
Children's Discourse
Person, Space and Time across Languages
Maya Hickmann(Author)
Cambridge University Press
Published on 21. November 2002
Book
Hardback
412 pages
978-0-521-58441-8 (ISBN)
Description
This comparative study explores two central questions in the study of first language acquisition: What is the relative impact of structural and functional determinants? What is universal versus language-specific during development? Maya Hickmann addresses these questions in three domains of child language: reference to entities, the representation of space, and uses of temporal-aspectual markings. She provides a thorough review of different theoretical approaches to language acquisition and a wide range of developmental research, as well as examining all three domains in English, French, German and Chinese narratives. Hickmann's findings concern the rhythm of acquisition, the interplay among different factors (syntactic, semantic, pragmatic) determining children's uses, and universal versus variable aspects of acquisition. Her conclusions stress the importance of relating sentence and discourse determinants of acquisition in a crosslinguistic perspective. Children's Discourse will be welcomed by those working in psychology and language-related disciplines interested in first language acquisition.
Reviews / Votes
Review of the hardback: '... this book remains one of the most impressive in the field of language acquisition. The richness of the data from four different languages is truly striking, and linguists in almost any subfield of linguistics are guaranteed to learn much of value from this book.' LinguisticsMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
14 Tables, unspecified
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 157 mm
Thickness: 29 mm
Weight
817 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-521-58441-8 (9780521584418)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions

E-Book
01/2005
1st Edition
Cambridge University Press
€45.99
Available for download
Person
Maya Hickmann is Research Director at Laboratoire Cognition et Developpement, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and University of Paris V.
Content
1. Introduction; Part I. Available Theories and Data: 2. Theoretical issues; 3. Crosslinguistic invariants and variations; 4. Coherence and cohesion in discourse development; 5. Children's marking of information status: referring expressions and clause structure; 6. The acquisition of spatial and temporal-aspectual devices; Part II. A Crosslinguistic Study of Children's Narratives: 7. Methodological issues; 8. Animate entities; 9. Space; 10. Time; 11. Conclusions; Appendix.