.uk (Ann Dowker) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:33:24 +0000 Subject: ref on blind children's lang dev Message-ID: Here are a few: Norgate, S., Collis, G. and Lewis, V. (1998). The developmental role of rhymes and routines for congenitally blind children. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/ Current Psychology of Cognition, 17, 441-457 Perez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines and the child's analysis of language: insights from the blind. Journal of Child Language, 21, 317-337 Perez-Pereira, M. (1999). Deixis, reference and the use of personal pronouns by blind children. Journal of Child Language, 26, 655-680 Perez-Pereira, M. and Castro, J. (1997). Language acquisition and the compensation of visual deficit: new data on a controversial topic. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 439-459 Perfect, M.P. (2001). Examining communicative behaviours in a 3-year-old boy who is blind. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 6, 353-365 I hope these are useful, Ann In message Asa Nordqvist writes: > Dear colleagues, > I am searching for references on blind children's early language and > conceptual development, can anyone help me? > Thanks on beforehand > Asa N > > -- > =============================================== > Asa Nordqvist, PhD > Department of Languages / Finnish > P.O. Box 35 (F) > FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland > > tel. +358-14-260-1438 > fax: +358-14-260-1431 > e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se > URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ > > > Also affiliated at: > Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University > Box 200 > SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden > =============================================== > > > > > From swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu Fri Feb 20 13:47:43 2004 From: swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:47:43 -0500 Subject: ref on blind children's lang dev In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Asa and All, I used to have a whole bibliography on blind children and language, but I seem to have lost most of it. Here are the refs I have left. I'm not sure if these were the ones I saved because they are great or just what remained after the rest disappeared. In any case, I'll be interested in what other folks contribute. A note of caution: Not everyone is careful about categorizing disabled kids exactly. so you might find children with multiple disabilities who are also blind counted as blind and their data used to represent cognitively average blind children. I've seen lots of wild variation in articles and books on this topic. Some report that blind children are necessarily way behind the developmental curve, working partly, I have to imagine, from their own idea that blindness is such a severe handicap that it simply has to impact everything. . Others take an odd approach to what seem to me to be very normal data. For example, I read one article where much was made of the fact that a particular blind child, when told to 'look' at something, reached out her hands. This was used as evidence that blind children have great difficulty acquiring very basic meaning distinctions that are easy for sighted children. Sheri W-J Mulford r. 1988. First words of the blind child. in m d Smith & j l locke eds. The imergent lexicon. Academic Press. Fraiberg, S. 1979. Blind infants and their Mothers in M Bullowa. Before Speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication. Cambridge u press. Freedman, D G. 1964. Smiling in blind infants and the issue of innate vs. acquired. journal of child psychology and psychiatry #5 p171-184 Werth, Paul. 1982. The Acquisition of Meaning by Blind Children: A Discussion Universite Libre de Bruxelles Rapport d'Activites de l'Institut de Phonetique, 17, Mar, 55-67 At 12:33 PM 2/20/04 +0000, Ann Dowker wrote: >Here are a few: > >Norgate, S., Collis, G. and Lewis, V. (1998). The developmental role >of rhymes and routines for congenitally blind children. Cahiers de >Psychologie Cognitive/ Current Psychology of Cognition, 17, 441-457 > >Perez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines and the >child's analysis of language: insights from the blind. Journal of >Child Language, 21, 317-337 > >Perez-Pereira, M. (1999). Deixis, reference and the use of personal >pronouns by blind children. Journal of Child Language, 26, 655-680 > >Perez-Pereira, M. and Castro, J. (1997). Language acquisition and the >compensation of visual deficit: new data on a controversial topic. >British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 439-459 > >Perfect, M.P. (2001). Examining communicative behaviours in a 3-year-old >boy who is blind. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 6, >353-365 > >I hope these are useful, > >Ann > >In message Asa Nordqvist > writes: > > Dear colleagues, > > I am searching for references on blind children's early language and > > conceptual development, can anyone help me? > > Thanks on beforehand > > Asa N > > > > -- > > =============================================== > > Asa Nordqvist, PhD > > Department of Languages / Finnish > > P.O. Box 35 (F) > > FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland > > > > tel. +358-14-260-1438 > > fax: +358-14-260-1431 > > e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se > > URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ > > > > > > Also affiliated at: > > Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University > > Box 200 > > SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden > > =============================================== > > > > > > > > > > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Bowling Green State University MA TESL Program http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tesl/ Office: 423 East Hall (419) 372-8935 Homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From velleman at comdis.umass.edu Fri Feb 20 14:50:04 2004 From: velleman at comdis.umass.edu (Shelley L. Velleman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:50:04 -0500 Subject: AAE movie Message-ID: I'm looking for a movie (not a documentary) that has grammatical features of AAE in it. So far, the best I've found is the character Quentin in "The Best Man". Suggestions welcome! Thanks. Shelley Velleman Communication Disorders U. Mass. Amherst From macswan at asu.edu Fri Feb 20 18:10:32 2004 From: macswan at asu.edu (Jeff MacSwan) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:10:32 -0700 Subject: Presentation software for data collection In-Reply-To: <40361E9B.52325A68@comdis.umass.edu> Message-ID: Hi. I am interested in suggestions for software that will present items (to adults) for sentence judgments to adults in a random order, complete with audio, and record a response for each item. Please send suggestions to macswan at asu.edu and I will post a summary, in case others are interested. Thank you. Jeff MacSwan Arizona State University From margaretmfleck at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 19:01:10 2004 From: margaretmfleck at yahoo.com (Margaret Fleck) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:01:10 -0800 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: <40355CDA.60605@interchange.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > But there are numerous papers on adult processing that suggest that at > least some regularly inflected forms are stored in the lexicon. Alegre & > Gordon suggest that any regular past tense form with a frequency over 6 > tokens per million words of speech is stored. Ullman argues that forms > like BLINKED, with bases that rime with families of irregular forms, are > stored in the lexicon. Other researchers go even further. > > Are these regular forms stored in such a way that they are processed > like single units, or is processing complex enough that they still count > as "separate pieces of language"? > I don't think that we know the answer to that question FOR ADULTS, much > less for children. If you think about the optimizations used in computer systems, there's a good chance that the answer has evil complexities. For example, common compositional items could be stored temporarily in memory (cached) and later flushed out of memory when they cease being common. There could be several distinct caching mechanisms operating in parallel, storing data and paying attention to frequencies over different timespans (e.g. minutes, days, long-term). Even when each individual caching mechanism is brutally simple, the behavior of several operating together may appear complex. And so forth. Margaret ===== Margaret M. Fleck 510-378-3075 margaretmfleck at yahoo.com From kazukoh at spruce.flint.umich.edu Fri Feb 20 20:43:53 2004 From: kazukoh at spruce.flint.umich.edu (Kazuko Hiramatsu) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:43:53 -0500 Subject: AAE movie In-Reply-To: <40361E9B.52325A68@comdis.umass.edu> Message-ID: I've used "Barbershop" to demonstrate features of AAE to my class. There are also some nice examples of switching between standard English and AAE. -Kazuko Kazuko Hiramatsu Dept. of English University of Michigan-Flint On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Shelley L. Velleman wrote: > I'm looking for a movie (not a documentary) that has grammatical > features of AAE in it. So far, the best I've found is the character > Quentin in "The Best Man". Suggestions welcome! > > Thanks. > > Shelley Velleman > Communication Disorders > U. Mass. Amherst > > > > From ann at hawaii.edu Fri Feb 20 20:47:08 2004 From: ann at hawaii.edu (Ann Peters) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:47:08 -1000 Subject: MLU and the Bible Message-ID: The (Judeo-Christian) Bible is definitely not a simple yardstick. In our department we've interacted with a number of people interested in translating the Bible into hitherto (linguistically) undescribed languages. One problem that arises is that when the target *culture* is very different from that of the writers of the Bible, a lot of cultural information has to be built into the translation, thus lengthening it by quite a lot. I think we need to search elsewhere for our yardstick - or yardstick-S. ann **************************** Dr. Ann M. Peters, Professor Emeritus Graduate Chair http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/ Department of Linguistics University of Hawai`i email: ann at hawaii.edu 1890 East West Road, Rm 569 phone: 808 956-3241 Honolulu, HI 96822 fax: 808 956-9166 http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/ann/ From peytontodd at mindspring.com Fri Feb 20 22:28:32 2004 From: peytontodd at mindspring.com (Peyton Todd) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:28:32 -0800 Subject: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? Message-ID: Does anyone know when children normally learn the -er (comparative) suffix in English, also the 'more + Adjective' alternate? What about children learning other languages? Supposedly, if they can't seriate until concrete operations, they would presumably not understand the comparative, but of course they might still utter it, and just use it to choose between pairs of objects. What actually happens? Thanks! Peyton Todd From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Sat Feb 21 09:04:47 2004 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Mueller Gathercole) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:04:47 +0000 Subject: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? In-Reply-To: <19899739.1077316115985.JavaMail.root@wamui07.slb.atl.earthlink.net> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dalep at health.missouri.edu Sat Feb 21 15:59:12 2004 From: dalep at health.missouri.edu (Dale, Philip S.) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:59:12 -0600 Subject: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? Message-ID: Although I'm not entirely persuaded by either the theory or the data on seriation as it connects to language, in all fairness to Piaget it should be pointed out that seriation is not comparison. The essence of seriation that a single item can be *simultaneously* greater than one or more other items *and* less than one or more other items. Flavell and others have argued that the core concept of what Piaget called concrete operations is precisely this sort of "dual representation" of reality that shows up in so many areas (appearance-reality, egocentrism, conservation, etc.). Philip Dale -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Ginny Mueller Gathercole Sent: Sat 2/21/2004 03:04 To: Peyton Todd; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? Does anyone know when children normally learn the -er (comparative) suffix in English, also the 'more + Adjective' alternate? What about children learning other languages? Supposedly, if they can't seriate until concrete operations, they would presumably not understand the comparative, but of course they might still utter it, and just use it to choose between pairs of objects. What actually happens? Thanks! Peyton Todd From swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu Sat Feb 21 19:30:41 2004 From: swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 14:30:41 -0500 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: <20040220190110.49658.qmail@web60305.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Folks, This discussion touches on something I've been working on for a while--trying to find a metric by which you can functionally compare complexity of different languages or of sub-systems within different languages. I've been reading lots of good ideas here. The MLU is a great starting point, but here's the can of worms it has opened for me: there's the trouble of equivalents. Are all morphemes within and between languages created equal or are some more equal than others? Is retrieving a content morpheme enough like adding an affix or applying a regular rule that they all really ought to be added together in an MLU count and each counted as 'one'? Is marking agreement as difficult as marking plurality when the latter is arguably easier to understand? Looking across languages, is it less complicated to mark number on adjectives in a language that already requires gender to be marked on adjectives? Worse, can you equate binary gender marking in Spanish to noun class marking in Kiswahili? Maybe you wouldn't have to worry about this if you were reflecting patterns in language, but if you want to deal with functional cross-linguistic issues, it's unavoidable. Sheri * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Bowling Green State University MA TESL Program http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tesl/ Office: 423 East Hall (419) 372-8935 Homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Sun Feb 22 20:55:08 2004 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 15:55:08 -0500 Subject: The Birth of the Mind [book announcement] Message-ID: Announcing [and with apologies for multiple postings] The Birth of the Mind How A Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexity of Human Thought By Gary Marcus "A joy to read." -- Publisher's Weekly "Expert and Lucid" -- Noam Chomsky "Brilliantly Original" -- Steven Pinker "[Across] such diverse disciplines as evolution, genetics, gene expression, cell biology, neurobiology, and psychology, Marcus .... makes the relevant issues understandable to the lay reader, and does an even better job of dispelling the myths that impede the way we think about genes and their role in making brains, and hence minds." -- Nature From the Jacket The Human Genome Project has blazed new trails in medical science and genetic research. We know that within hours of their birth, babies can recognize faces, connect what they hear with what they see and tell the difference between Dutch and Japanese. Our genes prepare us to observe the world; they shape the finest details of the human brain. But as far as psychology is concerned, writes award-winning cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, "it's almost as if Watson and Crick never met DNA." With The Birth of the Mind , Gary Marcus enters the nature vs. nurture debate and changes it forever. Genetics isn't destiny, but the only way to know what nature brings to the table, he argues, is to take a look at what genes actually do. Startling findings have recently revealed that the genome is much smaller than we once thought, containing no more than 30,000-40,000 genes. Since this discovery, scientists have struggled to understand how such a tiny number of genes could contain the instructions for building the human brain, arguably the most complex device in the known universe. Synthesizing up-to-the-minute research with his own original findings on child development, Marcus is the first to resolve this apparent contradiction as he chronicles exactly how genes create the infinite complexities of the human mind. Along the way, he reveals the common misconceptions people harbor about genes, and explores the stunning implications of this research for the future of genetic engineering. January 2004 (Basic Books). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Mon Feb 23 14:27:27 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:27:27 -0500 Subject: Position in Cork Message-ID: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences  University College Cork Senior Lecturer/Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy Applications are invited for the above full-time permanent post.  The Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences seeks a well-qualified individual to contribute to its BSc in Speech and Language Therapy. Applicants must have a professional degree qualification in speech and language therapy. An additional qualification in psychology would be a significant advantage. For a lectureship post, a masters level degree is desirable. For the senior lectureship, a doctorate is normally expected.    Salary scales [new entrants]:  Lecturer:  EUR30,088 - EUR48,876 Bar EUR54,519 - EUR71,819 Senior Lecturer:  EUR58,765 - EUR83,263 This appointment will be made at the grade of senior lecturer or lecturer level, depending on qualifications and experience.   Closing Date: Wednesday 7th April 2004   For informal discussion , contact Professor Paul Fletcher Tel: + 353 21  4902415. Email: h.buckley at ucc.ie   Application forms must be completed for all posts and are available, together with further particulars,  and Memorandum relating to statutory posts  , on our website at:  www.ucc.ie/appointments/academic/       or from,   Department of Human Resources University College Cork CORK Ireland Tel: + 353 21 4903057  / Email: recruitment at per.ucc.ie / Fax + 353 21 4276995   University College Cork is an Equal Opportunities Employer   *****************************   From eisenbergs at mail.montclair.edu Mon Feb 23 22:13:10 2004 From: eisenbergs at mail.montclair.edu (Sarita Eisenberg) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:13:10 -0500 Subject: Faculty position in New Jersey Message-ID: Faculty Position/Open Rank: The Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Montclair State University, a CAA accredited graduate program, is seeking an individual with an earned doctoral degree in Speech-Language Pathology or Speech and Hearing Science for an Open Rank, tenure-track faculty position to begin in September, 2004. Responsibilities include teaching, advisement, research and the possibility of clinical supervision in the candidate’s area of expertise. The candidate should have a documented record of scholarship and a proven record of excellence in teaching. Grant seeking, along with service to the department, university and larger professional community are expected. A minimum of 5 years of academic experience is preferred but candidates with less experience will be considered. CCC-SLP and eligibility for NJ State Licensure are highly desirable. Screening of applications begins immediately and continues until position is filled. Send letter of application and CV to Mary Boyle, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Chair, Search Committee, Montclair State University, Box C316 V-F12, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution. You can also reply directly to me at: eisenbergs at mail.montclair.edu Sarita Eisenberg From asanord at ling.gu.se Tue Feb 24 13:25:34 2004 From: asanord at ling.gu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=C5sa_Nordqvist?=) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:25:34 +0200 Subject: Blind children: Summary Message-ID: Thankyou all who responded to my request of literature from the area of language development in blind children! Please find below a summary of the references I got. I particularly want to thank Miguel Pérez Pereira who sent a long list of references. Best Asa (There might be double references in the list.) Andersen, E.S.; Dunlea, A. & Kekelis, L. (1984). Blind children´s language: Resolving some differences. Journal of Child Language, 11, 645-664. Andersen, E.S.; Dunlea, A. & Kekelis, L. (1993). The impact of input: Language acquisition in the visually impaired. First Language, 13, 23-49. Bigelow, A. (1987). Early words of blind children. Journal of Child Language, 14, 47-56. Bigelow, A. (1990). Relationships between the development of language and thought in young blind children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 15, 414-419. Brown, R.; Hobson, R.P.; Lee, A. & Stevenson, J. (1997). Are there "autistic-like" features in congenitally blind children? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 693-703. Burlingham, D. (1964). Hearing and its role in the development of the blind. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 19, 95-112. Burlingham, D. (1965). Some problems of ego development in blind children. The Psychoanalysic Study of the Child, 20, 194-208. Castro, J. & Pérez Pereira, M. (1996). Funciones comunicativas del lenguaje de niños ciegos y videntes. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 74, 139-154. Civelli, E.M. (1983). Verbalism in young blind children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 77, 61-63. Conti-Ramsden, G. & Pérez-Pereira, M. Conversational interactions between mothers and their infants who are congenitally blind, have low vision, or are sighted. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 1999, 93, 691-703. Cutsford, T.D. (1951). The blind in school and society. New York: American Foundation for the Blind. Dokecki, P.R. (1966). Verbalism and the blind: A critical review of the concept and the literature. Exceptional Children, 32, 525-530. Dunlea, A. & Andersen, E. L. (1992). The emergence process: conceptual and linguistic influences on morphological development. First Language, 12, 95-115. Dunlea, A. (1984). The relation between concept formation and semantic roles: Some evidence from the blind. In L. Feagans; Garvey, C. & Golinkoff, R. (eds.), The origins and growth of communication. Norwood: Ablex. Dunlea, A. (1989). Vision and the emergence of meaning. Blind and sighted children`s early language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erin, J.N. (1986). Frequencies and types of questions in the language of visually impaired children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 80, 670-674. Fraiberg, S. (1977). Insights from the blind. London: Souvenir Press. (Traducción española: Niños ciegos. INSERSO, 1981) Fraiberg, S. & Adelson, E. (1973). Self-representation in language and play: Observations of blind children. Psychoanalysis Quarterly, 42, 539-562. Iverson, J. M. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1997). What's communication got to do with it? Gesture in children blind from birth. Developmental Psychology, 33, 453-467. Keeler, W.R. (1957). Autistic patterns and defective communication in blind children with retrolental fibroplasia. In P.H. Hoch & J. Zubin (eds.), Psychopathology of communication. New York: Grune and Stratton. Kekelis, L.S. & Andersen, E.S. (1984). Family communication styles and language development. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 78, 54-65. Kitzinger, M. (1984). The role of repeated and echoed utterances in communication with a blind child. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 19, 135-146. Landau, B. (1983). Blind children's language is not "meaningless". In A.E. Mills (Ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child. Normal and deficient. London: Croom Helm. Landau, B. (1997). Language and experience in blind children: retrospective and prospective. In V. Lewis & G. M. Collis (Eds.) Blindness and psychological development in young children. Leicester: British Psychological Society. Landau, B. & Gleitman, L.R. (1985). Language and experience. Evidence from the blind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McGinnis, A.R. (1981) Functional linguistic strategies of blind children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 75, 210-214. Miecznikowski, A. & Andersen, E. (1986). From formulaic to analysed speech: Two systems or one? In J. Connor-Linton; C. J. Hall & M. McGinnis (eds.), Southern California Occassional Papers in Linguistics, Volume 11: Social and Cognitive Perspectives on Language. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. Mills, A. (1993). Visual handicap. In D. Bishop & K. Mogford (Eds.), Language development under exceptional circumstances. Hove, U.K.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Mills, A.E. (1987). The development of phonology in the blind child. In B. Dodd & R. Campbell (eds.), Hearing by eye: The psychology of lip reading. London: Erlbaum. Moore, V. & McConachie, H. (1994). Communication between blind children and severely visually impaired children and their parents. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 491-502. Mulford, R. (1983). Referential development in blind children. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child. Normal and deficient. London: Croom Helm. Mulford, R. (1988). First words of blind children. En M.D. Smith & J.L. Locke (Eds.), The emergent lexicon. New York: Academic Press. Norgate, S. (1996). Research methods for studying the language of blind children. Occasional Papers/CHDL. The Open University. Norgate, S.; Lewis, V. & Collis, G. (1997). Developing the capacity to refer: how the study of blind infants informs theoretical frameworks of lexical development. Paper presented to the VIIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology. Rennes (France), 3-6 September. Norris, M; Spaulding, P. & Brodie, F.M. (1957). Blindness and children. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Pérez Pereira, M. & Castro, J. (1992). Pragmatic functions of blind and sighted children`s language: a twin case study. First Language, 12, 17-37. Pérez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines, and the child´s analysis of language. Journal of Child Language, 21, 317-337. Pérez Pereira, M. (1999). Deixis, personal reference, and the use of pronouns by blind children. Journal of Child Language, 26, 655-680. Pérez Pereira, M. y Castro, J. (1994). El desarrollo psicológico de niños ciegos en la primera infancia. Barcelona: Paidós. Pérez Pereira, M. y Castro, J. (1995). Repercusiones evolutivas de las formas de interacción y comunicación en el niño ciego (Developmental consequences of interaction and communication in the blind child). Substratum, 1995, 7, 103-124. Pérez Pereira, M. & Castro, J. (1997). Language acquisition and the compensation of visual deficit: New comparative data on a controversial topic. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15, 439-459. Pérez-Pereira, M. & Conti-Ramsden, G. (1999). Social interaction and language development in blind children. London: Psychology Press. Pérez-Pereira, M. & Conti-Ramsden, G.(2001). The use of directives in verbal interactions between blind children and their mothers. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 95, 133-149. Peters, A. (1987). The role of imitation in the developing syntax of a blind child. Text, 7, 289-311. Peters, A. (1987). The role of imitation in the developing syntax of a blind child. Text, 7, 289-311. Peters, A.M. (1994). The interdependence of social, cognitive and linguistic development: Evidence from a visually impaired child. En H. Tager-Flusberg (Ed.), Constraints on language acquisition: Studies of atypical children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Peters, A.M. (1994). The interdependence of social, cognitive and linguistic development: Evidence from a visually impaired child. En H. Tager-Flusberg (Ed.), Constraints on language acquisition: Studies of atypical children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Preisler, G.M. (1991). Early patterns of interaction between blind infants and their sighted mothers. Child; Care, Health and Development, 17, 65-90. Rosa A. & Ochaita E. (Comps.) (1993). Psicología de la ceguera. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Rowland, C. (1984). Preverbal communication of blind infants and their mothers. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 78, 297-302. Urwin, C. (1979). Preverbal communication and early language development in blind children. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 17, 119-127. Urwin, C. (1983). Dialogue and cognitive functioning in the early language development of three blind children. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child. Normal and deficient. London: Croom Helm. Urwin, C. (1984). Communication in infancy and the emergence of language in blind children. In R.L. Schieffelbusch & J. Pickar (Eds.), The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore: University Park Press. Urwin, C. (1984a). Communication in infancy and the emergence of language in blind children. In R.L. Schieffelbusch & J. Pickar (Eds.), The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore: University Park Press. Urwin, C. (1984b). Language for absent things: learning from visually handicapped children. Topics in Language Disorders, 4, 24-37. Von Tetzchner, S. & Martinsen, H. (1981). A psycholinguistic study of the language of the blind: I. Verbalism. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 7-3 [19], 49-61. Warren, D.F. (1994). Blindness and children. An individual differences approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Webster, A. & Roe, J. (1998). Children with visual impairments. Social interaction, language and learning. London: Routledge. Wills, D.M. (1979). Early speech development in blind children. The Psychoanalytyc Study of the Child, 34, 85-117. Mulford r. 1988. First words of the blind child. in m d Smith & j l locke eds. The imergent lexicon. Academic Press. Fraiberg, S. 1979. Blind infants and their Mothers in M Bullowa. Before Speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication. Cambridge u press. Freedman, D G. 1964. Smiling in blind infants and the issue of innate vs. acquired. journal of child psychology and psychiatry #5 p171-184 Werth, Paul. 1982. The Acquisition of Meaning by Blind Children: A Discussion Universite Libre de Bruxelles Rapport d'Activites de l'Institut de Phonetique, 17, Mar, 55-67 -- Mills, Anne E. (ed). "Language Acquisition in the Blind Child: Normal and Deficient". 1983. London: Croom Helm Ltd. -- Mulford, Randa. "First Words of the Blind Child," in Smith, M.D., & J.L. Locke (eds), "The Emergent Lexicon: The Child's Development of a Linguistic Vocabulary". 1988. New York: Academic Press, Inc. Blindness and psychological development in young children by Vicky Lewis and Glyn Collis (Eds). Published by BPS in 1997 Un-Locke-ing language learning: Evidence from a blind child. A review of B. Landau & L. Gleitman, Language and experience: Evidence from blind children. Language, 60, 143-145. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 11285 bytes Desc: not available URL: From lkobler at bu.edu Tue Feb 24 20:21:52 2004 From: lkobler at bu.edu (Loraine K. Obler, Ph.D.) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:21:52 -0600 Subject: info-childes Digest - 02/22/04 Message-ID: Re AAE, there's a 2002 film that uses the dialect in ways that raises consciousness non-pedantically, indeed with humor. Though I'm not an AAVE speaker, it seems to me the film's use is authentic; if not, I'd like to learn so. Malibu's Most Wanted is about a white protagonist who 'thinks he's black', a problem for his father running for governor of California, who hires some SAE-monodialectal African American actors to help resolve the problem. We watch them study up on the dialect, pragmatics, etc. Loraine K. Obler, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor Program in Speech and Hearing Sciences CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue NYC, NY, USA 10016 tel.: 617 696 7227 ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 5:00 PM Subject: info-childes Digest - 02/22/04 info-childes Digest - Sunday, February 22, 2004 ref on blind children's lang dev by "Asa Nordqvist" Russian Language Development by "Glennen, Sharon" MLU counts by "Hyams, Nina" wordless picture book reading by "You-Kyung Chang" Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" Re: MLU counts by "Brian MacWhinney" Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" Re: MLU counts by "Brian MacWhinney" RE: MLU counts by "Dale, Philip S." RE: MLU counts by "Hyams, Nina" Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" RE: MLU counts by "Margaret Fleck" RE: MLU counts by Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" MLU counts by "Ginny Mueller Gathercole" Re: MLU counts by "Sheri Wells Jensen" BLCF scholarships by "Peg Lahey" more thoughts on MLU by "Ann Peters" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Joseph Stemberger" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Brian MacWhinney" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Yonata Levy" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Ginny Mueller Gathercole" RE: more thoughts on MLU by "Alcock, Katherine" Re: ref on blind children's lang dev by "Ann Dowker" Re: ref on blind children's lang dev by "Sheri Wells Jensen" AAE movie by "Shelley L. Velleman" Presentation software for data collection by "Jeff MacSwan" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Margaret Fleck" Re: AAE movie by "Kazuko Hiramatsu" MLU and the Bible by "Ann Peters" When Do Children Learn the Comparative? by "Peyton Todd" Re: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? by "Ginny Mueller Gathercole" RE: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? by "Dale, Philip S." Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Sheri Wells Jensen" The Birth of the Mind [book announcement] by "Gary Marcus" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- End of info-childes Digest From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Wed Feb 25 19:36:46 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:36:46 -0500 Subject: Job Announcement - HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY Message-ID: HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE-HEARING SCIENCES Tenure track position: Assistant Professor in Speech-Language Pathology Hofstra University¹s Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences has an opening for an Assistant Professor in Speech-Language-Pathology. The position entails teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in language-learning disorders, language acquisition and literacy development, and early childhood language disorders. The course load consists of 9 semester hours of teaching per semester. Additional responsibilities include research in the applicant¹s area of interest, student advisement and involvement in Department and University committees. Competitive salary and benefits. Requirements include an earned Ph.D. ASHA certification is preferred. This is a nine-month tenure track position with the possibility of additional summer teaching. The position becomes available in September 2004. Please send a letter of application, CV and three letters of reference by April 30, 2004. Hofstra University is an equal opportunity employer. Ronald L. Bloom, Ph.D. Chair, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences 106 Davison Hall Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 From VVVHC at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Wed Feb 25 23:13:20 2004 From: VVVHC at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Virginia Valian) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:13:20 EST Subject: research assistantship Message-ID: Research Assistant Position in Language and Cognition Available at Hunter College - CUNY (1 part-time with possibility of full-time) One part-time (possibly full-time) research assistant position is available beginning 3 March 2004. Assistants will work on the Language Acquisition Research Project and the Cognition and Gender Project. LARP investigates first and second language acquisition in young children and adults, as well as artificial language learning, concept learning, and language use. We use a wide variety of techniques and materials to answer basic questions about syntactic competence and performance. CGP investigates sex differences in cognitive processes, including mathematics and mental rotation. A minimum of one year is expected; funding is anticipated for three years. The position is open until filled. Assistants on the project: * Record, transcribe, and analyze learners' spontaneous speech * Develop materials for use in production and comprehension tasks * Perform experiments with child and adult participants * Analyze spontaneous speech data and experimental data * Recruit child and adult participants * Supervise students and interns working on the projects * Keep the laboratory running smoothly The project involves constant contact with children, parents and other caregivers, and with adolescent and adult participants; it also requires the coordination of many different activities. Assistants' patience, courtesy, and maturity are thus important. Assistants must work well with children, adolescents, and adults; understand and accommodate the concerns and needs of children and caregivers; and be highly organized, reliable, and punctual. Qualifications: * BA required * Preferred major: psychology or cognitive science * Preferred course background: cognitive psychology, experimental psychology, statistics, developmental psychology, basic syntax, cognitive science, language acquisition * Preferred research experience: previous laboratory research, if possible, including transcribing speech; work with two-year-olds * Preferred computer skills: basic word-processing skills, database management, graph and slide presentation * Preferred statistical skills: knowledge of computer packages such as SPSS Salary: Full-time $25,000-$30,000 Part-time 19 hours/week at $15-$20/hour Review of candidates will begin immediately and continue until the positions are filled. To apply, submit by e-mail (to Dr Virginia Valian at little.linguist at hunter.cuny.edu): * a cover letter which summarizes your qualifications * a transcript (unofficial is acceptable) * a summary list of relevant courses * a description of previous work with young children * a description of computer skills and research experience * SAT or GRE scores Ask two faculty for a letter of recommendation that will address your research skills or promise. Ask them to e-mail their letters to Dr Valian at little.linguist@ hunter.cuny.edu Send applications to: little.linguist at hunter.cuny.edu OR TO Virginia Valian Professor of Psychology and Linguistics Co-Director, Gender Equity Project Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021 USA From eclark at psych.stanford.edu Thu Feb 26 01:34:53 2004 From: eclark at psych.stanford.edu (Eve V. Clark) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:34:53 -0800 Subject: PROGRAM & PRE-REGISTRATION for CLRF-2004 Message-ID: APRIL 6-17, 2004 CHILD LANGUAGE RESEARCH FORUM CORDURA HALL STANFORD CONSTRUCTIONS IN ACQUISITION How do children learn constructions--noun phrases, verb phrases, and other phrase types? Do they begin with specific lexical items in a construction and use only those? To what extent do they build from 'verb islands' or 'noun islnds' in early constructions? Which construc- tions emerge first? What criteria should we use in establishing productivity? What makes constructions easy vs. hard to acquire? Can children's bases for inferences about the relevant noun or verb meanings be identified? Are there consistent patterns across children in the acquisition of constructions? Are there differences from one verb type to another, or from intransitive to transitive? Are differences attributable to differences in frequencies in child-directed speech? What cross- linguistic comparisons are available? Which constructions have been considered in studies of children's early syntactic forms? FRIDAY 16 APRIL - OPENING PANEL WITH ADELE GOLDBERG, PETER CULICOVER, & IVAN SAG SATURDAY 17 APRIL - PAPERS AND POSTER SESSION For details, check the CLRF-2004 website: www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf REGISTRATION - Pre-register before March 20, 2004: 1. Preregistration: $50 for non-students $20 for students Send cheque made out to "CLRF-2004" by March 20th, 2004, to: CLRF-2004, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA Please include your name, affiliation, and email address. 2. Walk-in registration: $65 for non-students, $30 for students. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eclark at psych.stanford.edu Thu Feb 26 16:57:32 2004 From: eclark at psych.stanford.edu (Eve V. Clark) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:57:32 -0800 Subject: PROGRAM & PRE-REGISTRATION for CLRF-2004 Message-ID: APRIL 16-17, 2004 CHILD LANGUAGE RESEARCH FORUM CORDURA HALL STANFORD CONSTRUCTIONS IN ACQUISITION How do children learn constructions--noun phrases, verb phrases, and other phrase types? Do they begin with specific lexical items in a construction and use only those? To what extent do they build from 'verb islands' or 'noun islnds' in early constructions? Which construc- tions emerge first? What criteria should we use in establishing productivity? What makes constructions easy vs. hard to acquire? Can children's bases for inferences about the relevant noun or verb meanings be identified? Are there consistent patterns across children in the acquisition of constructions? Are there differences from one verb type to another, or from intransitive to transitive? Are differences attributable to differences in frequencies in child-directed speech? What cross- linguistic comparisons are available? Which constructions have been considered in studies of children's early syntactic forms? FRIDAY 16 APRIL - OPENING PANEL WITH ADELE GOLDBERG, PETER CULICOVER, & IVAN SAG SATURDAY 17 APRIL - PAPERS AND POSTER SESSION For details, check the CLRF-2004 website: www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf REGISTRATION - Pre-register before March 20, 2004: 1. Preregistration: $50 for non-students $20 for students Send cheque made out to "CLRF-2004" by March 20th, 2004, to: CLRF-2004, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA Please include your name, affiliation, and email address. 2. Walk-in registration: $65 for non-students, $30 for students. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From t.marinis at ucl.ac.uk Fri Feb 27 09:33:38 2004 From: t.marinis at ucl.ac.uk (Theodore Marinis) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:33:38 +0000 Subject: New book - The acquisition of Modern Greek Message-ID: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Book Information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek Theodoros Marinis University College London This book offers new data on the acquisition of functional categories in early child speech. Based on longitudinal corpora of five children acquiring Modern Greek as their first language, it describes the development of single DPs consisting of definite and indefinite articles, complex DPs that require the use of multiple definite articles - possessive constructions, appositive constructions and Determiner Spreading, a form of adjectival modification - and number and case marking in nouns and definite articles. Detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses show an incremental development of the DP. The findings address the debate concerning maturation versus continuity. Incremental acquisition of the DP argues in favour of a weak continuity approach to language acquisition. Whilst gradual acquisition of the DP remains unexplained within the Principles and Parameters Theory, it is fully compatible within Minimalism, as it is argued to result from the gradual acquisition of the features associated with the Greek DP. Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 31 2003. Hb xiv, 261 pp. 90 272 2500 1 EUR 105.00 1 58811 450 3 USD 105.00 Acknowledgements; Preface; Abbreviations; 1. Acquisition theories and the acquisition of the DP; 2. Methodology; 3. The DP in Modern Greek; 4. Acquiring the DP in MG; 5. The acquisition of the possessive construction; 6. The acquisition of Determiner Spreading; 7. The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names; 8. Summary and conclusion; References; Appendix 1; Appendix 2; Index URL: http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=LALD_31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY P.O.Box 36224, 1020 ME Amsterdam, Netherlands & P.O.Box 27519, Philadelphia PA 19118-0519, USA www.benjamins.com -^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^- Dr. Theodore Marinis Centre for Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience Department of Human Communication Science University College London Chandler House 2, Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF UK Tel. +44-20-7679-4096 Fax +44-20-7713-0861 www: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/DLDCN/staff11.html -^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ROZANDZ at aol.com Sun Feb 29 16:17:03 2004 From: ROZANDZ at aol.com (ROZANDZ at aol.com) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 11:17:03 EST Subject: (sans sujet) Message-ID: Hello, I am a French student and I am doing a doctorate on the acquisition of English simple past by French second language learners in a school setting. I would like to measure the frequency of English verbs, both regular and irregular, and their inflexions (in the simple past). For the experimentation I led during my master, I used Rumelhart and McClelland's typology (1988). Unfortunately, this typology is based on an English corpus and I do not know if these verbs frequency can be applied to the acquisition of English as a second language by French learners in a school setting. I am wondering if a typology of English verbs frequency and their inflexions in the past simple for second language learners exists. Do you have any information about such a typology? Or do you know if there are, more generally, articles or studies about inputs and frequencies in a school setting. Thanks Coralie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From barriere at vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu Sun Feb 1 00:54:22 2004 From: barriere at vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu (Isabelle Barriere) Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2004 19:54:22 -0500 Subject: using films to teach lg acquisition courses Message-ID: Hi, A while ago someone asks about films/documentaries on language development taht may be used to teach. I have often used F. Truffaut "the wild child" and this year, for a level 1 course that students from various backgrounds (humanities and hard science- some of whom chose it as a 'default' since there were not many courses offered in the intercession) took, I actually used it to develop a task they had to complete after they had had their first lecture on Hockett design features. More than 80 students completed the course and all of them commented positively on the film and this particular task, which is why I feel I want to share it with other people who may have to teach language acquisition courses (find task below) If you do: remember you need to stop at specific points in the film, in order to give a chance to students to answer the questions. If you or your library owns a DVD the subtitles are much clearer than in the video. The questions in which I ask students for their opinions, based on their experience did not really weigh anything in the mark: it was a way to make students think and to have an idea of their opinions on this topic. Yours, Isabelle Barriere Visiting faculty Department of Cognitive Science Johns Hopkins University Language acquisition 050.111 Your name:___________________ Mark: ________ In class 1 (4%): Observing a case of atypical development and characterizing a communication system according to Hockett (1969) Design Features Truffaut, F. (1969) The Wild Child based on and accurate reflection of the two reports produced by Itard (1801, 1806) for the French Academy of Science. The aims this task are a) to enable you to characterize a communication system on the basis of the design features defined in the lecture, b) to make you aware of the similarities and differences between the wild boy and typically developing children (with a focus on language and communication development and the contexts in which they are exposed to language). Bear in mind that there are sometimes more than one possible answer to the questions (and we will bear this in mind when we mark your work): it is therefore important that you explain in a few words how you reached your conclusion, where appropriate. I. BEFORE THE WILD BOY GOES TO LIVE IN ITARDS HOUSE I.a In a few words describe the vocalizations that the wild child produces at the beginning of the film and the contexts in which they are produced ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.b In a few words describe the way he interacts with people at the beginning of the film ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.c In a few words describes how the wild boy moves from one place to another ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I.d In a few words describe the way he expresses his emotions ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II. HIS LIFE IN ITARDS HOUSE II. a How does Itard communicate to the wild boy that he is ready to take him out for a walk, to his friend Lemeris house? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II. b How does the wild boy express his joy on his way to Lemeris house? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.c At Lemeris house how does the lady with the baby communicate to the wild boy that she is going to give him a bowl of milk? Describe the behavior of the wild boy that constitutes evidence that at some level he has understoodthe message. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.d How does the wild child communicate to the same lady that he wants to play outside with Mathew? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.e How does he communicate the fact that he is hungry to Mrs Gu?rin? ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ II.f On the basis of your answers to II.a, II.c, II.d, II.e would you say that the means of communication used by the wild child in these contexts exhibit the following design features (you may want to check the lecture hand-out). Why/Why not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Displacement__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Productivity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ II.g On the basis of your answers to II.a, II.c, II.d, II.e, would you say that the wild child is unable to communicate? Why/Why not? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ III. In the 2nd scene at Lemeris house, when the lady with the baby is not there to give him his milk, what does the wild boys behavior (hitting the cupboard to get his bowl of milk) reveal about his behavior: is it spontaneous or tied to the context? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ IV. Why was he named Victor? ____________________________________________________________________ V. Characterizing the language input Va. In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the attempt by Itards and Mrs Gu?rin to teach Victor the sound oat the dinner table similar or different to the way young typically developing children are exposed to a language/the sounds of a language? In what ways?_______________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ V.b In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the scene acted out by Mrs Gu?rin and Itard showing how to ask for a bowl of milksimilar or different to the way young typically developing children are exposed to a language/the words of their language? In what way?____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VI. The 1st word produced by Victor (lait/ milk) VI.a What is this 1st word used for, to request or to name? ____________________________________________________________________ VI.b Does the production of this 1st word provide evidence for the following design features? Why/why not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Displacement__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VII. In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the way Itard attempts to teach Victor to produce sounds similar or different to what happens in the language input to normally developing children? (that is do most parents do with their children what Itard does with Victor?) ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VII. Victors learning of names of tools (keys, hammer, brush) etc VII.a Does the fact that Victor is able to match each tool to its drawing constitute evidence of the following design feature? Why/not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VII.b Does the fact that Victor is able to match each tool to its written representation constitute evidence of the following design feature? Why/not? Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ VIII Itard and Pinel have different ideas about how to account for Victors behavior and his potential. In your own words, briefly outline these two views. Itards views__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Pinels views____________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ IX. What does Victor rely on in order to carry out the alphabet task(ie matching each block letter to letters on the board) the first times? How does Itard attempt to challenge this strategy? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ X. Does his ability to use block letters to request milk exhibit evidence of the following design features: Semanticity__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Arbitrariness__________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Duality of patterning____________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XVII How does the doctor attempt to teach Victor to perceive distinctions between different vowels? Is Victors learning of vowels successful? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XVIII. When asked to bring a specific object to the doctor, does Victors good performance provide evidence of semanticity? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XIX In your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), is the system of rewards and punishments developed and used by Itard to try to teach Victor language similar or different to what most parents do with their typically developing young children? In what way? ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ XX. On the basis of your experience (including the fact that you were a child yourself and you may have observed your siblings, cousins, children you may have looked after etc), how would you characterize Victorss a) non-verbal communication abilities (ie. whether he is good at understanding peoples intentions and responding to their non-verbal signals and communicating his needs/feelings/emotions) and b) language abilities (his ability to distinguish between language specific sounds, understand and produce words and/or their combinations): Like/inferior to a typical child aged between 1 year 6 months (1;6) and 2 years 6 months (2;6)_________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Like/Inferior to a child between 2;6 and 4____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ Like/ Inferior to a child between 4 and 6____________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ____________________________________________________________________ _____________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Sun Feb 1 21:58:35 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 16:58:35 -0500 Subject: New Dutch corpus Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, I am happy to announce the addition to CHILDES of a new corpus of transcripts from four children aged 4;9-5 learning Dutch. This corpus was contributed by Annick De Houwer. One emphasis in the study is on features unique to the Antwerp dialect. Audio is available for the corpus although the audio has not yet been linked to the transcripts. The complete documentation for the corpus is as follows: **** This corpus of Dutch child language and child-directed speech was collected in Antwerp, Belgium. Transcription and coding of the Antwerp Dutch corpus was made possible through grants to the author from the Belgian Science Foundation and the University of Antwerp. The corpus consists of 15 recordings transcribed orthographically and phonetically. Some transcripts also contain variety codes, speaker codes, addressee codes and utterance numbers (see further below). Participants are four children between the ages of ca. 4;9 and 5;0 (two boys Dieter and Michiel, and two girls Kim and Katrien) and their families, with some other persons on occasion present as well. The families are lower-middle to middle-middle class. All children are addressed in some form of Dutch common around the city of Antwerp and go to school fulltime (second year of nursery school). They are being raised monolingually. The interactions are mostly free and spontaneous, but include some structured interactions as well, in which the mother or father had a conversation with the 4-year-old about the past day at school, or prompted the child to describe a picture and tell a picture book story. The transcripts consist of 13,602 utterances (children and adults combined). Both adult and child utterances were phonetically and orthographically transcribed by three separate coders: the first two made a transcript from scratch, and the third resolved any differences between the two. For each transcript there was at least one coder from the Antwerp area, and one coder not from the Antwerp region. Phonetic transcription was originally carried out in Dutch UNIBET as developed by Steven Gillis, and is fairly narrow, especially as regards vowel sounds. However, prosody was not transcribed. As most recently described in Nuyts (1989), Antwerp vowel phonemes differ quite substantially from standard Dutch phonemes both in their type and in their distribution. The Dutch UNIBET system first used for the phonological transcription could not handle all the phonemes. Rather than develop a new system, approximations were used where necessary, with an explanation in a following %exp line of how a particular phoneme symbol was best interpreted. The UNIBET symbols were converted in Unicode but researchers who prefer to work with the original UNIBET files are welcome to contact the author of the data for more information. Also, there remain 0Xfa symbols in the Unicode for sounds that could not be approximated with the UNIBET symbols. Finally, the files for the child MICHIEL may contain some inaccuracies on the %pho line with regard to the long low open vowel phoneme used in Antwerp renderings of HIJ, MIJN and the like. Researchers wanting to work with these data are welcome to contact the author of the data to resolve these problems. While Dutch standard spelling was generally used, the orthographic transcript stays as close to the phonetic transcript as possible, and indicates missing initial and final sounds between brackets. Where this is not the case, and there seems to be a mismatch between the phonetic and orthographic transcript lines, it is the phonetic line that should be taken as most closely resembling the original utterance. Utterance lines may be followed by comment lines. These are in Dutch. For 10 of the 15 data files there is an additional coding line for each utterance (5 of these are complete and double-checked; the other 5 are provisional). This line includes the following: - an utterance number followed by a slash - a three letter code, where the first letter refers to the speaker, the second letter refers to the kind of Dutch that is being used (variety neutral, or 'local', meaning that the utterance contained a form typical of Antwerp dialect), and the third letter refers to the addressee. More information on these codes can be found in De Houwer, 2003 (reference below), or can be obtained directly from the author of these data at annick.dehouwer at ua.ac.be. If the coding line indicated that the utterance contained material coded as 'local', an explanation line follows to identify what exactly it was in the utterance that led to that coding decision (e.g., a particular dialect phoneme, use of a dialect pronoun, use of specific dialect vocabulary, etc. - see De Houwer 2003). The data show that the following distinctions in usage emerge: 'local' utterances containing dialect elements tend to be used when older children and adults in the family address each other. 'Neutral' forms that are common all over Flanders may also be used, while 'distal' features, which are clear 'imports' from a Dutch variety outside Flanders are being avoided. However, when older children and adults address the younger members of the family, they increase their use of neutral forms, substantially reduce their use of local forms, and occasionally use distal forms. The younger children use mainly utterances categorized as neutral, dependent on who they are addressing. Implications of this variation across family members for language change are discussed. (Reference: Nuyts, Jan. (1989). Het Antwerps vokaalsysteem: een synchronische en diachronische schets. Taal en tongval 41(1-2): 22-48.) Researchers wishing to use these data should cite this publication: De Houwer, Annick (2003). Language variation and local elements in family discourse. Language Variation and Change 15: 327-347. From narvik at uwyo.edu Sun Feb 1 20:55:02 2004 From: narvik at uwyo.edu (narvik) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 13:55:02 -0700 Subject: development of moral language Message-ID: Hello, all, I am a graudate student working under Dr. Karen Bartsch at the University of Wyoming. Over the last year, I have been conducting an extensive analysis of the use of moral language (with the help of the CHILDES database), focusing on young children, 2-5 years old. This analysis has proved to be very interesting, but I am curious as to whether or not there are similar databases with a corpora of older children (I know Ross/Mark goes up into 7-8 years old, but are there any others?). I have been working on ideas for generating similar discussion structures for college students, using Psyc1000 students and an "online threaded discussion" format, but I think having access to actual natural langauge transcripts would be much more helpful and informative. Does anyone know of any such databases? FYI (since a few of you expressed interst in this project when I initiated it over a year ago) - I will be presenting the results of my pilot study, conducted during the summer of 2003, at the Conference on Human Development in Washington DC in April and hope to be presenting the full results of my thesis research at another conference soon. thanks in advance for any thoughts, information, suggestions - Jen Wright Graduate Student Departments of Psychology and Philosophy University of Wyoming From pm at sfsu.edu Mon Feb 2 03:13:10 2004 From: pm at sfsu.edu (Philip M Prinz) Date: Sun, 1 Feb 2004 19:13:10 -0800 Subject: films on language acqusition In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20031228205911.00b7ed70@psumail.pdx.edu> Message-ID: Hello, Many thanks for your suggestion. Philip Prinz On Dec 28, 2003, at 9:08 PM, Lynn Santelmann wrote: > One nice newer film is called: The Secret Life of the Brain. Episode 2 > focuses on language and the child's brain, and talks a bit about > children's language delay/disorder, lateralization and > hemispherectomies. There might be other things, it's been about a year > since I've shown it. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode2/index.html > > I also like several episodes from Scientific American Frontiers: > http://www.pbs.org/saf/previous.htm > Growing up Different, from 2001; it has segments on children with > William Syndrome, Autism, and a Cochlear Implant: > http://www.pbs.org/saf/1205/index.html > There's also a program from this series that has a segment showing a > man with a split brain. I show this often in psycholinguistics. > > All of these videos are available from PBS for about $25. Some of the > Scientific American ones are also available online if you've got > access to a reliable internet connection on which to show it. > > Lynn > > > At 10:10 AM 12/27/2003 -0800, Philip M Prinz wrote: > > > >>> Hello! >>> >>> I will be teaching an upper division undergraduate course on >>> "language acquisition in children" spring semester 2004. Can anyone >>> recommend recent films on language acquisition/development? Any >>> information on the films and ordering information would be greatly >>> appreciated. >>> >>> Thank you. >>> >>> Philip Prinz >>> pm at sfsu.edu >> > > *********************************************************************** > ***** > Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Applied Linguistics > Portland State University > P.O. Box 751 > Portland, OR 97207-0751 > Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 > email: santelmannl at pdx.edu > web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls > *********************************************************************** > ****** > From mazzocco at kennedykrieger.org Mon Feb 2 16:00:25 2004 From: mazzocco at kennedykrieger.org (Michele Mazzocco) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 11:00:25 -0500 Subject: Postdoctoral Fellowship Position Available Message-ID: Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Child Development needed to participate in ongoing, NICHD-funded longitudinal research on cognitive and genetic correlates of math ability and disability. Appointment will be through the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Dept. of Psychiatry. The fellow would contribute to one or more of the following: 1) an ongoing study of cognitive phenotypes in school age children with fragile X or Turner syndrome; 2) a normative study of math ability and cognitive correlates; and/or 3) a prospective longitudinal study of math learning disability. The postdoc would have opportunities to work directly with children, and will have many opportunities for manuscript preparation and, if desired, involvement with the grant application process. Minimal travel may occur for data collection or conference presentation. The position begins in 2004, for one to three years. Qualifications include a Ph.D. in Psychology or a related area, training in child development, interest in elementary school age children, working knowledge of statistical analyses, documented writing ability, and strong research interests. To apply, please send cover letter, curriculum vitae, three letters, and sample reprints/preprints if applicable to: Dr. Mazzocco, MSDP, 3825 Greenspring Ave., Painter Building Top Floor; Baltimore, MD. 21211. Email Address mazzocco at kennedykrieger.org Email inquiries are welcome. From boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de Mon Feb 2 16:08:47 2004 From: boehning at ling.uni-potsdam.de (=?iso-8859-1?Q?Marita_B=F6hning?=) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 17:08:47 +0100 Subject: 5th meeting "The Science of Aphasia" Message-ID: 5th meeting "The Science of Aphasia" Short title: SoA5 Date: 16-Sep-2004 - 21-Sep-2004 Location: Potsdam, Germany Organised by: Potsdam University, ESF Network #115 Meeting description : SoA5, the 5th meeting of "The Science of Aphasia", will be held at Potsdam University, Germany, Sep 16 - Sep 21 Call for papers: Science of Aphasia V invites submission of abstracts either for free papers or poster presentations presenting high quality, previously unpublished work on any neurolinguistic research topic. Abstracts should contain information about the research question, the design of the study, the results, including the data and a discussion of the results. Submission can only be done via the conference website: http://www.soa5.de. The page also contains guidelines for submission. Important Deadlines: April 15, 2004: abstract submission deadline. Submission received after this date will not be considered. May 15, 2004: notification of acceptance to authors Please contact the conference website http://www.soa5.de for further information. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From cchaney at sfsu.edu Mon Feb 2 21:28:12 2004 From: cchaney at sfsu.edu (Carolyn Chaney) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 13:28:12 -0800 Subject: using films to teach lg acquisition courses In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040131195025.01df6d48@vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Isabelle and Info-childes: Thanks for send us your interesting task for teaching language acquisition. Maybe it will spur another round of ideas for teaching language to undergraduates. Carolyn Chaney From cchaney at sfsu.edu Mon Feb 2 21:33:39 2004 From: cchaney at sfsu.edu (Carolyn Chaney) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 13:33:39 -0800 Subject: using films to teach lg acquisition courses In-Reply-To: <5.2.0.9.0.20040131195025.01df6d48@vonneumann.cog.jhu.edu> Message-ID: Dear Isabelle and Info-childes: A p.s. to my last message...I have had some good results with the film THE PINKS AND THE BLUES, an oldie about gender socialization. After students watch it they are SURE that it is totally outdated and that parents would never treat boys and girls so differently. Then I send them out to observe family language interaction in their local park and write a comparison between language predicted by the film and language observed. Students are amazed to see that gendered language input to children has not changed much since this oldie was made. Carolyn Chaney From ykchang24 at hanmail.net Tue Feb 3 02:45:23 2004 From: ykchang24 at hanmail.net (You-Kyung Chang) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 11:45:23 +0900 Subject: influence of lexical categories in mothers' input Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ellmcf at nus.edu.sg Tue Feb 3 03:43:40 2004 From: ellmcf at nus.edu.sg (Madalena Cruz-Ferreira) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 11:43:40 +0800 Subject: Looking for B. Luetke-Stahlman Message-ID: Dear all, Would any of you know Barbara Luetke-Stahlman's most recent email address? A student of mine is doing research on bilingual deaf children, and says that all of Barbara L-S's addresses found online bounced messages back. Thank you for your help! Madalena ====================================== Madalena Cruz-Ferreira Dept. English Language and Literature National University of Singapore ellmcf at nus.edu.sg ====================================== -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From santelmannl at pdx.edu Tue Feb 3 05:08:27 2004 From: santelmannl at pdx.edu (Lynn Santelmann) Date: Mon, 2 Feb 2004 21:08:27 -0800 Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) Message-ID: Hi, I'm in a position where I'm suddenly faced with teaching a seminar on the acquisition of the lexicon for spring quarter (starting the end of March), and I need to get a reading list/books ASAP. I'm hoping to cover first language, adult second language and bilingual issues. This is a senior seminar for students in a applied linguistics, so they've got a good grounding in basic issues, but aren't very sophisticated yet. Any recommendations for good readings for this level class would be greatly appreciated -- I'm looking for both classics and recent work. I'm fairly up on the FLA literature, but can always use suggestions. I'm less familiar with the others. Thanks very much for your help. Lynn **************************************************************************** Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Applied Linguistics Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 email: santelmannl at pdx.edu web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls ***************************************************************************** From asanord at ling.gu.se Tue Feb 3 11:50:28 2004 From: asanord at ling.gu.se (Asa Nordqvist) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:50:28 +0200 Subject: deafblind children and their communication In-Reply-To: <40155577.5000701@hpl.hp.com> Message-ID: Dear colleagues, Do you know if anyone has used CHAT for transcribing communication between deafblind children and their caretakers? Are there (other) computer readable transcription and coding systems around for the purpose of studying deafblind communication? Thanks in advance, Asa Nordqvist =============================================== Asa Nordqvist, PhD Department of Languages / Finnish P.O. Box 35 (F) FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland tel. +358-14-260-1438 fax: +358-14-260-1431 e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ Also affiliated at: Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University Box 200 SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden =============================================== -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From roberta at UDel.Edu Tue Feb 3 12:52:32 2004 From: roberta at UDel.Edu (Roberta Golinkoff) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 07:52:32 -0500 Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) In-Reply-To: <5.1.1.6.0.20040202210200.00b88fb8@psumail.pdx.edu> Message-ID: Hi Lynn! There's a book from Oxford that captures the various theoretical positions and some data: Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Bloom, L., Smith, L., Woodward, A., Akhtar, N. Tomasello, M.,& Hollich, G. (Eds.) (2000). Becoming a word learner: A debate on lexical acquisition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. And there's our SRCD Monograph that also reviews theory and explores how kids break into lex. acqu. at the very beginning -- 12 months: Hollich, G. J., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Golinkoff, R. M. (Eds.) (With Hennon, E., Chung, H. L., Rocroi, C., Brand, R. J., & Brown, E.) (2000). Breaking the language barrier: An emergentist coalition model for the origins of word learning. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 65 (3, Serial No. 262). And any papers you want, just ask! All best, Roberta On Tuesday, February 3, 2004, at 12:08 AM, Lynn Santelmann wrote: > Hi, > > I'm in a position where I'm suddenly faced with teaching a seminar on > the acquisition of the lexicon for spring quarter (starting the end of > March), and I need to get a reading list/books ASAP. I'm hoping to > cover first language, adult second language and bilingual issues. This > is a senior seminar for students in a applied linguistics, so they've > got a good grounding in basic issues, but aren't very sophisticated > yet. > > Any recommendations for good readings for this level class would be > greatly appreciated -- I'm looking for both classics and recent work. > I'm fairly up on the FLA literature, but can always use suggestions. > I'm less familiar with the others. > > Thanks very much for your help. > > Lynn > > *********************************************************************** > ***** > Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Applied Linguistics > Portland State University > P.O. Box 751 > Portland, OR 97207-0751 > Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 > email: santelmannl at pdx.edu > web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls > *********************************************************************** > ****** > > _____________________________________________________ Roberta Michnick Golinkoff, Ph. D. H. Rodney Sharp Professor School of Education and Departments of Psychology and Linguistics University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 Office: 302-831-1634; Fax: 302-831-4110 Web page: http://udel.edu/~roberta/ Please check out our doctoral program at http://www.udel.edu/educ/graduate/ -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 2546 bytes Desc: not available URL: From Mewcscr at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk Tue Feb 3 13:46:58 2004 From: Mewcscr at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk (Gina Conti-Ramsden) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 13:46:58 +0000 Subject: Ph.D. studentships Message-ID: A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 4149 bytes Desc: not available URL: From centenoj at stjohns.edu Tue Feb 3 15:45:38 2004 From: centenoj at stjohns.edu (Jose Centeno) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 10:45:38 -0500 Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) Message-ID: Lynn, Here are some refs in bilingualism you might find worth looking at. I'd love to know what else you find. Good luck! Jose Kohnert, K. L., & Bates, E. (2002). Balancing bilinguals: lexical ... J Speech, Lang, Hearing Research, 45, 347-359. Kroll, J. F., & de Groot, M. B. (1997). Lexical and conceptual memory in the bilingual. In A.M. B. de Groot & J. F. Kroll (Eds.), Tutorials in bilingualism: Psycholinguistics perspectives (pp. 169-200). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Marchman, V. A., & Mart?nez-Sussmann, C. (2002). Concurrent validity of caregiver/parent report measures of language for children who are learning both English and Spanish. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 45, 983-997. Oller, D. K., and Eilers, R. E. (Eds.) (2002). Language and literacy in bilingual children. Clevedon, UK: Multingual Matters. Patterson, J. L. (2002). Relationships of expressive vocabulary to frequency of reading and television experience among bilingual toddlers. Applied Psycholinguistics, 23, 493-508. Pearson. B., Fernandez, Lewedeg, V., & Oller, K. (1997). The relation of input factors to lexical learning by bilingual infants. Applied Psycholinguistics, 18, 41-58. Jose G. Centeno, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Speech-Language Pathology & Audiology Program Dept. of Speech, Communication Sciences, & Theatre St. John's University 8000 Utopia Parkway Jamaica, NY 11439 Tel: 718-990-2629 Fax: 212-677-2127 E-mail: centenoj at stjohns.edu -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Lynn Santelmann Sent: Tue 2/3/2004 12:08 AM To: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Cc: Subject: Readings for Acquisition of the Lexicon class (FLA, SLA, bilingual) Hi, I'm in a position where I'm suddenly faced with teaching a seminar on the acquisition of the lexicon for spring quarter (starting the end of March), and I need to get a reading list/books ASAP. I'm hoping to cover first language, adult second language and bilingual issues. This is a senior seminar for students in a applied linguistics, so they've got a good grounding in basic issues, but aren't very sophisticated yet. Any recommendations for good readings for this level class would be greatly appreciated -- I'm looking for both classics and recent work. I'm fairly up on the FLA literature, but can always use suggestions. I'm less familiar with the others. Thanks very much for your help. Lynn **************************************************************************** Lynn Santelmann, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Applied Linguistics Portland State University P.O. Box 751 Portland, OR 97207-0751 Phone: 503-725-4140 Fax: 503-725-4139 email: santelmannl at pdx.edu web: www.web.pdx.edu/~dbls ***************************************************************************** From Mewssls2 at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk Tue Feb 3 16:30:18 2004 From: Mewssls2 at fs1.ed.man.ac.uk (Ludovica Serratrice) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 16:30:18 +0000 Subject: aspect in English Message-ID: Dear colleagues, is anyone aware of studies that have looked at English-speaking children's sensitivity to the aspectual distinction between present tense forms [-progressive] and -ing forms [+progressive]? I would like to know whether there is any evidence that monolingual English-speaking children would use a present tense form such as "she swims", instead of "she's swimming", for a [+progressive] event. Thanks in advance for any help. Ludovica Serratrice University of Manchester From santelmannl at pdx.edu Tue Feb 3 22:36:30 2004 From: santelmannl at pdx.edu (Lynn Santelmann) Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2004 14:36:30 -0800 Subject: AAAL 2004 Conference Announcment In-Reply-To: Message-ID: 2004 Annual Conference Announcement This year's conference will welcome five Plenary Speakers and over six hundred paper and poster presentations. Date and Location: May 1-4, 2004 Marriott Hotel, Downtown on the Waterfront 1401 SW Naito Parkway Portland, Oregon, 97201 USA Phone: (503) 226-7600 Plenary Speakers: Kathleen Bardovi-Harlig, Indiana University. Tense-Mood-Aspect and the Study of Second Language Acquisition Deborah Cameron, Institute of Education, University of London. Language, Gender and Sexuality: Current Issues and Future Directions Alastair Pennycook, University of Technology, Sydney. Global Englishes and Transcultural Flows Ron Scollon, Georgetown University. Activity, Action, Activism, and Linguistics Peter Smagorinsky, University of Georgia. Composing Multimedia Texts in the Disciplines For additional conference information, visit the conference website, http://www.aaal.org/aaal2004/. Hotel, Reservation, and Registration Information: The Marriott Hotel, Downtown on the Waterfront is located at 1401 SW Naito Parkway, in downtown Portland. The hotel is adjacent to the beautiful Willamette River, which runs directly through downtown Portland. Enjoy a riverfront stroll or a quick bite to eat at the waterfront park, just across the street from the hotel. There are several shops and restaurants within walking distance of the hotel. The AAAL has secured a special sleeping room rate of $115* US Dollars for all conference attendees. You may reserve your room online at: https://www.marriott.com/reservations/init/asp?marshacode=pdxor&gc=aalaala *The conference rate of $115 USD is for a standard single/double room, higher rates may apply for suites, upgrades, club level rooms, etc. Higher rates may apply if more that 2 people share 1 room. You may register for the conference online at: http://www.aaal.org/cgi-bin/OrderForm.cgi Registration fees vary: AAAL Members: $155 Non AAAL Member: $175 All Students: $70 (all US Dollars) The registration deadline is April 1, 2004. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Wed Feb 4 23:47:41 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 4 Feb 2004 18:47:41 -0500 Subject: New Thai corpus Message-ID: Dear Info-CHILDES, I am happy to announce the addition to CHILDES of a new corpus studying the development of language and communicative interactions in Thai children from 6-24 months. This corpus is the collaboration of the Centre for Research in Speech and Language Processing (CRSLP), Chulalongkorn University, Thailand led by Assistant Professor Dr. Sudaporn Luksaneeyanawin, and MARCS Auditory Laboratories, University of Western Sydney, Australia led by Professor Dr. Denis Burnham. To recognize this collaboration, we call it the CRSLP-MARCS corpus. The data consist of video-linked transcriptions of 18 Thai adult-child dyads from the child age of 6 to 24 months, at three monthly intervals. Sessions at each age were of 20 minutes duration and for CHILDES these have been split into 10 minute files, a total of 242 files. The data comprised the major part of a doctoral thesis by Sorabud Rungrojsuwan - ?First Words: Communicative Development of 9- to 24-Month-Old Thai Children?. Data were collected by Sorabud Rungrojsuwan and Nirattisai Krajaikiat, postgraduate research assistants at CRSLP, during the period January 2000-January 2002, using a SONY Digital Handicam DCR-TRV320E video camera. The videotaped data were then computerized and converted into 242 video files (in .mpg format) using the Ulead Video Studio 4.0 SE Basic program. Using the CLAN program (CHAT mode), Sorabud transcribed the data in Thai script. Roman phonological representations of these Thai transcriptions were automatically added by the use of a Thai text-to-phonological representation program developed by the CRSLP, by Assistant Professor Dr. Sudaporn Luksaneeyanawin. The transcripts can be found at http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/eastasian/thai/ And the video can be browsed from the "directly browsable" link at http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/data/ I would like to add an editorial note here. Even if you cannot speak Thai, the videos should be of rather universal interest for exploring ideas about early vocalizations and mother-child interactions. Many thanks to both of these work groups for contributing this new corpus. --Brian MacWhinney From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Fri Feb 6 15:28:21 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 10:28:21 -0500 Subject: FW: ARLA Vol. 4 Deadline Extension: March 15 In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >> >> ARLA Vol. 4 Deadline Extension: March 15 >> >> THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION VOL. 4 (2004) >> >> Editors >> Clara C. Levelt, Leiden University >> Lynn Santelmann, Portland State University >> Maaike Verrips, Taalstudio, the Netherlands >> >> ARLA is devoted to research in the domain of first language >> acquisition, >> i.e., the process of acquiring command of a first language. It focuses >> on >> research reported in recently defended PhD theses. The major share of >> contributions to the yearbook consists of excerpts from, or edited >> summaries >> of, dissertations addressing issues in first language acquisition, >> including >> bilingual first language acquisition. These papers should be written by >> the >> original author of the dissertation, conform to the format of a journal >> article, and thus be comprehensible without reference to the source >> text. >> >> ARLA publishes reports of original research pertaining to various >> approaches >> to first language and bilingual first language acquisition, be it >> experimental, observational, computational, clinical or theoretical, >> provided that the work is of high quality. The Annual Review also >> welcomes >> studies in which first language acquisition is compared to second >> language >> acquisition, as well as studies on language acquisition under abnormal >> conditions. In all of the areas covered, ARLA is dedicated to creative >> and >> groundbreaking research. >> >> The yearbook, in its printed form, will be supplemented by an >> attractive >> website. The website will give access to electronic copies of the >> printed > > Your message could not be processed because you are not allowed to post > messages to the list. > For more information, you can contact the list administrator at: > sacco at cmu.edu > > ------ End of Forwarded Message From ccore at fau.edu Fri Feb 6 20:16:16 2004 From: ccore at fau.edu (Cynthia W Core) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 15:16:16 -0500 Subject: Child-directed speech across languages/cultures Message-ID: Hello all - I was asked today about specific cultural influences on child-directed speech and influence of child-directed speech on literacy acquisition. The questions I have are 1. "What are differences across cultures in terms of the amount of linguistic input that children receive?" I phrase it this way to allow for the possibility that although some children are receiving less child-directed speech, they may be getting input from the environment. 2. "What (besides mother's ed level) influences how much a mother in the United States speaks to her child? Is SES more important than cultural background or vice versa?" I would like to compile a list of resources on this topic, and though I have been able to find some references on-line, I'm sure this group will provide the best resources. Most recently, I have seen Johnston, J. and Wong, M-Y., A. (2002) Cultural Differences in Beliefs and Practices Concerning Talk to Children. Journal of Speech, Language and Hearing Research, 916-926. I appreciate the input, and I will compile and post a list of references provided. Thank you. Cynthia Core, PhD Assistant Professor Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Florida Atlantic University 777 Glades Road PO Box 3091 Boca Raton, FL 33431 (561) 297-1138 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From rpulverm at UDel.Edu Fri Feb 6 23:47:31 2004 From: rpulverm at UDel.Edu (Rachel Pulverman) Date: Fri, 6 Feb 2004 17:47:31 -0600 Subject: Coding Preferential Looking Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, Does anyone know of a computer program for coding preferential looking studies in real time off of video tapes? I'm currently running some experiments in Mexico and I would like to add a preferential looking study, but my resources here are limited. I will be recording my subjects' eye movements with a VHS camera and have no way of digitizing the recordings, so I cannot use a program for coding frame by frame. I don't have access to a special timing device for coding either. What I'm looking for is a way to use my computer as a timing device that will work for coding preferential looking in real time. I would greatly appreciate any suggestions. Thank you, Rachel Pulverman From sabahsafi at hotmail.com Sun Feb 8 07:40:46 2004 From: sabahsafi at hotmail.com (Sabah Safi) Date: Sun, 8 Feb 2004 07:40:46 -0000 Subject: language pathology Message-ID: Please post the following request: Dear Colleagues: I am in the process of doing a comprehensive review of research on Arabic Language Pathologies for the Encyclopedia of Arabic Language and Linguistics. Any references, suggestions, citations, etc., that I should not overlook would be most appreciated. Please send info to me directly at sabahsafi at hotmail.com. Many thanks, Sabah M.Z. Safi Associate Professor of Linguistics Dept. of European Lang. & Lit. King Abdulaziz University Jeddah -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Mon Feb 9 15:19:09 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 10:19:09 -0500 Subject: FW: Extended Deadline ARLA Vol. 4 Call for Papers: March 14th In-Reply-To: Message-ID: > > Extended Deadline ARLA Vol. 4 Call for Papers: March 14th > > THE ANNUAL REVIEW OF LANGUAGE ACQUISITION > VOL. 4 (2004) > > Editors > Clartje Levelt, Leiden University > Lynn Santelmann, Portland State University > Maaike Verrips, Taalstudio, the Netherlands > > ARLA is devoted to research in the domain of first language acquisition, > i.e., the process of acquiring command of a first language. It focuses on > research reported in recently defended PhD theses. The major share of > contributions to the yearbook consists of excerpts from, or edited summaries > of, dissertations addressing issues in first language acquisition, including > bilingual first language acquisition. These papers should be written by the > original author of the dissertation, conform to the format of a journal > article, and thus be comprehensible without reference to the source text. > > ARLA publishes reports of original research pertaining to various approaches > to first language and bilingual first language acquisition, be it > experimental, observational, computational, clinical or theoretical, > provided that the work is of high quality. The Annual Review also welcomes > studies in which first language acquisition is compared to second language > acquisition, as well as studies on language acquisition under abnormal > conditions. In all of the areas covered, ARLA is dedicated to creative and > groundbreaking research. > > The yearbook, in its printed form, will be supplemented by an attractive > website. The website will give access to electronic copies of the printed > papers, but, more importantly, will also present background materials such > as a resume for the author, excerpts of audio or video materials related to > the reported research, tips for further reading, and links to relevant > websites. In addition to the research reports sketched above, each issue of > the Annual Review contains one state-of-the-art review in a subdomain of > first language acquisition research. This paper is commissioned by the > editors. > > Any student who has completed a dissertation in 2002 or 2003 is invited to > submit a manuscript based on this work. In order to be eligible for > publication, the manuscript should be of outstanding quality. Particularly, > contributions are sought which excel with regard to the integration of > behavioral data and (psycho)linguistic theorizing. More specifically, the > Annual Review solicits papers which: > * develop new theoretical ideas to account for a set of facts; > * open up a new empirical domain or new set of data, e.g. explore a > relatively unknown language, or apply a new or unknown experimental > approach; > * report findings that are considered important for pertinent debates > in the field. > > Submitted papers will be thoroughly reviewed by at least two members of the > editorial board and/or external advisers. > > Deadline for submissions to the 2004 issue (Vol. 4): March 15, 2004 > > Address for correspondence: Editors of ARLA > UIL-OTS, Utrecht University > Trans 10 > 3512 JK Utrecht > The Netherlands > > For further information, write to: ARLA at let.uu.nl > , or visit the journals section at www.benjamins.com > > > ARLA Editorial Board > Peter Culicover, The Ohio State University > Katherine Demuth, Brown University > Jeff Elman, UCSD > Louann Gerken, University of Arizona > Marco Haverkort, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen > Jack Hoeksema, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen > Angeliek van Hout, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen > Nina Hyams, UCLA > Laurence B. Leonard, Purdue University > Natascha M?ller, Universit?t Hamburg > Johanne Paradis, University of Alberta > William Philip, Universiteit Utrecht > Thomas Roeper, University of Massachusetts, Amherst > Petra Schulz, Universit?t Konstanz > Ann Senghas, Barnard College > William Snyder, University of Connecticut > Daniel Swingley, Univerity of Pennsylvania > Karin Stromswold, Rutgers University > Jill de Villiers, Smith College > ___________________________________ > ARLA GUIDELINES FOR CONTRIBUTORS > > 1. All manuscripts should be addressed to the editors. All submission > letters must specify that the manuscript submitted is not under > consideration elsewhere and has not been published elsewhere in this or a > substantially similar form. > 2. Contributions should be in English. If not written by a native > speaker, it is advisable to have the paper checked by a native speaker. > 3. No page other than the cover pages should give the author's name. > The review of the manuscript will be anonymous. > 4. Submit four double-spaced typewritten copies (preferably 12-point > font) in conformance to APA style. The length of the manuscript should not > exceed 10.000 words. Include author name, title, full mailing address, > e-mail address and telephone numbers. > 5. An abstract should be included. This should not exceed 200 words. > 6. For the delivery of the final version, the article should be > presented on disk and saved on IBM-PC compatible or Mac disk. Material > should be saved in ASCII mode or 'non-document' mode, or 'text-only' mode. > It should also be saved as a separate file in the author's normal > word-processor format together with a note indicating the names of the word > processor used. The format of the disk (PC or Mac) should also be labeled on > the disk. An identical hard copy of the manuscript should be included. > 7. References in text - follow APA style. Cite references by last name > and year of publication. Three or more authors, cite complete names at > first mention. Then use et al. If there are more than 7 authors use et al. > first time. If there is more than one citation in text, list publications > chronologically (Bellugi, 1971, Brown, 1968, Klima & Bellugi,1966). > 8. Reference style - follow APA style, e.g., Single author works, list > chronologically; co-authored works, list alphabetically and then > chronologically; co-authored works (three or more authors) list > chronologically. List all authors, last name first, followed by initials. Do > not use et al. Spell out all journal names. > 9. Sample references: > Davies, I., Corbett, G., McGurk H. & Jerret, D. T. (1994). A > developmental study of the acquisition of colour terms in Setswana. Journal > of Child Language, 21, 693-712. > > Harris, T. & Wexler K. (1996). The optional-infinitive stage in > child English: Evidence from negation. In H. Clahsen (Ed.), Generative > perspectives on language acquisition. (pp.1-42). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. > > 10. Essential notes (Footnotes/Endnotes) should be numbered in the text > and grouped together at the end of the article. Diagrams and figures should > not be embedded within the text. Hard copy of all figures must be provided > along with any electronic files, for gray scales TIFF format is preferred, > for line drawings EPS format. > 11. A typescript not presented in accordance with these guidelines will > not undergo the reviewing process. It will be returned to the author for > appropriate modification. > > > > ------ End of Forwarded Message From sakas at hunter.cuny.edu Mon Feb 9 19:12:23 2004 From: sakas at hunter.cuny.edu (William Gregory Sakas) Date: Mon, 9 Feb 2004 14:12:23 -0500 Subject: Call for papers: Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition Message-ID: **************************************************************************** Call for Papers COLING-2004 Workshop: Psycho-computational Models of Human Language Acquisition Geneva Switzerland 28 August 2004 http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/ Workshop Topic -------------- The workshop will be devoted to psychologically motivated computational models of language acquisition -- models that are compatible with research in psycholinguistics, developmental psychology and linguistics -- with particular emphasis on the acquisition of syntax. Invited panel: Learning Biases in Language Acquisition Models ---------------------------------------------------------------- Walter Daelemans, Antwerp and Tilburg Charles D. Yang, Yale Invited speaker --------------- Elan Dresher, Toronto Workshop Description and Motivation ----------------------------------- In recent decades there has been a great deal of successful research that applies computational learning techniques to emerging natural language technologies, along with many meetings, conferences and workshops in which to present such research. However, there have been few venues in which psycho- computational models of how humans acquire their native language(s) are the focus. Psycho-computational models of language acquisition are of particular interest in light of recent results in developmental psychology which suggest that very young infants are adept at detecting statistical patterns in an audible input stream. However, this begs the question of whether or not a psychologically plausible statistical learning strategy can be successfully exploited in a full- blown psycho-computational acquisition model. Although there has been a significant amount of presented research targeted at modeling the acquisition of word categories and phonology, research aimed at psychologically motivated modeling of syntax acquisition has just begun to emerge. The principal goal of the workshop is to bring together researchers who work within computational linguistics, formal learning theory, machine learning, artificial intelligence, linguistics, psycholinguistics and other fields, and who have created or are investigating computational models of language acquisition. In particular, it will provide a forum for establishing links and common themes between diverse paradigms. Although research which directly addresses the acquisition of syntax is strongly encouraged, related studies that inform research on the acquisition of syntax are also welcome. Papers are invited on, but not limited to, the following topics: * Acquisition models that contain a parsing component * Models that have a cross-linguistic or bilingual perspective * Models that address the question of learning bias in terms of innate linguistic knowledge versus statistical regularity in the input * Models that can acquire natural language word-order * Hybrid models that cross established paradigms * Models that directly make use of or can be used to evaluate existing linguistic or developmental theories in a computational framework (e.g. the principles & parameters framework or Optimality Theory) * Empirical models that make use of child-directed corpora * Formal models that incorporate psychologically plausible constraints * Comparative surveys, across multiple paradigms, that critique previously published studies Paper Length: Submissions should be no longer than 8 pages (A4 or the equivalent). High-quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5 pages are encouraged. Submission and format details are below. Lunch session: Word-order acquisition -------------------------------------- The topic of this session will be the acquisition of different natural language word-orders. The workshop will provide a common test-bed of abstract sentence patterns from word order divergent languages. The shared data contains the sentence patterns and cross-linguistic fully-specified parses for each sentence pattern. The patterns are available at: www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar/data/allsentences.zip General information and a web interface for perusing the data can be found at: www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/grammar Due to the limited amount of time available to work with novel data, pilot studies are encouraged. The session will consist of short presentations and roundtable discussion. Submissions for this session are limited to 2 pages. Those who may be interested in submitting to this session should contact the workshop organizer before the submission deadline for further details. Dates of submissions Submission deadline: 30 March 2004 Acceptance notification: 14 May 2004 Camera-ready deadline: 10 June 2004 Workshop date: 28 August 2004 Workshop Organizer William Gregory Sakas, City University of New York (sakas at hunter.cuny.edu) Program Committee * Robert Berwick, MIT, USA * Antal van den Bosch, Tilburg University, The Netherlands * Ted Briscoe, University of Cambridge, UK * Damir Cavar, Indiana University, USA * Morten H. Christiansen, Cornell University, USA * Stephen Clark, University of Edinburgh, UK * James Cussens, University of York, UK * Walter Daelemans, University of Antwerp, Belgium and Tilburg University, The Netherlands * Jeffrey Elman, University of California, San Diego, USA * Janet Dean Fodor, City University of New York, USA * Gerard Kempen, Leiden University, The Netherlands and The Max Planck Institute, Nijmegen * Vincenzo Lombardo, University of Torino, Italy * Larry Moss, University of Indiana, USA * Miles Osborne, University of Edinburgh, UK * Dan Roth, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA * Ivan Sag, Stanford University, USA * Jeffrey Siskind, Purdue University, USA * Mark Steedman, University of Edinburgh, UK * Menno van Zaanen, Tilburg University, The Netherlands * Charles Yang, Yale University, USA Paper Submission ---------------- Length: Submissions should be no more than 8 pages (A4 or equivalent). High- quality short papers or extended abstracts of 4 to 5 pages are encouraged. Submissions to the lunch session on word-order should be up no more that 2 pages. (If accepted, final camera ready versions may be up to 8 pages or 5 pages for the word-order submissions.) Layout: Papers must conform to COLING 2004 formatting guidelines, available at: http://www.issco.unige.ch/coling2004/coling2004downloads.html Electronic Submission: All submissions will be by email. Reviews will be blind, so be careful not to disclose authorship or affiliation. PDF submissions are preferred and will be required for the final camera-ready copy. Submissions should be sent as an attachment to: Psycho.Comp at hunter.cuny.edu. The subject line must contain the single word: Submission. Please be sure to include accurate contact information in the body of the email. Contact: Psycho.Comp at hunter.cuny.edu or sakas at hunter.cuny.edu http://www.colag.cs.hunter.cuny.edu/psychocomp/ From eva.m.berglund at home.se Tue Feb 10 15:41:14 2004 From: eva.m.berglund at home.se (Eva Berglund) Date: Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:41:14 +0100 Subject: Word order in two-word child utterances Message-ID: Greetings, We are interested in the question of how or if the normal word order of a language affects the word order expressed in the earliest two word utterences children produce. The data we work with is from Swedish, which has the normal pattern of SVO, and we would like to look at comparable data from languages with other standard patterns. We have tentatively identified CHILDES data from Turkish, Farsi, Hungarian, Irish, Hebrew, Tamil, and Japanese for comparison. However, we suspect that we're not the first to think of this, and would like to hear from or of anyone who has looked at this question before, or anyone with advice on the best methodology to follow in approaching the question. Thanks in advance if anyone can be of help. Eva Berglund, Richard Fannon From j.lum at latrobe.edu.au Tue Feb 10 17:52:50 2004 From: j.lum at latrobe.edu.au (Jarrad Lum) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 04:52:50 +1100 Subject: Computer software & Head-Turning Task Message-ID: Dear Info-Childes, ' I am currently in the process of writing a computer program to run a 'Head-Turning Preference Task' to examine word recognition in young infants. Ideally, it was hoped to use E-Prime to write the experiment but I have come across a few problems using this software (especially in relation to the on-line scoring of the duration of children's head turns). Given this, I was wondering what software has been used in other labs. Any assistance that could be provided would be very much appreciated. Many thanks, Jarrad ------------------------------------------------------- Jarrad Lum School of Psychology, University of Wales Adeilad Brigantia Penrallt Road Gwynedd LL57 2AS United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1248 38 3621 Fax: +44 (0) 1248 38 2599 Email: j.lum at bangor.ac.uk From gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu Wed Feb 11 17:18:56 2004 From: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu (Gigliana Melzi) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 12:18:56 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic skills. Thanks, Gigliana Melzi **************************************************************************** ************ Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu New York University 239 Greene St., 5th fl. New York, NY 10003 **************************************************************************** ************ From gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu Wed Feb 11 18:17:28 2004 From: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu (Gigliana Melzi) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 13:17:28 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: <8779D38E-5CB8-11D8-9E99-000A959BF324@comdis.umass.edu> Message-ID: Dear all, We will be using the measure on children age 3. Thanks, Gigliana At 12:34 PM 2/11/04 -0500, Barbara Pearson wrote: >Dear Gigliana, >What age children??! > >Barbara > > P.S. Hi >On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Gigliana Melzi wrote: > >>Dear Colleagues, >> >>We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly >>Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the >>IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages >>other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if >>there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) >>that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic >>skills. >> >>Thanks, >> >>Gigliana Melzi >> >> >>*********************************************************************** >>***** ************ >>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>School of Education E-MAIL: >>gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>New York University >>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>New York, NY 10003 >>*********************************************************************** >>***** ************ >> >> > >***************************************** >Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. >Project Manager, Research Assistant >Dept. of Communication Disorders >University of Massachusetts >Amherst MA 01003 > >413.545.5023 >fax: 545.0803 > >bpearson at comdis.umass.edu >http://www.umass.edu/aae/ > **************************************************************************** ************ Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu New York University 239 Greene St., 5th fl. New York, NY 10003 **************************************************************************** ************ From ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu Wed Feb 11 19:44:35 2004 From: ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu (Ellina Chernobilsky) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:44:35 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: <4.2.2.20040211131610.00df2a80@pop3.norton.antivirus> Message-ID: >Dear all, > >We will be using the measure on children age 3. > >Thanks, > >Gigliana > >At 12:34 PM 2/11/04 -0500, Barbara Pearson wrote: >>Dear Gigliana, >>What age children??! >> >>Barbara >> >> P.S. Hi >>On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Gigliana Melzi wrote: >> >>>Dear Colleagues, >>> >>>We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly >>>Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the >>>IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages >>>other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if >>>there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) >>>that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic >>>skills. >>> >>>Thanks, >>> >>>Gigliana Melzi >>> >>> >>>*********************************************************************** >>>***** ************ >>>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>>School of Education E-MAIL: >>>gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>>New York University >>>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>>New York, NY 10003 >>>*********************************************************************** >>>***** ************ >>> >> >>***************************************** >>Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. >>Project Manager, Research Assistant >>Dept. of Communication Disorders >>University of Massachusetts >>Amherst MA 01003 >> >>413.545.5023 >>fax: 545.0803 >> >>bpearson at comdis.umass.edu >>http://www.umass.edu/aae/ >> > >**************************************************************************** >************ >Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >New York University >239 Greene St., 5th fl. >New York, NY 10003 >**************************************************************************** >************ -- Dear Gigliana: I have not founf IPSyn for other languages, however, in my recent research we have adapted IPSyn to look at the language competencies of bilingual 4-6 year olds. We looked at Russian/English speaking kids, and I am not pretty sure that IPSyn can be adapted to other languages as well. From ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu Wed Feb 11 19:51:49 2004 From: ellinac at email.eden.rutgers.edu (Ellina Chernobilsky) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 14:51:49 -0500 Subject: IPSYN or similar measure for Spanish and Mandarin speakers In-Reply-To: Message-ID: I am sorry, there was a typo in the message I had just sent. It shoudl read: We looked at Russian/English speaking kids, and I am NOW (not "not") pretty sure that IPSyn can be adapted to other languages as well. Sorry about that. Ellina >>Dear all, >> >>We will be using the measure on children age 3. >> >>Thanks, >> >>Gigliana >> >>At 12:34 PM 2/11/04 -0500, Barbara Pearson wrote: >>>Dear Gigliana, >>>What age children??! >>> >>>Barbara >>> >>> P.S. Hi >>>On Wednesday, February 11, 2004, at 12:18 PM, Gigliana Melzi wrote: >>> >>>>Dear Colleagues, >>>> >>>>We are proposing a study with Spanish and Chinese children (mostly >>>>Mandarin) and would like a measure of productive syntax, much like the >>>>IPSYN. Would any of you know if the IPSYN is available for languages >>>>other than English, in particular for Chinese and Spanish? Or, if >>>>there is another measure (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) >>>>that might be used to get a global score on children's syntactic >>>>skills. >>>> >>>>Thanks, >>>> >>>>Gigliana Melzi >>>> >>>> >>>>*********************************************************************** >>>>***** ************ >>>>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>>>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>>>School of Education E-MAIL: >>>>gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>>>New York University >>>>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>>>New York, NY 10003 >>>>*********************************************************************** >>>>***** ************ >>>> >>> >>>***************************************** >>>Barbara Zurer Pearson, Ph. D. >>>Project Manager, Research Assistant >>>Dept. of Communication Disorders >>>University of Massachusetts >>>Amherst MA 01003 >>> >>>413.545.5023 >>>fax: 545.0803 >>> >>>bpearson at comdis.umass.edu >>>http://www.umass.edu/aae/ >>> >> >>**************************************************************************** >>************ >>Gigliana Melzi, Ph.D. TELF: (212) 998-9023 >>Department of Applied Psychology FAX: (212) 995-4358 >>School of Education E-MAIL: gigliana.melzi at nyu.edu >>New York University >>239 Greene St., 5th fl. >>New York, NY 10003 >>**************************************************************************** >>************ > > >-- >Dear Gigliana: >I have not founf IPSyn for other languages, however, in my recent >research we have adapted IPSyn to look at the language competencies >of bilingual 4-6 year olds. We looked at Russian/English speaking >kids, and I am not pretty sure that IPSyn can be adapted to other >languages as well. -- From mminami at sfsu.edu Thu Feb 12 02:26:15 2004 From: mminami at sfsu.edu (mminami at sfsu.edu) Date: Wed, 11 Feb 2004 18:26:15 -0800 Subject: ICPLJ Message-ID: Can I ask post the following information? Thank you. --Masahiko Minami The Fourth Biennial International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) April 3 & 4, 2004 San Francisco State University Keynote Speakers: Timothy J. Vance, University of Arizona Harumi Befu, Stanford University ************************************************************************ Aims and Scope * ICPLJ is intended to bring together researchers on the cutting edge of Japanese linguistics and to offer a forum in which their research results can be presented in a form that is useful to those desiring practical applications in the fields of teaching Japanese as a second/foreign language and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology. * All topics in linguistics will be presented, including: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, lexicon, pragmatics (discourse analysis), second language acquisition (bilingualism). Dear Colleague, The Fourth Biennial International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) will be held on April 3-4, 2002 (Saturday and Sunday) at San Francisco State University (Humanities Auditorium). This conference is intended to bring together researchers on the cutting edge of Japanese linguistics and to offer a forum in which their research results can be presented in a form that is applicable to those desiring practical applications in the fields of teaching Japanese as a second/foreign language and computer-assisted language learning (CALL) technology. The invited keynote speaker is Prof. Timothy Vance (University of Arizona) and Prof. Harumi Befu (Stanford University). The Fourth ICPLJ program is shown below. For details, visit our web sites: http://www.sfsu.edu/~japanese/conference/ http://www.sfsu.edu/~japanese/conference/ConfProgram.html For further information, contact: Dr. Masahiko Minami, Conference Chair Fourth Biennial International Conference on Practical Linguistics of Japanese (ICPLJ) Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 Telephone: (415) 338-7451 e-mail: icplj at sfsu.edu -- ********************************** Dr. Masahiko Minami Department of Foreign Languages San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 (415) 338-7451 http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~mminami/ ********************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ophe at hkusua.hku.hk Fri Feb 13 04:47:56 2004 From: ophe at hkusua.hku.hk (Ophelia Mak) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 12:47:56 +0800 Subject: About Null Subjects in Autistic Children Message-ID: Dear all, I am now doing a thesis on the topic of null subjects in autistic children. Could anyone kindly suggest some related papers? Thank you. Regards, Ophelia Mak From ophe at hkusua.hku.hk Fri Feb 13 05:19:58 2004 From: ophe at hkusua.hku.hk (Ophelia Mak) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 13:19:58 +0800 Subject: About pronoun reversal and name substitution Message-ID: Dear all, When I am analyzing the corpus of an autistic children, I find that pronoun reversal and name substitution occur in the same sentence. Is there any specific term for such a case? Thank you. Regards, Ophelia Mak From kei at aya.yale.edu Fri Feb 13 07:17:51 2004 From: kei at aya.yale.edu (Kei Nakamura) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 16:17:51 +0900 Subject: Call for papers for JSLS2004- please post to list Message-ID: Dear Ms. Sacco, Please post the following final call for papers for JSLS2004 to the info-childes mailing list. Thank you for your help. Sincerely, Kei Nakamura Keio University Final Call for Papers: JSLS2004 6th Annual Conference of the Japanese Society for Languages July 17-18, 2004 Nagoya, Japan Deadline for abstracts: February 28, 2004 http://cow.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jsls/2004/cfp-e.htm -------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Japanese Society for Language Sciences invites proposals for our Sixth Annual International Conference, JSLS 2004. We welcome proposals for paper and poster presentations and for one symposium. As keynote speakers, we will invite Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) and Yukio Otsu (Keio University). JSLS2004 Conference Committee Chair Susanne Miyata (Aichi Shukutoku University) Conference Dates/ Location The Sixth Annual International Conference of the Japanese Society for Language Sciences will be held as follows: (1) July 17 (Saturday)- 18 (Sunday), 2004 (2) Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, Japan Submissions We would like to encourage submissions on research pertaining to language sciences, including linguistics, psychology, education, computer science, brain science, and philosophy, among others. We will not commit ourselves to one or a few particular theoretical frameworks. We will respect any scientific endeavor that aims to contribute to a better understanding of the human mind and the brain through language. Submission Deadline All submissions should be e-mailed by February 28, 2004 (Sunday). Submission guidelines are available on the JSLS 2004 website at: http://cow.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/jsls/2004/cfp-e.htm All questions regarding the JSLS 2004 conference should be addressed to: Kei Nakamura JSLS 2004 Conference Coordinator 14-21 Sarugakucho Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033 JAPAN e-mail: kei at aya.yale.edu Aichi Shukutoku University, Nagoya, Japan The Japanese Society for Language Sciences invites proposals for our Sixth Annual International Conference, JSLS 2004. We welcome proposals for paper and poster presentations. As keynote speakers, we will invite Bonnie Schwartz (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) and Yukio Otsu (Keio University). JSLS2004 Committee Chair: Susanne Miyata (Aichi Shukutoku University) Qualifications for Presenters All presenters should be members of JSLS by May 24, 2004. (It is not necessary for co-presenters to be members.) Please refer to the following website for membership information: http://jchat.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp/JSLS/ All presenters should pre-register for the JSLS 2004 conference by May 24, 2004. Papers should be original and unpublished. We will accept multiple submissions from the same individual, however, you can only be the single or first author of one paper. Each presentation will be 25 minutes long. (20 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for Q&A). The language of presentations may be either Japanese or English. Submission Deadline & Review Process All submissions should be e-mailed by February 28, 2004 (Sunday). Please send the following items to the review committee chairperson, Hirohide Mori. Paper and poster presentations We will only accept submissions via e-mail. Please send your submissions to the following address, in the following manner: To: jsls2004-submission at nausicaa.cyber.sccs.chukyo-u.ac.jp Subject: Paper Submission (or Poster Submission) Send the following application form in the main text, and your abstract as an attachment. (1) Application form presentation title presentation category (paper or poster) name of presenter(s), affiliation(s) mailing address email address telephone number language of the paper/poster language of the presentation (only for papers) keywords (about 5 words) (2) Title and Abstract (a) Format paper: maximum 4 pages (including title, tables, figures, & references) poster: 2 pages (including title, tables, figures, & references) (Do not include any information which may reveal your identity.) paper size: A4 or letter-size margins: in the case of A4: Up and Bottom: 30mm Left and Right: 25mm In the case of letter-size All: 1 inch font style: Times New Roman (or similar one) font size: Body: 12 point Notes & References:10 point (b) save the file as ''pdf file'' or ''text file''. Please note that other formats will not be accepted. (c) save your file under your own name (eg.: brown-roger.pdf). Each abstract will be reviewed anonymously by several reviewers. Notification of acceptance will be made by early May. (Some ''paper'' proposals might be accepted as ''poster'' presentations.) If your proposal is accepted, you will be requested to send a copy of your paper (Maximum length for papers is 6-pages, for posters 2-pages) by May 24. This paper will appear in the Conference Handbook. Excellent papers may be published as a collection of papers titled ''Studies in Language Sciences''. Symposium We will only accept submissions via e-mail for the symposium until February 28, 2004. Please send an e-mail proposal to the following address, in the following manner: To: hiromori at dc4.so-net.ne.jp Subject: Symposium Proposal Please send your abstract in the main text (not as an attachment). (1) Application Form symposium title name of the organizer(s) and affiliation(s) email address telephone number name and affiliations of symposium speakers (2) a detailed abstract consisting of an outline of the symposium with abstracts from each speaker. Overall length: 800 to 1600 words in English or 3000 to 6000 characters (moji)in Japanese (equivalent to two to four pages on A4 or letter-size paper). All questions regarding the JSLS 2004 conference should be addressed to: Kei Nakamura JSLS 2004 Conference Coordinator 14-21 Sarugakucho, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0033 JAPAN e-mail: kei at aya.yale.edu Inquiries by phone will not be accepted. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Fri Feb 13 15:35:26 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Fri, 13 Feb 2004 10:35:26 -0500 Subject: Tenth National/International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome Message-ID: Meeting Announcement - Call for Papers Tenth National/International Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome July 25 & 26, 2004 Hosted by the Williams Syndrome Association The Professional Conference on Williams Syndrome (WS) will feature keynote speakers as well as platform and poster presentations on a variety of topics relating to Williams syndrome. We are particularly interested in receiving abstracts on the following topics: molecular genetics of WS; genotype-phenotype correlations; natural history and medical management; brain structure and neuroimaging;behavioral and psychiatric issues; language and cognition; developmental/vocational assessments and interventions. To receive the meeting announcement and call for papers, please contact: Teresa F. Doyle, PhD, Laboratory for Cognitive Neuroscience, The Salk Institute, doyle at lcn.salk.edu, (858) 453-4100, ext 1662. Abstract submission deadline is March 26, 2004. From asanord at ling.gu.se Mon Feb 16 09:37:14 2004 From: asanord at ling.gu.se (Asa Nordqvist) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:37:14 +0200 Subject: ref on blind children's lang dev Message-ID: Dear colleagues, I am searching for references on blind children's early language and conceptual development, can anyone help me? Thanks on beforehand Asa N -- =============================================== Asa Nordqvist, PhD Department of Languages / Finnish P.O. Box 35 (F) FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland tel. +358-14-260-1438 fax: +358-14-260-1431 e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ Also affiliated at: Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University Box 200 SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden =============================================== From sglennen at towson.edu Mon Feb 16 16:49:32 2004 From: sglennen at towson.edu (Glennen, Sharon) Date: Mon, 16 Feb 2004 11:49:32 -0500 Subject: Russian Language Development Message-ID: Dear Colleagues, I am seeking information on the developmental chronology of morphological acquisition in Russian. Does anyone have any resources on this topic? Thanks! Sharon Glennen, Ph.D Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders Towson University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From hyams at humnet.ucla.edu Tue Feb 17 23:05:51 2004 From: hyams at humnet.ucla.edu (Hyams, Nina) Date: Tue, 17 Feb 2004 15:05:51 -0800 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Can anyone point me to a set of guidelines/instructions on calculating MLU in morphologically rich languages. Thanks, Nina Hyams From ykchang24 at hanmail.net Wed Feb 18 04:18:52 2004 From: ykchang24 at hanmail.net (You-Kyung Chang) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 13:18:52 +0900 Subject: wordless picture book reading Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Feb 18 08:39:55 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:39:55 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Dear Nina, We have struggled with the issue of MLU for Hebrew - a morphologically complex language- and here are a few of the more general principles which were adopted: - I am not stating here language specific characteristics but there are also some general things which I think would be relevant to most languages even if their typology is unlike that of the Semitic languages. The problem is how not to have inflated counts, since you want to be able to compare children cross-linguistically and how not to give credit for rote learnt morphologically complex forms. Here is what we do: 1. MLU of a single utterance can never be more than 9 2. MLU of a single word cannot be more than 2 3. If the language has grammatical gender which is extensively marked on various parts of speech, the count varies according to the sex of the child since a girl is addressed in the feminine and a boy in the mas. and thus, early on they encounter different forms with different frequency. a few specific decisions are required with respect to such forms. 4. Inflected pronouns are counted as 1 5. First person forms are counted as 1 I hope this helps! Yonata. *********************************************** Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (w) 972-2-6424957 (h) Fax: 972-2-5881159 ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hyams, Nina" To: Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 1:05 AM Subject: MLU counts > Can anyone point me to a set of guidelines/instructions on calculating MLU > in morphologically rich languages. > > Thanks, > Nina Hyams > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Feb 18 15:51:15 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 10:51:15 -0500 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <001c01c3f5fa$c927e550$11ba4084@WIN2000PRO> Message-ID: Dear Nina, Yonata, and Info-CHILDES, The discussion of how to handle MLU in morphologically rich languages has been on the table since the 1960s without any real resolution. Yonata's guidelines seem to reflect current state of the art and seem just about right. However, it seems to me that people working with morphologically rich languages should really compute two indices. The first would not be cross-linguistically meaningful, but would be maximally meaningful within the language. That index would count morphemes in terms of what they express. Here, you still may wish to be a bit conservative. For example, do you really want to count the German article "die" as four morphemes (definite, case, number, gender)? I would say not. Maybe two morphemes would be about right (definiteness and case-number-gender). The second MLU for morphologically rich languages should be constructed on the basis of a real comparative program of research. Comparing normal children of similar ages in similar urban (or rural) environments and similar (mutually culturally relevant) activities, can you come up with a method of scoring that yields parallel counts across morphologically rich language (Hebrew, Inuktitut, Hungarian) and an analytic one (English, Chinese). As far as I can tell no one has yet attempted this obviously important but perfectly feasible study. --Brian MacWhinney From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Feb 18 16:13:21 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 18:13:21 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Dear Brian, What you say is exactly what we have been trying to accomplish - there are details that pertain to the language which guide one in the decision of which morphemes should be counted - gender, root, case - however, the ultimate goal of MLU is comparability both within a language and cross-linguistically. To achieve that, or come close to it, one has to set some ad hoc rules like the ones I suggested - never count a single lexical item as longer than 2 or a single utterance as longer than 9. I am not sure about the 9 though - it may be too high. Why do you think that there might be a way to count MLU that will work for diverse languages with rich morphologies? My understanding of comparative grammar is that there is no such dividing line between syntax and morphology. therefore a system should be constructed that will enable comparative studies regardless of the typology of the language. So, here we are again - we need to propose language specific+language general ways of reducing the count to the levels which have been set mostly by developmental studies of English . Alternatively, we may try to construct a generalized scale that will be based on a sample of languages for the sake of cross linguistic research. Yonata ________________________ Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (o) Fax: 972-2-5881159 972-2-6424957 (h) e-mail: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian MacWhinney" To: "Yonata Levy" ; "Hyams, Nina" ; Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 5:51 PM Subject: Re: MLU counts > Dear Nina, Yonata, and Info-CHILDES, > The discussion of how to handle MLU in morphologically rich languages has > been on the table since the 1960s without any real resolution. Yonata's > guidelines seem to reflect current state of the art and seem just about > right. However, it seems to me that people working with morphologically > rich languages should really compute two indices. The first would not be > cross-linguistically meaningful, but would be maximally meaningful within > the language. That index would count morphemes in terms of what they > express. Here, you still may wish to be a bit conservative. For example, > do you really want to count the German article "die" as four morphemes > (definite, case, number, gender)? I would say not. Maybe two morphemes > would be about right (definiteness and case-number-gender). > The second MLU for morphologically rich languages should be constructed on > the basis of a real comparative program of research. Comparing normal > children of similar ages in similar urban (or rural) environments and > similar (mutually culturally relevant) activities, can you come up with a > method of scoring that yields parallel counts across morphologically rich > language (Hebrew, Inuktitut, Hungarian) and an analytic one (English, > Chinese). As far as I can tell no one has yet attempted this obviously > important but perfectly feasible study. > > --Brian MacWhinney > From macw at cmu.edu Wed Feb 18 16:19:25 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:19:25 -0500 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <000f01c3f63a$20df3160$2f204084@WIN2000PRO> Message-ID: Dear Yonata, Great to know you are working to accomplish just this. I agree that the ultimate goal of MLU is comparability within a language and cross-linguistically. However, I am just wondering whether it may be best to consider these comparisons as two separate goals. The great thing about computer technology like CLAN is that, with the right set of dashes, ampersands, and pluses (and perhaps liberal use of CHSTRING), you can compute both sets of MLUs on a data set in either minutes or perhaps hours. It may be that the two different MLUs (the rich language-internal one and the leaner crossl-linguistic one) work equivalently for language-internal comparisons and predictions, but my guess is that the language-internal MLU will be best for language-internal purposes. I think your second point is that we need to recalibrate each morphologically-rich language MLU for comparison with the English standard. I agree completely with that. There is no single algorithm that will work across all languages for that task. --Brian MacWhinney From dalep at health.missouri.edu Wed Feb 18 17:17:00 2004 From: dalep at health.missouri.edu (Dale, Philip S.) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 11:17:00 -0600 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: I, too, think it is essential to distinguish the within-language use of MLU or similar measures from the cross-linguistic use. But the latter use has a whole set of challenges, of which the primary one is knowing what is the proper criterion or set of criteria for judging how satisfactory the measure is. That is, if we are using the measure to "line up" children acquiring different languages, how do we do know we're doing it appropriately? We can't use chronological age as a benchmark (i.e., the relation of the measure to age), because that assumes a uniformity of rate of acquisition of grammar across languages. We can't use rate of vocabulary growth as the benchmark, even though there is a high correlation of grammar with vocabulary, because rates of vocabulary growth show some substantial variation across language (compare English, Chinese, Danish). In general, we can't use a comparison of similar, specific grammatical forms across languages (i.e., do suffixes expressing tense/aspect appear at the same level of the measure?), because the most common use of such a measure across languages is precisely to compare *different* forms expressing similar meanings. I'd be interesting in hearing suggestions about proposed evaluation criteria for a new measure. Philip Dale From hyams at humnet.ucla.edu Wed Feb 18 17:50:10 2004 From: hyams at humnet.ucla.edu (Hyams, Nina) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 09:50:10 -0800 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Thank you all for your input on MLU counts. I am aware of all the difficulties in using MLU cross-linguistically from my early work on Italian and English, languages with quite different morphological systems. What I was interested in now was MLU as a measure within a single language with very rich verbal inflection, one that has not been studied to my knowledge -- Malagasy. With respect to the issue of devising a valid cross-linguistic measure, it is likely that any such measure will have to consist of several factors. This was done by Kamil Ud Deen (University of Hawaii) in his UCLA dissertation on acquisition of Nairobi Swahili. Kamil devised a composite measure of linguistic development that consisted of 3 factors -- MLU, verbs per utterance (suggested by Virginia Valian), and frequency of mono-syllabic place holders (as per Bottari et al). He ranked his children on each individual measure and then on all 3 measures together, which resulted in a similar ranking, leading some credibility to the system. In such a system the degree of morphological richness of the language will not weigh as heavily. It might be worthwhile to try a system like Kamil's in other languages to see whether it is reliable cross-linguistically. Thanks again for all the advice. Nina - From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Wed Feb 18 18:11:33 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 20:11:33 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Hi Nina, I think you are right in that a composite measure will require not just MLU but other measures. This should begin to answer Phil's query too - we use MLU as well as percent of sentences longer than 5 when we equate children as per developmental stage. The latter is suppose to addressed the problems that central measures usually have. I think that the aim is to suggest measures that are theory-free and that can be achieved independent of grammatical analysis. Would you consider verbs per utterance such a measure? Yonata. ________________________ Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (o) Fax: 972-2-5881159 972-2-6424957 (h) e-mail: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "Hyams, Nina" To: "'Brian MacWhinney'" ; "Yonata Levy" ; Sent: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 7:50 PM Subject: RE: MLU counts > Thank you all for your input on MLU counts. I am aware of all the > difficulties in using MLU cross-linguistically from my early work on Italian > and English, languages with quite different morphological systems. What I > was interested in now was MLU as a measure within a single language with > very rich verbal inflection, one that has not been studied to my knowledge > -- Malagasy. > > With respect to the issue of devising a valid cross-linguistic measure, it > is likely that any such measure will have to consist of several factors. > This was done by Kamil Ud Deen (University of Hawaii) in his UCLA > dissertation on acquisition of Nairobi Swahili. Kamil devised a composite > measure of linguistic development that consisted of 3 factors -- MLU, verbs > per utterance (suggested by Virginia Valian), and frequency of mono-syllabic > place holders (as per Bottari et al). He ranked his children on each > individual measure and then on all 3 measures together, which resulted in a > similar ranking, leading some credibility to the system. In such a system > the degree of morphological richness of the language will not weigh as > heavily. It might be worthwhile to try a system like Kamil's in other > languages to see whether it is reliable cross-linguistically. > > Thanks again for all the advice. > Nina > > - > From margaretmfleck at yahoo.com Wed Feb 18 23:33:01 2004 From: margaretmfleck at yahoo.com (Margaret Fleck) Date: Wed, 18 Feb 2004 15:33:01 -0800 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <959F5DC74A30D511BFE600D0B77E5199055856AA@bert.humnet.ucla.edu> Message-ID: How (briefly) was "verb" defined here? E.g. does it include words describing states (e.g. tall) which act as verbs in some languages but require an easily-omitted auxiliary verb in others (e.g. English)? How does one decide what to count as a verb in a language like English which has many words whose part of speech is ambiguous due to lack of morphological markings? ???? Margaret --- "Hyams, Nina" wrote: > With respect to the issue of devising a valid cross-linguistic measure, it > is likely that any such measure will have to consist of several factors. > This was done by Kamil Ud Deen (University of Hawaii) in his UCLA > dissertation on acquisition of Nairobi Swahili. Kamil devised a composite > measure of linguistic development that consisted of 3 factors -- MLU, verbs > per utterance (suggested by Virginia Valian), ..... From joko.k at polmed.ac.id Thu Feb 19 04:21:52 2004 From: joko.k at polmed.ac.id (Joko Kusmanto Damanhuri) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 11:21:52 +0700 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: <20040218233301.25635.qmail@web60303.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: dear all, Thank to Nina Hyams for raising this issue here and all who have made the contribution on this issue. I also have had problems with MLU to measure the acquisition of Indonesian, particularly pertaining to the acquisition of verbal affixation. Then, I tried to take a look at Predominant Lenght of Utterance (PLU)which is said to be more flexible. I like to know what you all think about PLU. Which one can work across languages? This is one of papers on PLU that I found at www.cog.jhu.edu/faculty/legendre/papers/techreport-mlu.pdf and I quote the abstract. Best, Joko K. Damanhuri PLU-Stages: An Independent Measure of Early Syntactic Development ABSTRACT This paper describes a new method for determining early syntactic stages. The method is related to the traditional notion of MLU (Mean Length of Utterance), and relies on the traditional idea of a one-word stage, a two-word stage, and a multiword stage. At each stage, the predominant length of utterance is determined, resulting in our PLU-stages (Predominant Length of Utterance). The proposed method reflects our best attempt to construct a standard of early syntactic development that is independent of the child?s age, and is also independent of any particular syntactic construction. Such an independent measure should facilitate comparison of naturalistic data across children within the same language, as well as comparison of data across languages. The measure we have developed does indeed show promise in cross-linguistic comparison of syntactic development for languages such as French, Swedish, English, Polish and Russian. From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Thu Feb 19 07:01:12 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 09:01:12 +0200 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: Hi, Concerning Nina and Kamil's suggestions - I don't think verbs are theory free - wouldn't you want to take predicates rather than verbs? - but perhaps they are a good measure nevertheless, given the inherent difficulties in all other measures. In fact it seems that what we are looking for are domain general measures such as length or place holders (which should not be a trick that is unique to language. On can conceive of other systems that require place holders for awhile, until the child has acquired the correct feature. Drawing, reading and writing and event recall are examples that come to mind). These domain general measures that are accessible to the researchers should be highly correlated with linguistic structure with the latter being construed as descriptive, rather than theory dependent . This I think is somewhat different than thinking about MLU as language general vs. langauge specific. Yonata. From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Thu Feb 19 13:08:11 2004 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Mueller Gathercole) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:08:11 +0000 Subject: MLU counts Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu Thu Feb 19 13:37:39 2004 From: swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 08:37:39 -0500 Subject: MLU counts In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Folks, Didn't Joseph Greenberg write something in the late fifties or early sixties in which he tried to count morphemes and compare complexity across languages? Sorry to be so vague, but all I really remember about the article was that it was interesting and somewhat involved. I've searched but can no longer reconstruct the reference to the original work. Does anyone know the article I'm thinking about? Sheri Sheri At 10:51 AM 2/18/04 -0500, you wrote: >Dear Nina, Yonata, and Info-CHILDES, > The discussion of how to handle MLU in morphologically rich languages has >been on the table since the 1960s without any real resolution. Yonata's >guidelines seem to reflect current state of the art and seem just about >right. However, it seems to me that people working with morphologically >rich languages should really compute two indices. The first would not be >cross-linguistically meaningful, but would be maximally meaningful within >the language. That index would count morphemes in terms of what they >express. Here, you still may wish to be a bit conservative. For example, >do you really want to count the German article "die" as four morphemes >(definite, case, number, gender)? I would say not. Maybe two morphemes >would be about right (definiteness and case-number-gender). > The second MLU for morphologically rich languages should be constructed on >the basis of a real comparative program of research. Comparing normal >children of similar ages in similar urban (or rural) environments and >similar (mutually culturally relevant) activities, can you come up with a >method of scoring that yields parallel counts across morphologically rich >language (Hebrew, Inuktitut, Hungarian) and an analytic one (English, >Chinese). As far as I can tell no one has yet attempted this obviously >important but perfectly feasible study. > >--Brian MacWhinney * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Bowling Green State University MA TESL Program http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tesl/ Office: 423 East Hall (419) 372-8935 Homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From plahey at mindspring.com Thu Feb 19 21:54:22 2004 From: plahey at mindspring.com (Peg Lahey) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 16:54:22 -0500 Subject: BLCF scholarships Message-ID: I would appreciate it if you would remind any eligible doctoral students focusing on children's language disorders that scholarships from the Bamford-Lahey Children's Foundation are available on our website http://bamford-lahey.org/scholarships.html and are due April 1, 2004. Thanks, Peg Lahey -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ann at hawaii.edu Fri Feb 20 00:22:50 2004 From: ann at hawaii.edu (Ann Peters) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 14:22:50 -1000 Subject: more thoughts on MLU Message-ID: I would like to add some thoughts following on from Ginny's. A basic issue for me has been: how many *separate pieces* of language can a particular child assemble at a given time? Asking such a question would lead me to count both 'fall' and 'fell' as single units. It would further lead me to ask whether an expression such as 'pi(ck)-ya-up' always occurred as an unanalyzed unit (in which case I would count it as one) or if it contrasted with 'pick it/them up' etc. Similarly I would count the German article 'die' as one, unless I were directly dealing with issues of contrast in number, case, and/or gender. The down side of such an approach is that one can't make an automatic count of a child's MLU, since it requires knowing which collocations are productive for a particular child. Of course, one can ask other kinds of questions, such as: how many contrastive *meanings* can a child encode into a sentence? in which case one might need different rules for counting. This suggests that there is not one single "MLU" measure that suffices for all purposes. One problem I have been struggling with is how to count "filler syllables", that seem to be separate "units" in a phonological sense, but don't carry much (if anything) in the way of meaning. I find that I want more than one count - at a minimum MLU in open-class "words", MLU in number of identifiable morphemes, and a measure that counts fillers as well. A final cross-linguistic thought: even if one took a construction grammar approach, it might turn out that the number of "meaningful units" that a child could *combine* might be more or less equatable across languages, and that "stages" could be computable in that way. ann **************************** Dr. Ann M. Peters, Professor Emeritus Graduate Chair http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/ Department of Linguistics University of Hawai`i email: ann at hawaii.edu 1890 East West Road, Rm 569 phone: 808 956-3241 Honolulu, HI 96822 fax: 808 956-9166 http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/ann/ From stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca Fri Feb 20 01:03:22 2004 From: stemberg at interchange.ubc.ca (Joseph Stemberger) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 17:03:22 -0800 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: Message-ID: A few thoughts about adult language and its relevance to MLU counts: I agree with Ann Peters when she says: > A basic issue for me has been: how many *separate pieces* of language can > a particular child assemble at a given time? Asking such a question would > lead me to count both 'fall' and 'fell' as single units. But what about WALKED, in the speech of a child who uses -ED over 90% of the time in obligatory environments and makes overregularization errors? I think that many or even most would be tempted to count WALKED as two morphemes. But there are numerous papers on adult processing that suggest that at least some regularly inflected forms are stored in the lexicon. Alegre & Gordon suggest that any regular past tense form with a frequency over 6 tokens per million words of speech is stored. Ullman argues that forms like BLINKED, with bases that rime with families of irregular forms, are stored in the lexicon. Other researchers go even further. Are these regular forms stored in such a way that they are processed like single units, or is processing complex enough that they still count as "separate pieces of language"? I don't think that we know the answer to that question FOR ADULTS, much less for children. I think that we're going to have to accept that the facts are complex enough that we aren't going to have a resolution of this anytime soon. A question about comparing MLU across languages. Presumably, if we calculate the MLU of the speech of adults to adults in different languages, we'll get different mean MLU's for different languages. Presumably, we'll find those same differences in speech by adults to children. Is there any way to take the differences in MLU in adult speech in different languages, and create a way to adjust child MLU's to equate for inherent differences between the languages? ---Joe Stemberger UBC From macw at cmu.edu Fri Feb 20 03:14:11 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:14:11 -0500 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: <40355CDA.60605@interchange.ubc.ca> Message-ID: On 2/19/04 8:03 PM, "Joseph Stemberger" wrote: > Is there any way to take the differences in MLU in adult speech in > different languages, and create a way to adjust child MLU's to equate > for inherent differences between the languages? > Joe, How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. Since you would have a complete morphemicization of both your child corpora and the Bible, you could just vary strings in CLAN or run global replacements, as I suggested in my earlier message. Using this method you can compute Brown MLU, Peters MLU, Stemberger-cautious MLU, Stemberger-Radical MLU, dual-system MLU, and whatever. For each, you would correct by the Bible using the matching system. However, the real proof of the pudding is whether MLU predicts anything. I think that, despite many papers to the contrary in books on developmental methodology, the obvious candidate is age (across some large sample, of course). For me, the MLU measure that correlates best with age is the best language-internal MLU measure. What would be really neat is getting a Bible-corrected MLU that ended up not only predicting age within the language, but which yields corrected values that actually look similar cross-linguistically. However, as Yonata noted in an offline message to me, all of this becomes impossible if you have to do hand computation of morphemes. It only works if you have automatic morphological analysis as we now have for English, Japanese, and Spanish. (Cantonese, Italian, and French are still not good enough for this). Oh, yes, one other thing is that you would have to add a bunch of rather strange words for Bible, such as "gnash" and "disciple", probably sticking with the New Testament. --Brian From msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il Fri Feb 20 07:18:25 2004 From: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il (Yonata Levy) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:18:25 +0200 Subject: more thoughts on MLU Message-ID: Hi, I too find MLU an interesting theoretical question however, there is the practical problem too - until we figure out what MLU really is, what it should correlate with, how it connects to variability in adult speech and to language typology - all of which are fascinating issues! - we need a way to calculate MLU in the morphologically rich languages that are currently under study, that will enable comparability. I believe this is doable and it is something that we need to provide our community with. Yonata. ________________________ Prof. Yonata Levy Psychology Department The Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel 91905 Phone: 972-2-5883408 (o) Fax: 972-2-5881159 972-2-6424957 (h) e-mail: msyonata at mscc.huji.ac.il ----- Original Message ----- From: "Brian MacWhinney" To: "Joseph Stemberger" ; Sent: Friday, February 20, 2004 5:14 AM Subject: Re: more thoughts on MLU > On 2/19/04 8:03 PM, "Joseph Stemberger" wrote: > > > Is there any way to take the differences in MLU in adult speech in > > different languages, and create a way to adjust child MLU's to equate > > for inherent differences between the languages? > > > Joe, > > How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, > morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then > compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. > > Since you would have a complete morphemicization of both your child corpora > and the Bible, you could just vary strings in CLAN or run global > replacements, as I suggested in my earlier message. Using this method you > can compute Brown MLU, Peters MLU, Stemberger-cautious MLU, > Stemberger-Radical MLU, dual-system MLU, and whatever. For each, you would > correct by the Bible using the matching system. > > However, the real proof of the pudding is whether MLU predicts anything. I > think that, despite many papers to the contrary in books on developmental > methodology, the obvious candidate is age (across some large sample, of > course). For me, the MLU measure that correlates best with age is the best > language-internal MLU measure. What would be really neat is getting a > Bible-corrected MLU that ended up not only predicting age within the > language, but which yields corrected values that actually look similar > cross-linguistically. > > However, as Yonata noted in an offline message to me, all of this becomes > impossible if you have to do hand computation of morphemes. It only works > if you have automatic morphological analysis as we now have for English, > Japanese, and Spanish. (Cantonese, Italian, and French are still not good > enough for this). Oh, yes, one other thing is that you would have to add a > bunch of rather strange words for Bible, such as "gnash" and "disciple", > probably sticking with the New Testament. > > --Brian > > From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 08:46:21 2004 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Mueller Gathercole) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:46:21 +0000 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: Message-ID: >How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, >morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then >compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. Hi, Brian, The Bible may not work for all languages. An important case would be Arabic. First of all, the religious text is the Koran, which is written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. So even getting MLU counts from the Koran may not reflect the MLU counts in vernacular speech of adults (whether adult-adult or adult-child). It is possible that there are translations of the Bible into Arabic, but (apart from any concerns for cultural sensitivities in using the Bible instead of the Koran) it is likely that such a translation would still be written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. Ginny -- Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Ph.D. Reader Ysgol Seicoleg School of Psychology Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor University of Wales, Bangor Adeilad Brigantia The Brigantia Building Ffordd Penrallt Penrallt Road Bangor LL57 2AS Bangor LL57 2AS Cymru Wales | /\ | / \/\ Tel: 44 (0)1248 382624 | /\/ \ \ Fax: 44 (0)1248 382599 | / ======\=\ | B A N G O R From k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 11:52:39 2004 From: k.j.alcock at lancaster.ac.uk (Alcock, Katherine) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:52:39 -0000 Subject: more thoughts on MLU Message-ID: There are almost certainly translations of the Christian Bible into more languages than any other document, and one of these is Modern Arabic. Languages that have an orthography often have it because it has been used to translate the Bible or portions of it. When this is done, it is always into the version of the language that is current at the time, although this can date extremely rapidly in many cases, so there should not be a problem with recent translations, about the version of the language used being up-to-date. However, the style in different translations in English varies considerably and therefore I would imagine also the MLU. For example the first half verse of the gospel of John in (first) the King James version and (second) the Contemporary English version: In the beginning was the Word In the beginning was the one who is called the Word. As translators who have written the (only, or most recent) translation of a bible into a particular language have had to make a decision about what style to write in, some will have chosen a more literal or literary style (as in the KJV) and some a more casual, spoken style or a more explanatory style (as in the CEV). So in some languages only one or the other will exist. Many languages in addition do not have orthographies - one of the languages that I have worked on, and tried to get measures of MLU (Kigiriama), does not have an orthography of its own, and literacy specialists are trying to construct one more suited to its phonology. However, most of the languages that we work on do have orthographies and extensive portions of ancient and modern literature. In looking at verb frames in Kiswahili, which does have some ancient and modern literature, we used three corpora: an oral history that had been written down (current, conversational language), newspaper articles (current, more literary language) and the published version of 1001 Nights, that we chose because we would also be able to find an English version (older, more literary language). Although newspaper articles are not going to have exactly the same concepts in them, given the variety of ways of expressing the same concept that exist in different English translations of the bible, these might be a helpful resource for comparison, too. Katie Alcock -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Ginny Mueller Gathercole Sent: Fri 2/20/2004 11:46 AM To: Brian MacWhinney; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Cc: Subject: Re: more thoughts on MLU >How about this method: You take the Bible in its various translations, >morphemicize it, devise a counting system, compute Bible MLU and then >compute corrected child MLU as the ratio of raw child MLU over Bible MLU. Hi, Brian, The Bible may not work for all languages. An important case would be Arabic. First of all, the religious text is the Koran, which is written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. So even getting MLU counts from the Koran may not reflect the MLU counts in vernacular speech of adults (whether adult-adult or adult-child). It is possible that there are translations of the Bible into Arabic, but (apart from any concerns for cultural sensitivities in using the Bible instead of the Koran) it is likely that such a translation would still be written in classical Arabic, not the vernacular. Ginny -- Virginia C. Mueller Gathercole, Ph.D. Reader Ysgol Seicoleg School of Psychology Prifysgol Cymru, Bangor University of Wales, Bangor Adeilad Brigantia The Brigantia Building Ffordd Penrallt Penrallt Road Bangor LL57 2AS Bangor LL57 2AS Cymru Wales | /\ | / \/\ Tel: 44 (0)1248 382624 | /\/ \ \ Fax: 44 (0)1248 382599 | / ======\=\ | B A N G O R From ann.dowker at psy.ox.ac.uk Fri Feb 20 12:33:24 2004 From: ann.dowker at psy.ox.ac.uk (Ann Dowker) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 12:33:24 +0000 Subject: ref on blind children's lang dev Message-ID: Here are a few: Norgate, S., Collis, G. and Lewis, V. (1998). The developmental role of rhymes and routines for congenitally blind children. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive/ Current Psychology of Cognition, 17, 441-457 Perez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines and the child's analysis of language: insights from the blind. Journal of Child Language, 21, 317-337 Perez-Pereira, M. (1999). Deixis, reference and the use of personal pronouns by blind children. Journal of Child Language, 26, 655-680 Perez-Pereira, M. and Castro, J. (1997). Language acquisition and the compensation of visual deficit: new data on a controversial topic. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 439-459 Perfect, M.P. (2001). Examining communicative behaviours in a 3-year-old boy who is blind. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 6, 353-365 I hope these are useful, Ann In message Asa Nordqvist writes: > Dear colleagues, > I am searching for references on blind children's early language and > conceptual development, can anyone help me? > Thanks on beforehand > Asa N > > -- > =============================================== > Asa Nordqvist, PhD > Department of Languages / Finnish > P.O. Box 35 (F) > FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland > > tel. +358-14-260-1438 > fax: +358-14-260-1431 > e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se > URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ > > > Also affiliated at: > Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University > Box 200 > SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden > =============================================== > > > > > From swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu Fri Feb 20 13:47:43 2004 From: swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 08:47:43 -0500 Subject: ref on blind children's lang dev In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Hi, Asa and All, I used to have a whole bibliography on blind children and language, but I seem to have lost most of it. Here are the refs I have left. I'm not sure if these were the ones I saved because they are great or just what remained after the rest disappeared. In any case, I'll be interested in what other folks contribute. A note of caution: Not everyone is careful about categorizing disabled kids exactly. so you might find children with multiple disabilities who are also blind counted as blind and their data used to represent cognitively average blind children. I've seen lots of wild variation in articles and books on this topic. Some report that blind children are necessarily way behind the developmental curve, working partly, I have to imagine, from their own idea that blindness is such a severe handicap that it simply has to impact everything. . Others take an odd approach to what seem to me to be very normal data. For example, I read one article where much was made of the fact that a particular blind child, when told to 'look' at something, reached out her hands. This was used as evidence that blind children have great difficulty acquiring very basic meaning distinctions that are easy for sighted children. Sheri W-J Mulford r. 1988. First words of the blind child. in m d Smith & j l locke eds. The imergent lexicon. Academic Press. Fraiberg, S. 1979. Blind infants and their Mothers in M Bullowa. Before Speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication. Cambridge u press. Freedman, D G. 1964. Smiling in blind infants and the issue of innate vs. acquired. journal of child psychology and psychiatry #5 p171-184 Werth, Paul. 1982. The Acquisition of Meaning by Blind Children: A Discussion Universite Libre de Bruxelles Rapport d'Activites de l'Institut de Phonetique, 17, Mar, 55-67 At 12:33 PM 2/20/04 +0000, Ann Dowker wrote: >Here are a few: > >Norgate, S., Collis, G. and Lewis, V. (1998). The developmental role >of rhymes and routines for congenitally blind children. Cahiers de >Psychologie Cognitive/ Current Psychology of Cognition, 17, 441-457 > >Perez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines and the >child's analysis of language: insights from the blind. Journal of >Child Language, 21, 317-337 > >Perez-Pereira, M. (1999). Deixis, reference and the use of personal >pronouns by blind children. Journal of Child Language, 26, 655-680 > >Perez-Pereira, M. and Castro, J. (1997). Language acquisition and the >compensation of visual deficit: new data on a controversial topic. >British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13, 439-459 > >Perfect, M.P. (2001). Examining communicative behaviours in a 3-year-old >boy who is blind. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 6, >353-365 > >I hope these are useful, > >Ann > >In message Asa Nordqvist > writes: > > Dear colleagues, > > I am searching for references on blind children's early language and > > conceptual development, can anyone help me? > > Thanks on beforehand > > Asa N > > > > -- > > =============================================== > > Asa Nordqvist, PhD > > Department of Languages / Finnish > > P.O. Box 35 (F) > > FIN-40014 University of Jyvaskyla, Finland > > > > tel. +358-14-260-1438 > > fax: +358-14-260-1431 > > e-mail: snordqv at cc.jyu.fi, asanord at ling.gu.se > > URL: http://www.ling.gu.se/~asanord/ > > > > > > Also affiliated at: > > Dept of Linguistics, Goteborg University > > Box 200 > > SE-405 30 Goteborg, Sweden > > =============================================== > > > > > > > > > > * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Bowling Green State University MA TESL Program http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tesl/ Office: 423 East Hall (419) 372-8935 Homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From velleman at comdis.umass.edu Fri Feb 20 14:50:04 2004 From: velleman at comdis.umass.edu (Shelley L. Velleman) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 09:50:04 -0500 Subject: AAE movie Message-ID: I'm looking for a movie (not a documentary) that has grammatical features of AAE in it. So far, the best I've found is the character Quentin in "The Best Man". Suggestions welcome! Thanks. Shelley Velleman Communication Disorders U. Mass. Amherst From macswan at asu.edu Fri Feb 20 18:10:32 2004 From: macswan at asu.edu (Jeff MacSwan) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:10:32 -0700 Subject: Presentation software for data collection In-Reply-To: <40361E9B.52325A68@comdis.umass.edu> Message-ID: Hi. I am interested in suggestions for software that will present items (to adults) for sentence judgments to adults in a random order, complete with audio, and record a response for each item. Please send suggestions to macswan at asu.edu and I will post a summary, in case others are interested. Thank you. Jeff MacSwan Arizona State University From margaretmfleck at yahoo.com Fri Feb 20 19:01:10 2004 From: margaretmfleck at yahoo.com (Margaret Fleck) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 11:01:10 -0800 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: <40355CDA.60605@interchange.ubc.ca> Message-ID: > But there are numerous papers on adult processing that suggest that at > least some regularly inflected forms are stored in the lexicon. Alegre & > Gordon suggest that any regular past tense form with a frequency over 6 > tokens per million words of speech is stored. Ullman argues that forms > like BLINKED, with bases that rime with families of irregular forms, are > stored in the lexicon. Other researchers go even further. > > Are these regular forms stored in such a way that they are processed > like single units, or is processing complex enough that they still count > as "separate pieces of language"? > I don't think that we know the answer to that question FOR ADULTS, much > less for children. If you think about the optimizations used in computer systems, there's a good chance that the answer has evil complexities. For example, common compositional items could be stored temporarily in memory (cached) and later flushed out of memory when they cease being common. There could be several distinct caching mechanisms operating in parallel, storing data and paying attention to frequencies over different timespans (e.g. minutes, days, long-term). Even when each individual caching mechanism is brutally simple, the behavior of several operating together may appear complex. And so forth. Margaret ===== Margaret M. Fleck 510-378-3075 margaretmfleck at yahoo.com From kazukoh at spruce.flint.umich.edu Fri Feb 20 20:43:53 2004 From: kazukoh at spruce.flint.umich.edu (Kazuko Hiramatsu) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 15:43:53 -0500 Subject: AAE movie In-Reply-To: <40361E9B.52325A68@comdis.umass.edu> Message-ID: I've used "Barbershop" to demonstrate features of AAE to my class. There are also some nice examples of switching between standard English and AAE. -Kazuko Kazuko Hiramatsu Dept. of English University of Michigan-Flint On Fri, 20 Feb 2004, Shelley L. Velleman wrote: > I'm looking for a movie (not a documentary) that has grammatical > features of AAE in it. So far, the best I've found is the character > Quentin in "The Best Man". Suggestions welcome! > > Thanks. > > Shelley Velleman > Communication Disorders > U. Mass. Amherst > > > > From ann at hawaii.edu Fri Feb 20 20:47:08 2004 From: ann at hawaii.edu (Ann Peters) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 10:47:08 -1000 Subject: MLU and the Bible Message-ID: The (Judeo-Christian) Bible is definitely not a simple yardstick. In our department we've interacted with a number of people interested in translating the Bible into hitherto (linguistically) undescribed languages. One problem that arises is that when the target *culture* is very different from that of the writers of the Bible, a lot of cultural information has to be built into the translation, thus lengthening it by quite a lot. I think we need to search elsewhere for our yardstick - or yardstick-S. ann **************************** Dr. Ann M. Peters, Professor Emeritus Graduate Chair http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/ Department of Linguistics University of Hawai`i email: ann at hawaii.edu 1890 East West Road, Rm 569 phone: 808 956-3241 Honolulu, HI 96822 fax: 808 956-9166 http://www.ling.hawaii.edu/faculty/ann/ From peytontodd at mindspring.com Fri Feb 20 22:28:32 2004 From: peytontodd at mindspring.com (Peyton Todd) Date: Fri, 20 Feb 2004 14:28:32 -0800 Subject: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? Message-ID: Does anyone know when children normally learn the -er (comparative) suffix in English, also the 'more + Adjective' alternate? What about children learning other languages? Supposedly, if they can't seriate until concrete operations, they would presumably not understand the comparative, but of course they might still utter it, and just use it to choose between pairs of objects. What actually happens? Thanks! Peyton Todd From v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk Sat Feb 21 09:04:47 2004 From: v.c.gathercole at bangor.ac.uk (Ginny Mueller Gathercole) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:04:47 +0000 Subject: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? In-Reply-To: <19899739.1077316115985.JavaMail.root@wamui07.slb.atl.earthlink.net> Message-ID: An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From dalep at health.missouri.edu Sat Feb 21 15:59:12 2004 From: dalep at health.missouri.edu (Dale, Philip S.) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 09:59:12 -0600 Subject: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? Message-ID: Although I'm not entirely persuaded by either the theory or the data on seriation as it connects to language, in all fairness to Piaget it should be pointed out that seriation is not comparison. The essence of seriation that a single item can be *simultaneously* greater than one or more other items *and* less than one or more other items. Flavell and others have argued that the core concept of what Piaget called concrete operations is precisely this sort of "dual representation" of reality that shows up in so many areas (appearance-reality, egocentrism, conservation, etc.). Philip Dale -----Original Message----- From: info-childes at mail.talkbank.org on behalf of Ginny Mueller Gathercole Sent: Sat 2/21/2004 03:04 To: Peyton Todd; info-childes at mail.talkbank.org Subject: Re: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? Does anyone know when children normally learn the -er (comparative) suffix in English, also the 'more + Adjective' alternate? What about children learning other languages? Supposedly, if they can't seriate until concrete operations, they would presumably not understand the comparative, but of course they might still utter it, and just use it to choose between pairs of objects. What actually happens? Thanks! Peyton Todd From swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu Sat Feb 21 19:30:41 2004 From: swellsj at bgnet.bgsu.edu (Sheri Wells Jensen) Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2004 14:30:41 -0500 Subject: more thoughts on MLU In-Reply-To: <20040220190110.49658.qmail@web60305.mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Folks, This discussion touches on something I've been working on for a while--trying to find a metric by which you can functionally compare complexity of different languages or of sub-systems within different languages. I've been reading lots of good ideas here. The MLU is a great starting point, but here's the can of worms it has opened for me: there's the trouble of equivalents. Are all morphemes within and between languages created equal or are some more equal than others? Is retrieving a content morpheme enough like adding an affix or applying a regular rule that they all really ought to be added together in an MLU count and each counted as 'one'? Is marking agreement as difficult as marking plurality when the latter is arguably easier to understand? Looking across languages, is it less complicated to mark number on adjectives in a language that already requires gender to be marked on adjectives? Worse, can you equate binary gender marking in Spanish to noun class marking in Kiswahili? Maybe you wouldn't have to worry about this if you were reflecting patterns in language, but if you want to deal with functional cross-linguistic issues, it's unavoidable. Sheri * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Dr. Sheri Wells-Jensen Bowling Green State University MA TESL Program http://www.bgsu.edu/departments/tesl/ Office: 423 East Hall (419) 372-8935 Homepage: http://personal.bgsu.edu/~swellsj/ * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * From gary.marcus at nyu.edu Sun Feb 22 20:55:08 2004 From: gary.marcus at nyu.edu (Gary Marcus) Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 15:55:08 -0500 Subject: The Birth of the Mind [book announcement] Message-ID: Announcing [and with apologies for multiple postings] The Birth of the Mind How A Tiny Number of Genes Creates the Complexity of Human Thought By Gary Marcus "A joy to read." -- Publisher's Weekly "Expert and Lucid" -- Noam Chomsky "Brilliantly Original" -- Steven Pinker "[Across] such diverse disciplines as evolution, genetics, gene expression, cell biology, neurobiology, and psychology, Marcus .... makes the relevant issues understandable to the lay reader, and does an even better job of dispelling the myths that impede the way we think about genes and their role in making brains, and hence minds." -- Nature From the Jacket The Human Genome Project has blazed new trails in medical science and genetic research. We know that within hours of their birth, babies can recognize faces, connect what they hear with what they see and tell the difference between Dutch and Japanese. Our genes prepare us to observe the world; they shape the finest details of the human brain. But as far as psychology is concerned, writes award-winning cognitive scientist Gary Marcus, "it's almost as if Watson and Crick never met DNA." With The Birth of the Mind , Gary Marcus enters the nature vs. nurture debate and changes it forever. Genetics isn't destiny, but the only way to know what nature brings to the table, he argues, is to take a look at what genes actually do. Startling findings have recently revealed that the genome is much smaller than we once thought, containing no more than 30,000-40,000 genes. Since this discovery, scientists have struggled to understand how such a tiny number of genes could contain the instructions for building the human brain, arguably the most complex device in the known universe. Synthesizing up-to-the-minute research with his own original findings on child development, Marcus is the first to resolve this apparent contradiction as he chronicles exactly how genes create the infinite complexities of the human mind. Along the way, he reveals the common misconceptions people harbor about genes, and explores the stunning implications of this research for the future of genetic engineering. January 2004 (Basic Books). -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From macw at cmu.edu Mon Feb 23 14:27:27 2004 From: macw at cmu.edu (Brian MacWhinney) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 09:27:27 -0500 Subject: Position in Cork Message-ID: Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences ?University College Cork Senior Lecturer/Lecturer in Speech and Language Therapy Applications are invited for the above full-time permanent post.? The Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences seeks a well-qualified individual to contribute to its BSc in Speech and Language Therapy. Applicants must have a professional degree qualification in speech and language therapy. An additional qualification in psychology would be a significant advantage. For a lectureship post, a masters level degree is desirable. For the senior lectureship, a doctorate is normally expected.? ? Salary scales [new entrants]: ?Lecturer:? EUR30,088 - EUR48,876 Bar EUR54,519 - EUR71,819 Senior Lecturer:? EUR58,765 - EUR83,263 This appointment will be made at the grade of senior lecturer or lecturer level, depending on qualifications and experience. ? Closing Date: Wednesday 7th April 2004 ? For informal discussion , contact Professor Paul Fletcher Tel: + 353 21? 4902415. Email: h.buckley at ucc.ie ? Application forms must be completed for all posts and are available, together with further particulars, ?and Memorandum relating to statutory posts? , on our website at:? www.ucc.ie/appointments/academic/? ???? or from, ? Department of Human Resources University College Cork CORK Ireland Tel: + 353 21 4903057? / Email: recruitment at per.ucc.ie / Fax + 353 21 4276995 ? University College Cork is an Equal Opportunities Employer ? ***************************** ? From eisenbergs at mail.montclair.edu Mon Feb 23 22:13:10 2004 From: eisenbergs at mail.montclair.edu (Sarita Eisenberg) Date: Mon, 23 Feb 2004 17:13:10 -0500 Subject: Faculty position in New Jersey Message-ID: Faculty Position/Open Rank: The Department of Communication Sciences & Disorders at Montclair State University, a CAA accredited graduate program, is seeking an individual with an earned doctoral degree in Speech-Language Pathology or Speech and Hearing Science for an Open Rank, tenure-track faculty position to begin in September, 2004. Responsibilities include teaching, advisement, research and the possibility of clinical supervision in the candidate?s area of expertise. The candidate should have a documented record of scholarship and a proven record of excellence in teaching. Grant seeking, along with service to the department, university and larger professional community are expected. A minimum of 5 years of academic experience is preferred but candidates with less experience will be considered. CCC-SLP and eligibility for NJ State Licensure are highly desirable. Screening of applications begins immediately and continues until position is filled. Send letter of application and CV to Mary Boyle, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Chair, Search Committee, Montclair State University, Box C316 V-F12, Upper Montclair, NJ 07043. An Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution. You can also reply directly to me at: eisenbergs at mail.montclair.edu Sarita Eisenberg From asanord at ling.gu.se Tue Feb 24 13:25:34 2004 From: asanord at ling.gu.se (=?ISO-8859-1?Q?=C5sa_Nordqvist?=) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 15:25:34 +0200 Subject: Blind children: Summary Message-ID: Thankyou all who responded to my request of literature from the area of language development in blind children! Please find below a summary of the references I got. I particularly want to thank Miguel P?rez Pereira who sent a long list of references. Best Asa (There might be double references in the list.) Andersen, E.S.; Dunlea, A. & Kekelis, L. (1984). Blind children?s language: Resolving some differences. Journal of Child Language, 11, 645-664. Andersen, E.S.; Dunlea, A. & Kekelis, L. (1993). The impact of input: Language acquisition in the visually impaired. First Language, 13, 23-49. Bigelow, A. (1987). Early words of blind children. Journal of Child Language, 14, 47-56. Bigelow, A. (1990). Relationships between the development of language and thought in young blind children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 15, 414-419. Brown, R.; Hobson, R.P.; Lee, A. & Stevenson, J. (1997). Are there "autistic-like" features in congenitally blind children? Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 693-703. Burlingham, D. (1964). Hearing and its role in the development of the blind. The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 19, 95-112. Burlingham, D. (1965). Some problems of ego development in blind children. The Psychoanalysic Study of the Child, 20, 194-208. Castro, J. & P?rez Pereira, M. (1996). Funciones comunicativas del lenguaje de ni?os ciegos y videntes. Infancia y Aprendizaje, 74, 139-154. Civelli, E.M. (1983). Verbalism in young blind children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 77, 61-63. Conti-Ramsden, G. & P?rez-Pereira, M. Conversational interactions between mothers and their infants who are congenitally blind, have low vision, or are sighted. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 1999, 93, 691-703. Cutsford, T.D. (1951). The blind in school and society. New York: American Foundation for the Blind. Dokecki, P.R. (1966). Verbalism and the blind: A critical review of the concept and the literature. Exceptional Children, 32, 525-530. Dunlea, A. & Andersen, E. L. (1992). The emergence process: conceptual and linguistic influences on morphological development. First Language, 12, 95-115. Dunlea, A. (1984). The relation between concept formation and semantic roles: Some evidence from the blind. In L. Feagans; Garvey, C. & Golinkoff, R. (eds.), The origins and growth of communication. Norwood: Ablex. Dunlea, A. (1989). Vision and the emergence of meaning. Blind and sighted children`s early language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Erin, J.N. (1986). Frequencies and types of questions in the language of visually impaired children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 80, 670-674. Fraiberg, S. (1977). Insights from the blind. London: Souvenir Press. (Traducci?n espa?ola: Ni?os ciegos. INSERSO, 1981) Fraiberg, S. & Adelson, E. (1973). Self-representation in language and play: Observations of blind children. Psychoanalysis Quarterly, 42, 539-562. Iverson, J. M. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (1997). What's communication got to do with it? Gesture in children blind from birth. Developmental Psychology, 33, 453-467. Keeler, W.R. (1957). Autistic patterns and defective communication in blind children with retrolental fibroplasia. In P.H. Hoch & J. Zubin (eds.), Psychopathology of communication. New York: Grune and Stratton. Kekelis, L.S. & Andersen, E.S. (1984). Family communication styles and language development. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 78, 54-65. Kitzinger, M. (1984). The role of repeated and echoed utterances in communication with a blind child. British Journal of Disorders of Communication, 19, 135-146. Landau, B. (1983). Blind children's language is not "meaningless". In A.E. Mills (Ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child. Normal and deficient. London: Croom Helm. Landau, B. (1997). Language and experience in blind children: retrospective and prospective. In V. Lewis & G. M. Collis (Eds.) Blindness and psychological development in young children. Leicester: British Psychological Society. Landau, B. & Gleitman, L.R. (1985). Language and experience. Evidence from the blind. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. McGinnis, A.R. (1981) Functional linguistic strategies of blind children. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 75, 210-214. Miecznikowski, A. & Andersen, E. (1986). From formulaic to analysed speech: Two systems or one? In J. Connor-Linton; C. J. Hall & M. McGinnis (eds.), Southern California Occassional Papers in Linguistics, Volume 11: Social and Cognitive Perspectives on Language. Los Angeles: University of Southern California. Mills, A. (1993). Visual handicap. In D. Bishop & K. Mogford (Eds.), Language development under exceptional circumstances. Hove, U.K.: Lawrence Erlbaum. Mills, A.E. (1987). The development of phonology in the blind child. In B. Dodd & R. Campbell (eds.), Hearing by eye: The psychology of lip reading. London: Erlbaum. Moore, V. & McConachie, H. (1994). Communication between blind children and severely visually impaired children and their parents. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 12, 491-502. Mulford, R. (1983). Referential development in blind children. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child. Normal and deficient. London: Croom Helm. Mulford, R. (1988). First words of blind children. En M.D. Smith & J.L. Locke (Eds.), The emergent lexicon. New York: Academic Press. Norgate, S. (1996). Research methods for studying the language of blind children. Occasional Papers/CHDL. The Open University. Norgate, S.; Lewis, V. & Collis, G. (1997). Developing the capacity to refer: how the study of blind infants informs theoretical frameworks of lexical development. Paper presented to the VIIth European Conference on Developmental Psychology. Rennes (France), 3-6 September. Norris, M; Spaulding, P. & Brodie, F.M. (1957). Blindness and children. Chicago: Chicago University Press. P?rez Pereira, M. & Castro, J. (1992). Pragmatic functions of blind and sighted children`s language: a twin case study. First Language, 12, 17-37. P?rez-Pereira, M. (1994). Imitations, repetitions, routines, and the child?s analysis of language. Journal of Child Language, 21, 317-337. P?rez Pereira, M. (1999). Deixis, personal reference, and the use of pronouns by blind children. Journal of Child Language, 26, 655-680. P?rez Pereira, M. y Castro, J. (1994). El desarrollo psicol?gico de ni?os ciegos en la primera infancia. Barcelona: Paid?s. P?rez Pereira, M. y Castro, J. (1995). Repercusiones evolutivas de las formas de interacci?n y comunicaci?n en el ni?o ciego (Developmental consequences of interaction and communication in the blind child). Substratum, 1995, 7, 103-124. P?rez Pereira, M. & Castro, J. (1997). Language acquisition and the compensation of visual deficit: New comparative data on a controversial topic. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 15, 439-459. P?rez-Pereira, M. & Conti-Ramsden, G. (1999). Social interaction and language development in blind children. London: Psychology Press. P?rez-Pereira, M. & Conti-Ramsden, G.(2001). The use of directives in verbal interactions between blind children and their mothers. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 95, 133-149. Peters, A. (1987). The role of imitation in the developing syntax of a blind child. Text, 7, 289-311. Peters, A. (1987). The role of imitation in the developing syntax of a blind child. Text, 7, 289-311. Peters, A.M. (1994). The interdependence of social, cognitive and linguistic development: Evidence from a visually impaired child. En H. Tager-Flusberg (Ed.), Constraints on language acquisition: Studies of atypical children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Peters, A.M. (1994). The interdependence of social, cognitive and linguistic development: Evidence from a visually impaired child. En H. Tager-Flusberg (Ed.), Constraints on language acquisition: Studies of atypical children. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Preisler, G.M. (1991). Early patterns of interaction between blind infants and their sighted mothers. Child; Care, Health and Development, 17, 65-90. Rosa A. & Ochaita E. (Comps.) (1993). Psicolog?a de la ceguera. Madrid: Alianza Editorial. Rowland, C. (1984). Preverbal communication of blind infants and their mothers. Journal of Visual Impairment and Blindness, 78, 297-302. Urwin, C. (1979). Preverbal communication and early language development in blind children. Papers and Reports on Child Language Development, 17, 119-127. Urwin, C. (1983). Dialogue and cognitive functioning in the early language development of three blind children. In A.E. Mills (ed.), Language acquisition in the blind child. Normal and deficient. London: Croom Helm. Urwin, C. (1984). Communication in infancy and the emergence of language in blind children. In R.L. Schieffelbusch & J. Pickar (Eds.), The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore: University Park Press. Urwin, C. (1984a). Communication in infancy and the emergence of language in blind children. In R.L. Schieffelbusch & J. Pickar (Eds.), The acquisition of communicative competence. Baltimore: University Park Press. Urwin, C. (1984b). Language for absent things: learning from visually handicapped children. Topics in Language Disorders, 4, 24-37. Von Tetzchner, S. & Martinsen, H. (1981). A psycholinguistic study of the language of the blind: I. Verbalism. International Journal of Psycholinguistics, 7-3 [19], 49-61. Warren, D.F. (1994). Blindness and children. An individual differences approach. New York: Cambridge University Press. Webster, A. & Roe, J. (1998). Children with visual impairments. Social interaction, language and learning. London: Routledge. Wills, D.M. (1979). Early speech development in blind children. The Psychoanalytyc Study of the Child, 34, 85-117. Mulford r. 1988. First words of the blind child. in m d Smith & j l locke eds. The imergent lexicon. Academic Press. Fraiberg, S. 1979. Blind infants and their Mothers in M Bullowa. Before Speech: The beginning of interpersonal communication. Cambridge u press. Freedman, D G. 1964. Smiling in blind infants and the issue of innate vs. acquired. journal of child psychology and psychiatry #5 p171-184 Werth, Paul. 1982. The Acquisition of Meaning by Blind Children: A Discussion Universite Libre de Bruxelles Rapport d'Activites de l'Institut de Phonetique, 17, Mar, 55-67 -- Mills, Anne E. (ed). "Language Acquisition in the Blind Child: Normal and Deficient". 1983. London: Croom Helm Ltd. -- Mulford, Randa. "First Words of the Blind Child," in Smith, M.D., & J.L. Locke (eds), "The Emergent Lexicon: The Child's Development of a Linguistic Vocabulary". 1988. New York: Academic Press, Inc. Blindness and psychological development in young children by Vicky Lewis and Glyn Collis (Eds). Published by BPS in 1997 Un-Locke-ing language learning: Evidence from a blind child. A review of B. Landau & L. Gleitman, Language and experience: Evidence from blind children. Language, 60, 143-145. -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 11285 bytes Desc: not available URL: From lkobler at bu.edu Tue Feb 24 20:21:52 2004 From: lkobler at bu.edu (Loraine K. Obler, Ph.D.) Date: Tue, 24 Feb 2004 14:21:52 -0600 Subject: info-childes Digest - 02/22/04 Message-ID: Re AAE, there's a 2002 film that uses the dialect in ways that raises consciousness non-pedantically, indeed with humor. Though I'm not an AAVE speaker, it seems to me the film's use is authentic; if not, I'd like to learn so. Malibu's Most Wanted is about a white protagonist who 'thinks he's black', a problem for his father running for governor of California, who hires some SAE-monodialectal African American actors to help resolve the problem. We watch them study up on the dialect, pragmatics, etc. Loraine K. Obler, Ph.D. Distinguished Professor Program in Speech and Hearing Sciences CUNY Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue NYC, NY, USA 10016 tel.: 617 696 7227 ----- Original Message ----- From: To: Sent: Sunday, February 22, 2004 5:00 PM Subject: info-childes Digest - 02/22/04 info-childes Digest - Sunday, February 22, 2004 ref on blind children's lang dev by "Asa Nordqvist" Russian Language Development by "Glennen, Sharon" MLU counts by "Hyams, Nina" wordless picture book reading by "You-Kyung Chang" Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" Re: MLU counts by "Brian MacWhinney" Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" Re: MLU counts by "Brian MacWhinney" RE: MLU counts by "Dale, Philip S." RE: MLU counts by "Hyams, Nina" Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" RE: MLU counts by "Margaret Fleck" RE: MLU counts by Re: MLU counts by "Yonata Levy" MLU counts by "Ginny Mueller Gathercole" Re: MLU counts by "Sheri Wells Jensen" BLCF scholarships by "Peg Lahey" more thoughts on MLU by "Ann Peters" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Joseph Stemberger" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Brian MacWhinney" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Yonata Levy" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Ginny Mueller Gathercole" RE: more thoughts on MLU by "Alcock, Katherine" Re: ref on blind children's lang dev by "Ann Dowker" Re: ref on blind children's lang dev by "Sheri Wells Jensen" AAE movie by "Shelley L. Velleman" Presentation software for data collection by "Jeff MacSwan" Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Margaret Fleck" Re: AAE movie by "Kazuko Hiramatsu" MLU and the Bible by "Ann Peters" When Do Children Learn the Comparative? by "Peyton Todd" Re: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? by "Ginny Mueller Gathercole" RE: When Do Children Learn the Comparative? by "Dale, Philip S." Re: more thoughts on MLU by "Sheri Wells Jensen" The Birth of the Mind [book announcement] by "Gary Marcus" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- End of info-childes Digest From ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu Wed Feb 25 19:36:46 2004 From: ks7t at andrew.cmu.edu (Kelley Sacco) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 14:36:46 -0500 Subject: Job Announcement - HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY Message-ID: HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF SPEECH-LANGUAGE-HEARING SCIENCES Tenure track position: Assistant Professor in Speech-Language Pathology Hofstra University?s Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences has an opening for an Assistant Professor in Speech-Language-Pathology. The position entails teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in language-learning disorders, language acquisition and literacy development, and early childhood language disorders. The course load consists of 9 semester hours of teaching per semester. Additional responsibilities include research in the applicant?s area of interest, student advisement and involvement in Department and University committees. Competitive salary and benefits. Requirements include an earned Ph.D. ASHA certification is preferred. This is a nine-month tenure track position with the possibility of additional summer teaching. The position becomes available in September 2004. Please send a letter of application, CV and three letters of reference by April 30, 2004. Hofstra University is an equal opportunity employer. Ronald L. Bloom, Ph.D. Chair, Department of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences 106 Davison Hall Hofstra University Hempstead, NY 11549 From VVVHC at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU Wed Feb 25 23:13:20 2004 From: VVVHC at CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU (Virginia Valian) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 18:13:20 EST Subject: research assistantship Message-ID: Research Assistant Position in Language and Cognition Available at Hunter College - CUNY (1 part-time with possibility of full-time) One part-time (possibly full-time) research assistant position is available beginning 3 March 2004. Assistants will work on the Language Acquisition Research Project and the Cognition and Gender Project. LARP investigates first and second language acquisition in young children and adults, as well as artificial language learning, concept learning, and language use. We use a wide variety of techniques and materials to answer basic questions about syntactic competence and performance. CGP investigates sex differences in cognitive processes, including mathematics and mental rotation. A minimum of one year is expected; funding is anticipated for three years. The position is open until filled. Assistants on the project: * Record, transcribe, and analyze learners' spontaneous speech * Develop materials for use in production and comprehension tasks * Perform experiments with child and adult participants * Analyze spontaneous speech data and experimental data * Recruit child and adult participants * Supervise students and interns working on the projects * Keep the laboratory running smoothly The project involves constant contact with children, parents and other caregivers, and with adolescent and adult participants; it also requires the coordination of many different activities. Assistants' patience, courtesy, and maturity are thus important. Assistants must work well with children, adolescents, and adults; understand and accommodate the concerns and needs of children and caregivers; and be highly organized, reliable, and punctual. Qualifications: * BA required * Preferred major: psychology or cognitive science * Preferred course background: cognitive psychology, experimental psychology, statistics, developmental psychology, basic syntax, cognitive science, language acquisition * Preferred research experience: previous laboratory research, if possible, including transcribing speech; work with two-year-olds * Preferred computer skills: basic word-processing skills, database management, graph and slide presentation * Preferred statistical skills: knowledge of computer packages such as SPSS Salary: Full-time $25,000-$30,000 Part-time 19 hours/week at $15-$20/hour Review of candidates will begin immediately and continue until the positions are filled. To apply, submit by e-mail (to Dr Virginia Valian at little.linguist at hunter.cuny.edu): * a cover letter which summarizes your qualifications * a transcript (unofficial is acceptable) * a summary list of relevant courses * a description of previous work with young children * a description of computer skills and research experience * SAT or GRE scores Ask two faculty for a letter of recommendation that will address your research skills or promise. Ask them to e-mail their letters to Dr Valian at little.linguist@ hunter.cuny.edu Send applications to: little.linguist at hunter.cuny.edu OR TO Virginia Valian Professor of Psychology and Linguistics Co-Director, Gender Equity Project Hunter College and CUNY Graduate Center 695 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10021 USA From eclark at psych.stanford.edu Thu Feb 26 01:34:53 2004 From: eclark at psych.stanford.edu (Eve V. Clark) Date: Wed, 25 Feb 2004 17:34:53 -0800 Subject: PROGRAM & PRE-REGISTRATION for CLRF-2004 Message-ID: APRIL 6-17, 2004 CHILD LANGUAGE RESEARCH FORUM CORDURA HALL STANFORD CONSTRUCTIONS IN ACQUISITION How do children learn constructions--noun phrases, verb phrases, and other phrase types? Do they begin with specific lexical items in a construction and use only those? To what extent do they build from 'verb islands' or 'noun islnds' in early constructions? Which construc- tions emerge first? What criteria should we use in establishing productivity? What makes constructions easy vs. hard to acquire? Can children's bases for inferences about the relevant noun or verb meanings be identified? Are there consistent patterns across children in the acquisition of constructions? Are there differences from one verb type to another, or from intransitive to transitive? Are differences attributable to differences in frequencies in child-directed speech? What cross- linguistic comparisons are available? Which constructions have been considered in studies of children's early syntactic forms? FRIDAY 16 APRIL - OPENING PANEL WITH ADELE GOLDBERG, PETER CULICOVER, & IVAN SAG SATURDAY 17 APRIL - PAPERS AND POSTER SESSION For details, check the CLRF-2004 website: www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf REGISTRATION - Pre-register before March 20, 2004: 1. Preregistration: $50 for non-students $20 for students Send cheque made out to "CLRF-2004" by March 20th, 2004, to: CLRF-2004, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA Please include your name, affiliation, and email address. 2. Walk-in registration: $65 for non-students, $30 for students. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From eclark at psych.stanford.edu Thu Feb 26 16:57:32 2004 From: eclark at psych.stanford.edu (Eve V. Clark) Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2004 08:57:32 -0800 Subject: PROGRAM & PRE-REGISTRATION for CLRF-2004 Message-ID: APRIL 16-17, 2004 CHILD LANGUAGE RESEARCH FORUM CORDURA HALL STANFORD CONSTRUCTIONS IN ACQUISITION How do children learn constructions--noun phrases, verb phrases, and other phrase types? Do they begin with specific lexical items in a construction and use only those? To what extent do they build from 'verb islands' or 'noun islnds' in early constructions? Which construc- tions emerge first? What criteria should we use in establishing productivity? What makes constructions easy vs. hard to acquire? Can children's bases for inferences about the relevant noun or verb meanings be identified? Are there consistent patterns across children in the acquisition of constructions? Are there differences from one verb type to another, or from intransitive to transitive? Are differences attributable to differences in frequencies in child-directed speech? What cross- linguistic comparisons are available? Which constructions have been considered in studies of children's early syntactic forms? FRIDAY 16 APRIL - OPENING PANEL WITH ADELE GOLDBERG, PETER CULICOVER, & IVAN SAG SATURDAY 17 APRIL - PAPERS AND POSTER SESSION For details, check the CLRF-2004 website: www-csli.stanford.edu/~clrf REGISTRATION - Pre-register before March 20, 2004: 1. Preregistration: $50 for non-students $20 for students Send cheque made out to "CLRF-2004" by March 20th, 2004, to: CLRF-2004, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2150, USA Please include your name, affiliation, and email address. 2. Walk-in registration: $65 for non-students, $30 for students. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From t.marinis at ucl.ac.uk Fri Feb 27 09:33:38 2004 From: t.marinis at ucl.ac.uk (Theodore Marinis) Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 09:33:38 +0000 Subject: New book - The acquisition of Modern Greek Message-ID: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- New Book Information -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The Acquisition of the DP in Modern Greek Theodoros Marinis University College London This book offers new data on the acquisition of functional categories in early child speech. Based on longitudinal corpora of five children acquiring Modern Greek as their first language, it describes the development of single DPs consisting of definite and indefinite articles, complex DPs that require the use of multiple definite articles - possessive constructions, appositive constructions and Determiner Spreading, a form of adjectival modification - and number and case marking in nouns and definite articles. Detailed quantitative and qualitative analyses show an incremental development of the DP. The findings address the debate concerning maturation versus continuity. Incremental acquisition of the DP argues in favour of a weak continuity approach to language acquisition. Whilst gradual acquisition of the DP remains unexplained within the Principles and Parameters Theory, it is fully compatible within Minimalism, as it is argued to result from the gradual acquisition of the features associated with the Greek DP. Language Acquisition and Language Disorders, 31 2003. Hb xiv, 261 pp. 90 272 2500 1 EUR 105.00 1 58811 450 3 USD 105.00 Acknowledgements; Preface; Abbreviations; 1. Acquisition theories and the acquisition of the DP; 2. Methodology; 3. The DP in Modern Greek; 4. Acquiring the DP in MG; 5. The acquisition of the possessive construction; 6. The acquisition of Determiner Spreading; 7. The acquisition of appositive constructions involving kinship terms and proper names; 8. Summary and conclusion; References; Appendix 1; Appendix 2; Index URL: http://www.benjamins.com/cgi-bin/t_bookview.cgi?bookid=LALD_31 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- JOHN BENJAMINS PUBLISHING COMPANY P.O.Box 36224, 1020 ME Amsterdam, Netherlands & P.O.Box 27519, Philadelphia PA 19118-0519, USA www.benjamins.com -^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^- Dr. Theodore Marinis Centre for Developmental Language Disorders and Cognitive Neuroscience Department of Human Communication Science University College London Chandler House 2, Wakefield Street, London WC1N 1PF UK Tel. +44-20-7679-4096 Fax +44-20-7713-0861 www: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/DLDCN/staff11.html -^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^~^~^~^-^- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From ROZANDZ at aol.com Sun Feb 29 16:17:03 2004 From: ROZANDZ at aol.com (ROZANDZ at aol.com) Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 11:17:03 EST Subject: (sans sujet) Message-ID: Hello, I am a French student and I am doing a doctorate on the acquisition of English simple past by French second language learners in a school setting. I would like to measure the frequency of English verbs, both regular and irregular, and their inflexions (in the simple past). For the experimentation I led during my master, I used Rumelhart and McClelland's typology (1988). Unfortunately, this typology is based on an English corpus and I do not know if these verbs frequency can be applied to the acquisition of English as a second language by French learners in a school setting. I am wondering if a typology of English verbs frequency and their inflexions in the past simple for second language learners exists. Do you have any information about such a typology? Or do you know if there are, more generally, articles or studies about inputs and frequencies in a school setting. Thanks Coralie -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: