When humans learn languages, are they also learning how to create shared meaning? In The Usage-based Study of Language Learning and Multilingualism, a cadre of international experts say yes and offer cutting-edge research in usage-based linguistics to explore how language acquisition, in particular multilingual language acquisition, works. Each chapter presents an original study that supports the view that language learning is initiated through local and meaningful communication with others. Over an accumulated history of such usage, people gradually create more abstract, interactive schematic representations, or a mental grammar. This process of acquiring language is the same for infants and adults and across varied contexts, such as the family, the classroom, the laboratory, a hospital, or a public encounter. Employing diverse methodologies to study this process, the contributors here work with target languages, including Cantonese, English, French, French Sign Language, German, Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Spanish, and Swedish, and offer a much-needed exploration of this growing area of linguistic research.
IllustrationsPreface 1. The Vibrant and Expanded Study of Usage-based Language Learningand MultilingualismLourdes Ortega and Andrea E. TylerPART 1. USAGE-BASED DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE ACROSS THE LIFESPAN2. A Multimodal Approach to the Development of Negation in Signedand Spoken Languages: Four Case StudiesAliyah Morgenstern, Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel, Marion Blondel, and Dominique Boutet3. Why Don't You Just Learn it from the Input? A Usage-based CorpusStudy on the Acquisition of Conventionalized Indirect Speech Actsin English and GermanUrsula Kania4. Prepositional Phrases as Manner Adverbials in the Developmentof Hebrew L1 Text ProductionGilad Brandes And Dorit Ravid 5. Negative Constructions in Nonliterate Learners' Spoken L2 FinnishTaina Tammelin-Laine And Maisa Martin 6. How Do Multilinguals Conceptualize Interactions Among LanguagesStudied? Operationalizing Perceived Positive Language Interaction (PPLI)Amy S. Thompson PART II. THE CORPUS-AIDED, USAGE-BASED STUDY OF LEARNER LANGUAGE 7. A Friendly Conspiracy of Input, L1, and Processing Demands:That-variation in the Language of German and Spanish Learners of EnglishStefanie Wulff8. Measuring Lexical Frequency: Comparison Groups and SubjectExpression in L2 SpanishBret Linford, Avizia Long, Megan Solon, and Kimberly L. Geeslin 9. Article Omission: Toward Establishing How Referents are Trackedin L2 EnglishMonika Ekiert10. Measuring L2 Explicit Knowledge of English Verb-Particle Constructions:Frequency and Semantic Transparency at Two Proficiency LevelsHelen Zhao and Fenfen LePART III. THE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF USAGE-BASED PROCESSING AND LEARNING11. Can English-Spanish Emerging Bilinguals Use Agreement Morphologyto Overcome Word Order Bias?Silvia Marijuan, Sol Lago, and Cristina Sanz 12. Miniature Artificial Language Learning as a Complementto Typological DataMaryia Fedzechkina, Elissa L. Newport, and T. Florian Jaeger PART IV. MULTILINGUALISM IN THE WILD: USAGE-BASED INSIGHTS 13. Patterns of Interaction in Doctor-Patient Communicationand Their Impact on Health OutcomesDiana Slade, Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, Graham Lock, Jack Pun, and Marvin Lam14. Toward a Model of Multilingual UsageMichael Achard and Sarah LeeContributors Index
