Language Learning

List of figures
List of tables
Transcription conventions
1 What is language
1.1 Phonemes or sounds
1.2 Learning the phonemes of English
1.3 Learning words - the lexicon
1.4 Learning the grammar or syntax
1.5 Learning to read and write
1.6 Pragmatics
1.7 Summary
2 What we know about language learning
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Baby talk
2.3 Longitudinal studies of children learning language
2.4 Language development and physical factors
2.5 Language and cognition: Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
2.6 Language inside the head
2.7 Noam Chumsky
2.8 Chomsky on Chomsky
2.9 Summary
2.10 Further reading
3 Learning to communicate
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The development of pragmatic and communicative competence
3.3 Schema theory
3.4 Frame theory
3.5 Script theory
3.6 Vygotsky's zone of proximal development
3.8 Summary
3.9 Further reading
4 A social view of language learning
4.1 A socially situated view of language
4.2 The Hallidayan description of language as socio-semiotic
4.3 Halliday's description of Nigel learning how to mean
4.4 Painter's description of language as a resource for learning
4.5 Halliday's description of learning how to mean
4.6 Summary
5 Learning how to 'get things done' in the first two years of life
5.1 The beginnings
5.2 Trevarthen's primary intersubjectivity
5.3 Secondary intersubjectivity
5.4 Protolanguage
5.5 Into the mother tongue
5.6 Moving towards an adult linguistic system
5.7 Bilingualism and multilingualism
5.8 Summary
5.9 Further reading
6 Language as a resource for learning
6.1 Language and thinking
6.2 Children and construct knowledge
6.3 Development cannot be separated from its social context
6.4 Learning can lead development
6.5 Language plays a central role in cognitive development
6.6 Language development and learning strategies
6.7 Taking a closer look at what children say and do with language
6.8 The child leaning language in a multilingual environment
6.9 Summary
6.10 Further reading
7 Language development in the school
7.1 The transition from commonsense knowledge to educational knowledge
7.2 Classroom talk
7.3 Oral genes
7.4 Summary
7.5 Further reading
8 Developing language through writing
8.1 Components of the structure of written texts
8.2 Genre
8.3 Core-genre in the development of educational knowledge
8.4 Changing features of writing on entering secondary school
8.5 Summary
8.6 Further reading
9 Critical language awareness
9.1 Contextualization
9.2 Meta-level awareness
9.3 Taking a closer look at text types
9.4 What young readers might not know
9.5 Summary
9.6 Further reading
10 Multiliteracies
10.1 Television
10.2 Magazines
10.3 Summary
10.4 Further reading
11 Learning language(s): creating a linguistic biography
11.1 Aspects of a person's linguistic repertoire
11.2 Contexts and the creation of linguistic biography
11.3 An ecological desciption of language development
11.4 Context(s) and language development
11.5 Characteristics of a linguistic biography
11.6 Language development within an ecolinguistic framework
11.7 Summary
11.8 Further reading
References
Index