At this point in the semester, you have read a big stack of papers on language acquisition, from a variety of perspectives, and we've talked about even more research, theories, and ideas. Thus, you are all now qualified consumers of acquisition research. I've listed seven short recent acquisition papers and I want you to choose one and critique it. By that, I mean I want to you read the paper you choose and think about it in light of the acquisition literature you've become familiar with. How does the paper fit in, is it convincing, what contributions does it make, how should it constrain acquisition theory, etc. Keep in mind, as I've tried to point out throughout the semester, that there are no right or wrong answers here. These are open theoretical questions (which is why people are actively doing research on them) and I'd like to hear your take, as you have now read and (hopefully) thought enough to support your view. And please do support your critique by citing the relevant papers from class (or elsewhere). Your paper should have the following structure:
1-2 paragraph summary of the paper: Just quickly summarize what the paper was about. If it's an experimental paper, say what the experiment(s) was(were). Say what factors were manipulated, what the experimental task was, what the main findings were, and how they were interpreted. If it's a theoretical paper, say what motivated the theory and what the main arguments were. At this point, just summarize, don't evaluate. You can assume that the reader (which is me) has read the papers, so this is just a quick summary laying out the main points of the paper.
Strengths of the paper: Why are the findings or theory important or interesting? This should be easy, as the author(s) should have written explicitly why their paper is important and what implications it has. Relate these strengths to other papers we read or ideas we discussed in class.
Your critique: Here, you should evaluate problems, outstanding issues, etc. These can include both relatively prosaic things (e.g., they got some small point wrong) to real big picture issues (e.g., criticisms of the theory, why you don't believe their data the way the presented it). No paper is perfect, so it's always important to critically evaluate them (just as we did in class with the papers we read).
How does this paper fit into acquisition theory more generally? Here, I want you to tie the paper you chose into the broader thread of paper we?ve read in class. In general, what sort of theoretical framework is the paper most closely related to (more Chomsky, Tomasello, social, etc.)? What problems does the paper explain what what aspects of acquistion remain problematic?
Please, please, please feel free to discuss any of the ideas you have with me. And if you feel stuck, I will help.
This is an interesting recent paper, as it relates semantic development to critical period phenomena in speech perception.
This is a paper on spontaneous singing by deaf kids, in the same vein as the Nicaraguan case.
This is probably the most challenging and longest of these papers. Given that Chomsky is an author, this paper is a surprising theoretical perspective on what is unique to human language acquisition and what abilities are shared by other species.
This paper is a theoretical perspective on a learning approach to acquisition.
This paper presents imaging data that suggest different brain areas for native and non-native languages in multi-lingual speakers.
This is a paper that lays out a parameter-setting account of acquisition.
A very short paper that suggests dogs' abilities to very quickly acquire word meanings.
At what level are the dogs really learning meaning? For this one you might also want to consult this short paper on fast-mapping:
Markson, L., & Bloom, P. (1997). Evidence against a dedicated system for word learning in children. Nautre, 385, 813-815. [pdf version]