Perspectives On Phonological Theory And Development

Any theory of phonology must be able to account for the acquisition and development of a phonological system, and studying acquisition often leads to reciprocal advances in the theory. This volume explores the link between phonological theory and linguistic development from a variety of angles, including phonological representation, individual differences, and cross-linguistic approaches. Chapters touch on the full spectrum of phonological development, from childhood to adult second-language learning, and from developing dialects to language death. Contributors are leading researchers in the fields of linguistics, speech pathology, and cognitive psychology. A tribute to Daniel A. Dinnsen, the papers in this volume complement his research career by highlighting significant contributions of acquisition research to the development of phonological theory.

Combining a collection of data on phonological acquisition with attention to Optimality Theory, this book blends the studies of linguistics, psycholinguistics, and speech-language pathology in reference to phonological development. It also contains an evaluation of competing theories and presents a view of non-linear phonology.

Focusing on the phonologies of children with functional (non-organic) speech disorders, this volume reports the latest findings in optimality theory, phonological acquisition and disorders. The book is based on typological, cross-sectional, longitudinal, and experimental evidence from over 200 children. It stands out because of the unique test case that the population offers to optimality theory, particularly with respect to puzzles of opacity, lawful orders of acquisition, and language learnability. Beyond its theoretical significance, this research holds clinical relevance for the assessment and treatment of disordered populations, most notably the systematic prediction of learning outcomes. The volume bridges the gap between theory and application by showing how each informs the other. It is intended for linguists, psychologists, speech pathologists, second-language instructors and those interested in the latest developments in phonological theory and its applied extensions.

This volume brings together a collection of empirical studies on phonological acquisition and disorder of monolingual children speaking different languages (English, German, Putonghua, Cantonese, Maltese, Telugu, Colloquial Egyptian Arabic and Turkish) and bilingual children speaking different language pairs (Spanish-English, Cantonese-English, Mirpuri/Punjabi/Urdu-English, Welsch-English, Arabic-English and Putonghua-Cantonese). The research findings provide much-needed baseline information for clinical assessment and diagnosis as well as valuable evidence concerning theories of language acquisition and the role of the ambient language.

This book explores the role of phonological templates in early language use from the perspective of usage-based phonology and exemplar models and within the larger developmental framework of Dynamic Systems Theory. After analysing children's first words and their adult targets, Vihman sets out procedures for establishing the children's later prosodic structures and templates, drawing on data from American and British English, Estonian, Finnish, French, Italian, and Welsh; she also provides briefer longitudinal accounts of template use in Arabic and Brazilian Portuguese. The children are found to begin with simple word forms that match their selected adult targets; this is followed by the production of more challenging words, adapted to fit the child's existing patterns. Early accuracy is replaced by later recourse to an 'inner model'--a template--of a favoured word shape. The book also examines the timing, fading, quantification, and function of child phonological templates. In addition, two chapters focus on the use of templates in adult language, in the core grammar and in the more creative morphology of colloquial 'short forms' and hypocoristics in French and Estonian and of English rhyming compounds. The idea of templates is traced back to its origins in Prosodic Morphology, but its uses are most in evidence in the informal settings of adult language 'at play'. Throughout the volume, the discussion returns to the issues of emergent systematicity, the roles of articulatory and memory challenges for children, and the similarities and differences in the function of templates for adults as compared with children.

This innovative textbook offers comprehensive perspectives on speech sound development and disorders provided by leading experts in the field. It is primarily intended for individuals in training for a career in clinical linguistics, an audience comprised of undergraduate and graduate students who are preparing to become speech-language pathologists. We also hope that this text will serve practising speech-language pathologists as a useful tool to bring their practice up to date with regards to the cutting-edge advances in the management of speech sound disorders. Researchers interested in various aspects of speech production will find this book a valuable resource as well. The assumed level of expertise includes basic familiarity with phonetics, phonology, and introductory linguistics. The authors take their readers on a journey from the first studies of child speech development using paper and pencil, to contemporary clinical and research methodology such as acoustic analyses and videofluoroscopy, to an outlook on the future with promises of creating a catalogue of genetic disorder aetiologies.They describe speech sound acquisition from typically developing children in English and other languages to the perplexing variety of disordered speech and its impact on a childs life. They provide the theoretical and hands-on foundations for the clinical management of children with speech sound disorders. Several special features make this book unique. First, it covers a wide range of clinical topics such as idiopathic articulation and phonological disorders, childhood apraxia of speech, dysarthria, cleft palate, hearing impairment, developmental disorders, and links between speech sound disorders and dyslexia. Second, it comes with a rich set of sound files and video files illustrating a wide range of populations and aspects of clinical practice with examples of various types of typical and disordered speech, speech assessments, and treatment activities.Third, it provides a number of pedagogical tools including review questions at the end of each chapter to help readers self-assess their understanding, activities to enhance the mastery of the materials and guide readers to interact with more complex or advanced facets of the chapters topic, and a full suite of adaptable lecture slides. Supplemental information on clinical applications of the International Phonetic Alphabet, phonological processes, and statistical properties of standardised tests is contained in the three appendices. With its comprehensive perspectives on child speech development and disorders, the pathways between linguistic theory and clinical practice, and the pedagogical focus, this textbook is a unique contribution to the tools available for training future speech-language pathologists and for independent learning among practising clinicians and researchers. Together, these features equip readers with a thorough understanding of typical and disordered speech development and with clinical tools to diagnose and treat disordered speech effectively.

In this landmark compendium featuring original work, Perspectives in Applied Phonology provides a comprehensive look at the science of phonology and what it means to the practitioner and the children treated. An in-depth overview of generative, natural, and non-linear phonology gives readers a solid theoretical foundation to use in practice. A thorough assessment of current research and linguistic models brings readers up-to-date with the latest thinking. The book bridges the gap between theory and practice and gives readers a "linguistic point-of-view" to assessments and interventions. The authors shed light on up-and-coming speech processing models, advances in technology, and the direction of clinical applications in the new millennium.

The central assertion in this volume is that the young child uses general skills, scaffolded by adults, to acquire the complex knowledge of sound patterns and the goal-directed behaviors for communicating ideas through language and producing speech. A child’s acquisition of phonology is seen as a product of her physical and social interaction capacities supported by input from adult models about ambient language sound patterns. Acquisition of phonological knowledge and behavior is a product of this function-oriented complex system. No pre-existing mental knowledge base is necessary for acquiring phonology in this view. Importantly, the child’s diverse abilities are used for many other functions as well as phonological acquisition. Throughout, an evaluation is made of the research on patterns of typical development across languages in monolingual and bilingual children and children with speech impairments affecting various aspects of their developing complex system. Also considered is the status of available theoretical perspectives on phonological acquisition relative to an emergence proposal, and contributions that this perspective could make to more comprehensive modeling of the nature of phonological acquisition are proposed. The volume will be of interest to cognitive psychologists, linguistics, and speech pathologists.