I have already passed childhood, so I would like to know what the research findings will imply for my own language capabilities (or lack thereof)!
No, unfortunately, only up to about 6 yrs. Going even that far is a tall order. Adults will enter, since the concepts I'll use are all worked out with adult speakers, and I will need to describe them as part of the explanation of what little children begin to achieve. I imagine these concepts also work with adolescents but may not address any late changes in language tjhat may be taking place.
David
Conceptualizing the problem: When it comes to "children acquiring language from adults," there are undoubtedly a number of ways this can happen. In my own case, my father read children's novels to his children for years, and we enjoyed it enormously. When it came to actually talking to adults, I was quite shy, and would never have developed my vocabulary as I did without all that experience of being read to. When my father got a sore throat one time, I was forced to read on my own, and I "took to reading ever since!" In other words, there is more than one way for children to acquire language from adults. Would it be a good idea to identify these different "ways for children to acquire language from adults," and evaluate the efficacy of each?
The literature on children’s acquisition of language has focused on the first 5 years or so – before schooling. I suspect your questions are addressed more in the education literature, but I am not familiar with it. This book is not a survey of language acquisition. I am discovering that Eve Clark’s book does this admirably (and with the same focus on the early years). My project is to see if and how I can explain the beginning of language in children with the concepts I’ve described in these updates. They focus on the earliest steps to language.
One interesting question, taking off from your own experience, is whether late changes are tied to specific environmental events – in your case, to being read to. At the earliest stages, in contrast, changes occur in every kind of environment. The question is, is there such a trade-off: continued change only in narrowed conditions?
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