This book provides a snapshot of the field of language acquisition at the beginning of the 21st Century. It represents the multiplicity of approaches that characterize the field and provides a review of current topics and debates, as well as addressing some of the connections between sub-fields and possible future directions for research.

MEAOLA AMITUANAI-TOLOA is Associate Director of the Woolf Fisher Research Centre, and Lecturer and Associate Dean Pasifika at The University of Auckland, New Zealand RUTH BERMAN is Professor Emeritus in Linguistics at Tel Aviv University, Israel GEORGIE COLUMBUS is a phraseologist working in corpus linguistics and psycholinguistics SUSAN GASS is University Distinguished Professor at Michigan State University, USA MARIA TERESA GUASTI is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Milano Bicocca, Italy MAYA HICKMANNKOENRAAD KUIPER is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Canterbury, New Zealand STUART MCNAUGHTONNATASCHA MÜLLER is Professor of Romance linguistics (French, Italian, Spanish) at Bergische Universität Wuppertal, Germany IRA A. NOVECK is a research scientist at the Institut des Sciences Cognitives in Lyon, FranceANN PETERS is Professor Emerita of Linguistics, University of Hawai'i at Manoa. NAUSICAA POUSCOULOUSJUDY REILLYMATTHEW SAXTON is Senior Lecturer in Psychology, the Institute of Education, University of London, UKNORBERT SCHMITT is Professor of Applied Linguistics at the University of Nottingham, UK MARILYN VIHMAN is Professor of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York, UK JILL DE VILLIERSPETER DE VILLIERSEMA WOLFGRAMM-FOLIAKI

Preface Series Preface Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors PART I: EXPLAINING LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Word Learning and the Origins of Phonological System; M.Vihman Processing Strategies in First Language Acquisition; A.M.Peters The Inevitability of Child Directed Speech; M.Saxton Universal Grammar Approaches to Language Acquisition; M.T.Guasti Second Language Acquisition; S.Gass PART II: WINDOWS ON LANGUAGE ACQUISITION Language and the Many Faces of Emotion; J.Reilly Complements Enable Representation of the Contents of False Beliefs: The Evolution of a Theory of Theory of Mind; J.& P.De Villiers Going Beyond Semantics: The Development of Pragmatic Enrichment; N.Pouscoulous& I.Noveck The Acquisition of Phrasal Vocabulary; K.Kuiper , G.Columbus& N.Schmitt PART III: LANGUAGE ACQUISITION, CULTURE AND LINGUISTIC DIVERSITY Language Development in Simultaneous Bilingual Children; N.Müller Universals and Cross-Linguistic Variability in Children's Discourse; M.Hickmann Trends in Research on Narrative Development; R.Berman Family Literacy Activities: What Is, What Ought To Be and The Role of Parents' Ideas; S.McNaughton , M.Amituanai-Toloa& E.Wolfgramm-Foliaki Index