Below you’ll find the full list of readings for the course. Readings will be posted on Perusall and part of your participation grade involves reading and commenting on the discussion articles (in bold) each week. Additional papers are provided for optional background and further reading.
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Sankoff, G. (2019) Transmission Revisited. In David Lightfoot & J. Havenhill, (eds.), Variable properties in language: Their nature and acquisition, pp 155-166. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press. [perusall] [pdf]
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Sankoff, G., & Laberge, S. (1980) “On the Acquisition of Native Speakers by a Language”. In The Social Life of Language. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. [perusall] [pdf]
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Sankoff, G. (1979) The genesis of a language. In K.C. Hill (Ed.), The Genesis of Language. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers. [perusall] [pdf]
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Romaine, S. (1988) Pidgin and creole linguistics. London: Longman, 23-46.[pdf]
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Slobin, D. (1977) Language change in childhood and history. In J. Macnamara (Ed.), Language Learning and Thought. New York: Academic Press. [pdf]
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Bickerton, D. (1984) The language bioprogram hypothesis, plus commentaries and author’s response. The Behavioral and Brain Sciences. 7, 173-221. [pdf]
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Bakker, P., Daval-Markussen, A., Parkvall, M., & Plag, I. (2011) Creoles are typologically distinct from non-creoles. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages. 26, 5–42. [pdf]
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Senghas, A., & Coppola, M. (2001). Children creating language: How Nicaraguan Sign Language acquired a spatial grammar. Psychological science, 12(4), 323-328. [perusall] [pdf]
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Senghas, A. (2005). Language emergence: Clues from a new Bedouin sign language. Current Biology, 15:12, 463-465. [perusall] [pdf]
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Senghas, A. (2019). How Language Learns: Linking Universals to Acquisition. [perusall] [pdf]
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Brentari, D., Coppola, M., Cho, P. W., & Senghas, A. (2017). Handshape complexity as a precursor to phonology: variation, emergence, and acquisition. Language Acquisition, 24(4), 283-306. [pdf]
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Gleitman, L., Senghas, A., Flaherty, M., Coppola, M., & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2019). The emergence of the formal category “symmetry” in a new sign language. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(24), 11705-11711. [pdf]
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Supalla, T. & Webb, R. The grammar of International Sign: A new look at pidgin languages. In K. Emmorey & J. Reilly (Eds.), Language, gesture, and space. Hillsdale NJ: Erlbaum, 1995. [pdf]
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Osugi, Y. , Supalla, T., & Webb, R. The use of word elicitation to identify distinctive gestural systems on Amami Island. Sign Language and Linguistics, 1999, 2, 87-112. [pdf]
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Senghas, A., Coppola, M., Newport, E.L., & Supalla, T. Argument structure in Nicaraguan Sign Language: The emergence of grammatical devices. In E. Hughes, M. Hughes, & A. Greenhill (eds.), Proceedings of the 21st Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development: Vol.2. Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Press, 1997. [pdf]
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Sandler, W., Meir, I., Padden, C. & Aronoff, M. The emergence of grammar: Systematic structure in a new language. PNAS, 2005, 102, 2661-2665. [pdf]
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Newport, E. L. (1999). Reduced input in the acquisition of signed languages; Contributions to the study of creolization. [perusall] [pdf]
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Singleton, J. L., & Newport, E. L. (2004). When learners surpass their models: The acquisition of American Sign Language from inconsistent input. Cognitive Psychology, 49(4), 370–407. [perusall] [pdf]
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Hudson Kam, C. L., & Newport, E. L. (2005). Regularizing unpredictable variation: The roles of adult and child learners in language formation and change. Language Learning and Development: The Official Journal of the Society for Language Development, 1(2), 151–195. [perusall] [pdf]
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Austin, A., Schuler, K.D., Furlong, S., & Newport, E.L. (under review) Learning a language from inconsistent input: Regularization in child and adult learners [perusall] [preprint]
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Ross, D. S., & Newport, E. L. (1996). The development of language from non-native linguistic input. Proceedings of the 20th Annual Boston University Conference on Language Development, 2, 634–645. [pdf]
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Hudson Kam, C. L. (2019). Reconsidering retrieval effects on adult regularization of inconsistent variation in language. Language Learning and Development, 15(4), 317-337 [perusall] [pdf]
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Hudson Kam, C. L., & Chang, A. (2009). Investigating the cause of regularization in adults: Memory constraints or learning differences? JEP: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 35, 815-821 [perusall] [pdf]
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Hudson Kam, C. L. (2015). The impact of conditioning variables on the acquisition of variation in adult and child learners. Language, 91(4), 906–937. [perusall] [pdf]
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Hudson Kam, C. L., & Newport, E. L. (2009). Getting it right by getting it wrong: When learners change languages. Cognitive Psychology, 59(1), 30–66. [perusall] [pdf]
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Smith & Holmes-Elliott* (under review) Where do the stops start? Transmission and Incrementation in the Childhood Years. [perusall]
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Smith, J., Durham, M., & Fortune, L. (2007). “Mam, ma troosers is fa’in doon!” Community, caregiver and child in the acquisition of variation in Scottish dialect. Language Variation and Change, 19(1), 63–99. [perusall] [pdf]
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Smith, J., Durham, M., & Richards, H. (2013). The social and linguistic in the acquisition of sociolinguistic norms: caregivers, children, and variation. Linguistics and Philosophy, 51(2), 285–324. [perusall] [pdf]
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Smith, J., Durham, M., & Fortune, L. (2009). Universal and dialect-specific pathways of acquisition: Caregivers, children, and t/d deletion. Language Variation and Change, 21(1), 69–95.
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Labov, W. (1989). The child as linguistic historian. Language Variation and Change, 1(01), 85–97.
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Roberts, J. (1997). Acquisition of variable rules: a study of (-t, d) deletion in preschool children. In Journal of Child Language (Vol. 24, Issue 2, pp. 351–372).
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Roberts, J. L. (1994). Acquisition of Variable Rules: (-t,d) Deletion and (ing) Production in Preschool Children.
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Shin, N. L. (2016). Acquiring constraints on morphosyntactic variation: children’s Spanish subject pronoun expression. Journal of Child Language, 43(4), 914–947.
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Miller, K. & Cárdenas, R. (2020) Stylistic Patterns in the Speech of Young Children and Their Caregivers: A Study of Variable /s/ Lenition in Dominican Spanish. In: An Anthology of Bilingual Child Phonology, by Elena Babatsouli and Martin J. Ball (eds.), Multilingual Matters [perusall] [pdf]
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Lukyanenko, C. & Miller, K. (2019) Learning the plural from variable input: An eye-tracking study of Chilean children’s plural comprehension. Journal of Monolingual and Bilingual Speech 1 (2), 248-279.[perusall] [pdf]
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Miller, K. (2013) Acquisition of variable rules: /s/-lenition in the speech of Chilean Spanish- speaking children and their caregivers. Language Variation and Change 25, 311-340. [perusall] [pdf]
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Miller, K. & Schmitt, C. (2012) Variable input and the acquisition of plural morphology. Language Acquisition: A Journal of Developmental Linguistics, 19, (3), 223-261. [perusall] [pdf]
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Habib, R. (2017). Parents and their children’s variable language: Is it acquisition or more? Journal of Child Language, 44(3), 628–649. [pdf] [perusall]
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Foulkes, P., Docherty, G. J., & Watt, D. (2005). Phonological Variation in Child-Directed Speech. Language, 81(1), 177–206. [pdf] [perusall]
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Chevrot, J. P., Nardy, A., & Barbu, S. (2011). Developmental dynamics of SES-related differences in children’s production of obligatory and variable phonological alternations. Language Sciences [pdf] [perusall]
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Barbu, S., Nardy, A., Chevrot, J.-P., & Juhel, J. (2013). Language evaluation and use during early childhood: Adhesion to social norms or integration of environmental regularities? Linguistics and Philosophy, 51(2), 381–411. [pdf] [perusall]
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Díaz-Campos, M. (2005). The emergence of adult-like command of sociolinguistic variables: a study of consonant weakening in Spanish-speaking children.
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Wonnacott, E. & Brown, H. & Nation, K. (2017). Skewing the evidence: The effect of input structure on child and adult learning of lexically based patterns in an artificial language. Journal of Memory and Language, 95, 36-48.
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Samara, A., Smith, K., Brown, H., & Wonnacott, E. (2017). Acquiring variation in an artificial language: Children and adults are sensitive to socially conditioned linguistic variation. Cognitive Psychology, 94, 85–114.
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Hendricks, A. E., Miller, K., & Jackson, C. N. (2018). Regularizing Unpredictable Variation: Evidence from a Natural Language Setting. Language Learning and Development: The Official Journal of the Society for Language Development, 14(1), 42–60.