Language Development Over the Lifespan

Language Development Overthe Lifespan is a reference resource for those conducting research on language development and the aging process, and a supplementary textbook for courses in applied linguistics/bilingualism programs that focus on language attrition/agingandadult literacy development in second languages. Itoffers an integrative approach to language development that examines changes in language over a lifetime, organized by different theoretical perspectives, which are presented by well-known international scholars.

Introduction

Kees de Bot & Robert Schrauf

Section A: Theoretical Approaches to Language Development

1. First and Second Language Development from a UG Perspective

Sharon Unsworth

2. First Language Development from an Emergentist Perspective

Heike Behrens

3. First Language Development from a Dynamic Systems Perspective

Paul van Geert

Section B: Second Language Development

4. Second Language Development from a Socio-cultural Perspective

Maria C. M. de Guerrero

5. Second Language Development from a Dynamic Systems Perspective

Wander Lowie, Marjolijn Verspoor & Kees de Bot

6. Disorders in Bilingual Development Over the Lifespan

Kathryn Kohnert

7. First Language Attrition Across the Lifespan

Monika Schmid

Section C: Non-verbal Aspects of Language Development

8. The Development of Gesture

Marion Tellier

9. The Development of Sign Language

Deborah Chen Pichler

Section D: Methodological and Neuro-linguistic Aspects of Development

10. Longitudinal and Cross-Sectional Designs in Studies of Multilingualism Over the Lifespan

Robert Schrauf

11. The Role of Working Memory in Language Development Over the Lifespan

Susan Kemper

12. The Development of Neural Substrates of Language Over the Lifespan.

Arturo Hernandez, Merrill Hiscock, and Elizabeth A. Bates

Kees de Bot is Chair of Applied Linguistics at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. His research interests include foreign language attrition, language and dementia in multilingual settings, and more recently the application of Dynamic Systems Theory in SLA and multilingualism. He is coeditor ofSecond Language Acquisition: An Advanced Resource Book (2005)andhas published widely in the field of Applied Linguistics. Robert W. Schrauf is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics at Pennsylvania State University in the United States. He conducts research in three main areas: bilingual autobiographical memory; language, culture, and cognitive aging; and applied linguistics and health sciences. He is president of the Association for Anthropology and Gerontology and associate editor of The Journal of Cross-Cultural Gerontology.