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<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">Reliving History. . .</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">First, in his posting on October
12, Matthew Saxton shared his “depression” over the “internecine struggles that
have lasted for decades” and the “relative lack of empirical maturity in the
field of child language.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>He then
described as “derisory” the “sample sizes of many studies in child language” . .
.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>“compared with other branches of
the human sciences.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>WELL . .
. having spent more than 40 years and published 7 books and very
many papers in the peer-reviewed journals, I own up to spending all those years
and all those printed words on studying the language acquisition of fewer than
25 children.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And so I sighed.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">And then on October 14, Joe
Stemberger shared his experience “a few years ago” in which his work was derided
because it “clearly had more to do with performance, and why would a linguist be
interested in analyzing such data using the mechanisms of linguistic theory,”
and I sighed again.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>The criticism
was very familiar to me having heard it often, many years ago.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>And I suspect it was familiar as well to
others who have also spent hours, days, years listening, watching, and
interpreting the sounds, words, sentences of very small children --yes,
unabashedly studying their performance in the sincere effort to learn something
about what they *knew* about language and how that *knowledge* changed over
time.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>In my view of history, that
criticism is the very heart of how the competence-performance distinction did,
indeed, hold back progress in the field.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>It has been used as a club to knock the research of those of us who do
not rely on introspection and grammaticality judgements, or who do not do
experiments.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">And now today on October 16,
Matthew has shared a very useful summary of what I found to be one of the more
insightful discussions on the InfoCHILDES talkbank. I thank him for
the summary and for starting the exchange as well.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Please add one more citation to the
list: </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">Bloom, L., Miller, P., &
Hood, L. (1975). Variation and reduction as aspects of competence in child
language. In A. Pick (Ed.), <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:State w:st="on"><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Minnesota</I></st1:State></st1:place><I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal"> symposia on child psychology</I> (Vol. 9,
pp. 3-55). <st1:City w:st="on">Minneapolis</st1:City> <st1:State
w:st="on">MN</st1:State>: <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType> of <st1:PlaceName
w:st="on">Minnesota</st1:PlaceName></st1:place> Press.<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Reprinted in Bloom, L. (1991). <I
style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Language Development from Two to Three</I>
(pp. 88-141).<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN><st1:place
w:st="on"><st1:PlaceName w:st="on">Cambridge</st1:PlaceName> <st1:PlaceType
w:st="on">University</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> Press. </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">in which we presented data (from
performance, but data nevertheless) and proposed a model or ‘theory of
knowledge’ to account for the variable length of early sentences, building on
the “probabalistic grammars” of Patrick Suppes (1970) and the variation paradigm
of Bill Labov (1969) and Cedergren and Sankoff (1974).<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>(Really digging into ancient,
pre-internet history here!)<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">And so I applaud Matthew’s
conclusion that promotes a level of complexity beyond the simplistic C-P
distinction: “the acknowledgement that an additional, and perhaps more
interesting, source of linguistic variability stems, not from physical
breakdowns, but from numerous other factors that could correctly be seen as part
of speaker’s knowledge of language.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>In our 1975 study, more than 30 years ago, my colleagues and I<SPAN
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>grappled with the “empirical headaches”
he refers to, “trying to identify and explain what [those factors] are and how
they function.”<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">Rather than continuing to escape
into the antiques business. . .<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes">
</SPAN>it’s a gorgeous day today, and I’m heading out to the golf course.</P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt">Cheers! </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt"> <![if !supportLists]><![endif]><![if !supportLists]><![endif]><![if !supportLists]><![endif]><![if !supportLists]><![endif]><![if !supportLists]><![endif]></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt"><FONT face=Arial size=2>LOIS
BLOOM<BR> (Edward Lee Thorndike Professor Emeritus, Teachers
College, Columbia University)<BR>95 Wilson Road<BR>Easton CT 06612</FONT></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 8pt"><FONT face=Arial size=2>phone:
203-261-4622<BR>mobile: 203-673-7021<BR>fax:
203-261-4689</FONT></P></DIV></BODY></HTML>