Research Methods in Language Acquisition

Mar amp iacute a Blume, PhD, is an associate professor in linguistics at the Pontificia Universidad Cat amp oacute lica del Per amp uacute . She received her PhD in linguistics at Cornell University.  Her research interests include first and second language acquisition, bilingualism, cognition, and the acquisition of morphology and syntax and their interaction with pragmatics.  She was a member of the Cornell Language Acquisition Lab and founded and directed the University of Texas at El Paso Language Acquisition and Linguistics Research Lab. She is a founding member of the Virtual Center for the Study of Language Acquisition (VCLA) and through support of the National Science Foundation has collaborated with members of the VCLA in creating a series of materials related to research in language acquisition: the Virtual Linguistics Lab and the Data Transcription and Analysis Tool.  She recently coauthored a book published by Cambridge University Press: Bilingualism in the Spanish-Speaking World: Linguistic and Cognitive Perspectives (Austin, Blume, amp amp S amp aacute nchez, 2 5).  Barbara C. Lust, PhD, is a professor of developmental psychology, linguistics, and cognitive science at Cornell University, where she has taught for more than 3 years.  There, she and her students and collaborators have built the Cornell University Language Acquisition Lab, which houses and supports ongoing research on language acquisition involving more than 2 languages. Together they have constructed a range of materials for the crosslinguistic interdisciplinary study of language acquisition.  Her research interests focus on crosslinguistic analyses of language acquisition with a view to factoring out universal from language-specific factors in a comprehensive theory.  In addition to numerous journal and book articles, she has authored Child Language: Acquisition and Growth (2 new edition in preparation). With Claire Foley, she coedited Language Acquisition: The Essential Readings (2 4). With Mar amp iacute a Blume, she codirected the development of an international cyberinfrastructure-based project to support research and teaching in an interdisciplinary framework, amp quot Transforming the Primary Research Process Through Cybertool Dissemination: An Implementation of a Virtual Center for the Study of Language Acquisition amp quot (NSF CI- 7534 5).

• PrefaceAcknowledgmentsIntroductionI. Fundamentals of Language Acquisition ResearchThe Challenge of Studying LanguagePreparing to Work With Children, Schools, and FamiliesCreating the Data I: Working in Teams, Basic Data Collection, Data Sharing, and Data ManagementII. Experimental and Observational Methods in Language Acquisition ResearchStudying Language Acquisition Through Collecting SpeechIntroduction to Experimental Methods: Design and AnalysisExperimental Tasks for Generating Language Production DataExperimental Tasks for Generating Language Comprehension DataThe Grammaticality Judgment TaskIII. Managing and Interpreting Speech DataCreating the Data II: Begin Data ProcessingCreating the Data III: Preparing for Data AnalysisInterpreting the Data: Scientific InferenceIV. Special Considerations in Language Acquisition ResearchAssessing Multilingual AcquisitionIntroduction to Infant Testing Methods in Language Acquisition ResearchConclusions and Proceeding to the FutureAppendix A. Transcription SymbolsAppendix B. The International Phonetic AlphabetAppendix C. Outline for Preparation of Schematic Research ProposalSuggested ReadingsReferencesIndexAbout the Authors