The Usage-based Study of Language Learning and Multilingualism

Usage-based linguistics turns our understanding of the nature of language, its use and its development upside down. Its focus on meaning, learning from exemplars, the emergence and entrenchment of constructions, and its acknowledgement of variation make it undeniably one of the most exciting linguistic developments of our time. This volume justifies my enthusiasm: from its application to populations, languages and syntactic structures that are rarely studied, to the introduction, refinement, and use of new methodologies, and its representation of multilingual data and the attitudes of multilinguals, it amply demonstrates why a usage-based approach has so much to offer. -- Diane Larsen-Freeman, Professor Emerita of Linguistics and of Education, University of Michigan This volume marks the coming of age of usage-based research into multilingual acquisition and its application across languages, learners and contexts. Cutting-edge contributions illustrate the latest methods and theoretical developments. -- Nick Ellis, University of Michigan

The Usage-based Study of Language Learning and Multilingualism offers cutting-edge research from a cadre of international experts who agree that human language learning is a process of learning how to create shared meaning. The articles collected here present a much-needed exploration of this growing area of linguistic research.When humans learn languages, are they also learning how to create shared meaning? In The Usage-based Study of Language Learning and Multilingualism, a cadre of international experts say yes and offer cutting-edge research in usage-based linguistics to explore how language acquisition, in particular multilingual language acquisition, works. Each chapter presents an original study that supports the view that language learning is initiated through local and meaningful communication with others. Over an accumulated history of such usage, people gradually create more abstract, interactive schematic representations, or a mental grammar. This process of acquiring language is the same for infants and adults and across varied contexts, such as the family, the classroom, the laboratory, a hospital, or a public encounter. Employing diverse methodologies to study this process, the contributors here work with target languages, including Cantonese, English, French, French Sign Language, German, Hebrew, Malay, Mandarin, Spanish, and Swedish, and offer a much-needed exploration of this growing area of linguistic research.