Frequency Effects in Language Acquisition PDF Download

Author: Insa Gülzow
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110977907
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 425

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Book Description
The book addresses a controversial current topic in language acquisition studies: the impact of frequency on linguistic structure in child language. A major strength of the book is that the role of input frequency in the acquisition process is evaluated in a large variety of languages, topics and the two major theoretical frameworks: UG-based and usage-based accounts. While most papers report a clear frequency effect, different factors that may be interacting with pure statistical effects are critically assessed. An introductory statement is made by Thomas Roeper who calls for caution as he identifies frequency as a non-coherent concept and argues for a precise definition of what can and cannot be explained by statistical effects.

Author: Stefan Th. Gries
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110274051
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The volume contains a collection of studies on how the analysis of corpus and psycholinguistic data reveal how linguistic knowledge is affected by the frequency of linguistic elements/stimuli. The studies explore a wide range of phenomena , from phonological reduction processes and palatalization to morphological productivity, diachronic change, adjective preposition constructions, auxiliary omission, and multi-word units. The languages studied are Spanish and artificial languages, Russian, Dutch, and English. The sister volume focuses on language representation.

Author: Karin Madlener
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110423596
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Based on a state-of-the-art review of prior research in all related domains, this book makes precise predictions about the expected effects of specific type and token frequency distributions in input floods and tests these in the second language classroom context.

Author: Joan L. Bybee
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027298033
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
A mainstay of functional linguistics has been the claim that linguistic elements and patterns that are frequently used in discourse become conventionalized as grammar. This book addresses the two issues that are basic to this claim: first, the question of what types of elements are frequently used in discourse and second, the question of how frequency of use affects cognitive representations. Reporting on evidence from natural conversation, diachronic change, variability, child language acquisition and psycholinguistic experimentation the original articles in this book support two major principles. First, the content of people’s interactions consists of a preponderance of subjective, evaluative statements, dominated by the use of pronouns, copulas and intransitive clauses. Second, the frequency with which certain items and strings of items are used has a profound influence on the way language is broken up into chunks in memory storage, the way such chunks are related to other stored material and the ease with which they are accessed to produce new utterances.

Author: Heike Behrens
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
ISBN: 3110346915
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Frequency is a critical factor in shaping emerging linguistic systems, be it in first or second language learning, or in the historical or social dimensions of language change. This volume comprises studies that show how and which patterns are abstracted from the language speakers hear, and what makes them adopt new usages or constructions.

Author: Tomoko Tode
Publisher: Peter Lang
ISBN: 9783039116027
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
The view of exemplar-based second language learning emphasizes the importance of frequency in learning grammar. According to this view, type frequency rather than token frequency contributes to learning generalized knowledge beyond item-based constructions. This book investigates how frequency in experiencing exemplars affects the learning of the English primary verb be by junior high school students in Japan. The study consists of a quasi-experiment and stimulated-recall analysis of the data. The quasi-experiment compares three kinds of output practice: practice with increased type frequency, practice with increased token frequency, and practice without increased frequency. The experiment also explores how the frequency effects relate to the extent of explicit knowledge about the target structures. In the stimulated-recall analysis, learners engaging in the type frequency practice and those engaging in the token frequency practice are compared in terms of thought processes employed while practicing. The book discusses how frequency promotes classroom second language learning by taking the role of awareness of form-meaning connections into consideration.

Author: Marit Richardsen Westergaard
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027255288
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Within a new model of language acquisition, this book discusses verb second (V2) word order in situations where there is variation in the input. While traditional generative accounts consider V2 to be a parameter, this study shows that, in many languages, this word order is dependent on fine distinctions in syntax and information structure. Thus, within a split-CP model of clause structure, a number of "micro-cues" are formulated, taking into account the specific context for V2 vs. non-V2 (clause type, subcategory of the elements involved, etc.). The micro-cues are produced in children s I-language grammars on exposure to the relevant input. Focusing on a dialect of Norwegian, the book shows that children generally produce target-consistent V2 and non-V2 from early on, indicating that they are sensitive to the micro-cues. This includes contexts where word order is dependent on information structure. The children s occasional non-target-consistent behavior is accounted for by economy principles."

Author: Heike Behrens
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 9783110346923
Category : Frequency (Linguistics)
Languages : en
Pages : 340

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Book Description
Frequency is a critical factor in shaping emerging linguistic systems, be it in individual's first or second language learning, or in the historical or social dimensions of language change. This volume comprises studies that show how and which patterns are abstracted from what the language speakers hear, and what makes them adopt new usages or constructions.

Author: Ratree Wayland
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108882366
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
Including contributions from a team of world-renowned international scholars, this volume is a state-of-the-art survey of second language speech research, showcasing new empirical studies alongside critical reviews of existing influential speech learning models. It presents a revised version of Flege's Speech Learning Model (SLM-r) for the first time, an update on a cornerstone of second language research. Chapters are grouped into five thematic areas: theoretical progress, segmental acquisition, acquiring suprasegmental features, accentedness and acoustic features, and cognitive and psychological variables. Every chapter provides new empirical evidence, offering new insights as well as challenges on aspects of the second language speech acquisition process. Comprehensive in its coverage, this book summarises the state of current research in second language phonology, and aims to shape and inspire future research in the field. It is an essential resource for academic researchers and students of second language acquisition, applied linguistics and phonetics and phonology.

Author: Geoffrey Leech
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317882040
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
Word Frequencies in Written and Spoken English is a landmark volume in the development of vocabulary frequency studies. Whereas previous books have in general given frequency information about the written language only, this book provides information on both speech and writing. It not only gives information about the language as a whole, but also about the differences between spoken and written English, and between different spoken and written varieties of the language. The frequencies are derived from a wide ranging and up-to-date corpus of English: the British National Corpus, which was compiled from over 4,000 written texts and spoken transcriptions representing the present day language in the UK. The book is based on a new version of the corpus (available from 2001) providing more accurate grammatical information, which is essential (for example) for distinguishing words like leaves (noun) and leaves (verb) with different meanings. The book begins with a general introduction, explaining why such information is important and highlighting interesting linguistic findings that emerge from the statistical analysis of the British National Corpus vocabulary. It also contains twenty four 'interest boxes' which highlight and comment on different aspects of frequency - for example, the most common colour words in English in order of frequency, and a comparison of male words (e.g. man) and female words (e.g. woman) in terms of their frequency.