The Usage-based Study of Language Learning and Multilingualism

When humans learn languages, are they also learning how to create shared meaning? In The Usage-based Study of Language Learning and Multilingualism, a cadre of international experts say yes and offer cutting-edge research in usage-based linguistics to explore how language acquisition, in particular multilingual language acquisition, works.

Each chapter presents an original study that supports the view that language learning is initiated through local and meaningful communication with others. Over an accumulated history of such usage, people gradually create more abstract, interactive schematic representations, or a mental grammar. This process of acquiring language is the same for infants and adults and across varied contexts, such as the family, the classroom, the laboratory, a hospital, or a public encounter. Employing diverse methodologies to study this process, the contributors here work with target languages, including Cantonese, English, French, French Sign Language, German, Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Spanish, and Swedish, and offer a much-needed exploration of this growing area of linguistic research.

Table of Contents

Illustrations
Preface

1. The Vibrant and Expanded Study of Usage-based Language Learning
and Multilingualism
Lourdes Ortega and Andrea E. Tyler

PART 1. USAGE-BASED DEVELOPMENT OF LANGUAGE ACROSS THE LIFESPAN

2. A Multimodal Approach to the Development of Negation in Signed
and Spoken Languages: Four Case Studies
Aliyah Morgenstern, Pauline Beaupoil-Hourdel, Marion Blondel, and Dominique Boutet

3. Why Don’t You Just Learn it from the Input? A Usage-based Corpus
Study on the Acquisition of Conventionalized Indirect Speech Acts
in English and German
Ursula Kania

4. Prepositional Phrases as Manner Adverbials in the Development
of Hebrew L1 Text Production
Gilad Brandes And Dorit Ravid

5. Negative Constructions in Nonliterate Learners’ Spoken L2 Finnish
Taina Tammelin-Laine And Maisa Martin

6. How Do Multilinguals Conceptualize Interactions Among Languages
Studied? Operationalizing Perceived Positive Language Interaction (PPLI)
Amy S. Thompson

PART II. THE CORPUS-AIDED, USAGE-BASED STUDY OF LEARNER LANGUAGE

7. A Friendly Conspiracy of Input, L1, and Processing Demands:
That-variation in the Language of German and Spanish Learners of English
Stefanie Wulff

8. Measuring Lexical Frequency: Comparison Groups and Subject
Expression in L2 Spanish
Bret Linford, Avizia Long, Megan Solon, and Kimberly L. Geeslin

9. Article Omission: Toward Establishing How Referents are Tracked
in L2 English
Monika Ekiert

10. Measuring L2 Explicit Knowledge of English Verb-Particle Constructions:
Frequency and Semantic Transparency at Two Proficiency Levels
Helen Zhao and Fenfen Le

PART III. THE EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF USAGE-BASED PROCESSING AND LEARNING

11. Can English-Spanish Emerging Bilinguals Use Agreement Morphology
to Overcome Word Order Bias?
Silvia Marijuan, Sol Lago, and Cristina Sanz

12. Miniature Artificial Language Learning as a Complement
to Typological Data
Maryia Fedzechkina, Elissa L. Newport, and T. Florian Jaeger

PART IV. MULTILINGUALISM IN THE WILD: USAGE-BASED INSIGHTS

13. Patterns of Interaction in Doctor-Patient Communication
and Their Impact on Health Outcomes
Diana Slade, Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, Graham Lock, Jack Pun, and Marvin Lam

14. Toward a Model of Multilingual Usage
Michael Achard and Sarah Lee

Contributors
Index

Reviews

"Usage-based linguistics turns our understanding of the nature of language, its use and its development upside down. Its focus on meaning, learning from exemplars, the emergence and entrenchment of constructions, and its acknowledgement of variation make it undeniably one of the most exciting linguistic developments of our time. This volume justifies my enthusiasm: from its application to populations, languages and syntactic structures that are rarely studied, to the introduction, refinement, and use of new methodologies, and its representation of multilingual data and the attitudes of multilinguals, it amply demonstrates why a usage-based approach has so much to offer."—Diane Larsen-Freeman, Professor Emerita of Linguistics and of Education, University of Michigan

"This volume marks the coming of age of usage-based research into multilingual acquisition and its application across languages, learners and contexts. Cutting-edge contributions illustrate the latest methods and theoretical developments."—Nick Ellis, University of Michigan

Contributors

Michel AchardPauline Beaupoil-HourdelMarion BlondelDominique BoutetGilad BrandesMonika EkiertMaryia FedzechkinaKimberly L. GeeslinT. Florian JaegerUrsula KaniaSol LagoMarvin LamFenfen LeSarah LeeBret LinfordAvizia Y. LongMaisa MartinSilvia MarijuanChristian M. I. M. MatthiessenAliyah MorgensternElissa L. NewportLourdes OrtegaHae In ParkDorit RavidCristina SanzDiana SladeMegan SolonTaina Tammelin-LaineAmy S. ThompsonAndrea TylerMariko UnoStefanie WulffHelen Zhao

Supplemental Materials

Awards

About the Author

Lourdes Ortega is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown Univeristy. She is the author of Understanding Second Language Acquisition and coauthor of Technology-Mediated TBLT: Researching Technology and Tasks.

Andrea Tyler is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University. She is a coauthor of Language in Use: Cognitive and Discourse Perspectives on Language and Language Learning.

Hae In Park is a doctoral student in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University.

Marika Uno is a doctoral student in the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University.