To: Dr. A. Q. M. A.

Rahman Bhuiyan

From: Md. Gulzar Hasan

ID: 103 1015 055, ENG 501

Assignment: Annotated Bibliography

Date: December 14, 2010

Annotated Bibliography

Slobin, D. I. (1979). Language development in the child. Psycholinguistics. London:

Scott, Foresman and Company.

This chapter provides the information of how children learn to speak by cries and broken

accents and various motions of their limbs to express their thought. The writer examines

the biological aspects of the human language. Various studies of imitation by children are

illustrated in the chapter. It also describes how adults play an important role in language

acquisition by speaking to the children often in a slow, grammatical and repetitious way.

Cruttenden, A. (1979). Language in infancy and childhood. Manchester: Manchester UP.

This book deals with pre-school age language learning. The book describes the

Behabourist approach, Innatist approach with huge examples. Throughout the book, there
is great emphasis on how children develop their language skill through the interplay of

nature and nurture.

Clark, H. H., & Clark, E. V. (1977). First steps in the child’s language. Psychology and

Language. Atlanta: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc.

This chapter deals with the function of the adults in nurturing children to attend early

speech acts. The chapter also deals with the role of objects in child’s language acquisition.

The writer in this chapter tries to find out which aspects of language acquisition are

biologically programmed into the human brain by nature and which are based on nurture.

Lightbown, P. M., & Spada, N. (2006). Language learning in early Childhood. How

languages are learned. Oxford: OUP.

This chapter gives a detail description of the characteristics of the language of the young

children. The chapter highlights several theories that have been offered as explanations for

how language is learned. Actually, the chapter is an immense body of research on the

function of nature and nurture in child language acquisition.

Brown, H. D. (2000). First language acquisition. Principles of language learning and

teaching. Oxford: OUP.

The writer in this chapter analyses the behavioristic approach, nativist approach and

functional approach with huge reference to deal with the function of nature and nurture in

the child language acquisition.

Mahoney, N. (2008). Language learning. National Science Foundation. Retrieved

November 30, 2010, from

http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/linguistics/learn.Jsp

This article highlights the processes of language acquisition. It discusses the theory of

Universal Grammar with logical explanations. The article also discusses how nature and

nurture come together to influence language learning.

Language acquisition. (2010). Wikipedia. Retrieved November 30, 2010, from

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_acquisition

This article gives a clear description of language acquisition process. It deals with the

social interactionism, Relational frame theory, Emergentism of first language acquisition.

This article shows the way how a child develops his linguistic performance through the

interplay of nature and nurture.