Cornelia Hamann

This edited collection contains 34 papers originally presented at the Generative Approaches to Language Acquisition (GALA) conference in 2013, held in Oldenburg, Germany. It represents theoretically guided, high quality work, and provides impressive insights into state-of-the-art research in the fields of first and second language acquisition and developmental impairments. The studies brought together here cover a wide variety of different (mainly European) languages, focusing on the areas of phonology, morpho-syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and their interfaces. Since their first publication, the proceedings of GALA have become an invaluable reference for cutting-edge research in First and Second Language Acquisition and its impairments – and this volume continues that tradition.

Proceedings of GALA 2013

Language Acquisition and Development

Esther Rinke

Dobrinka Genevska-Hanke

It has long been established that bilingual speakers are rarely balanced in their languages so that one language is dominant. The contributions to the Research Topic “Bilingual Language Development: The Role of Dominance” focus on the potential effects of language dominance on the competence and processing of bilinguals, covering a large variety of language combinations and domains. Important aspects of such work are the interplay of L1-maintenance/attrition and possible L2-dominance, the direction of cross-linguistic influence (CLI) or code-mixing, as well as the effects of bilingualism on cognitive development, each addressed in several contributions. However, such research presupposes a definition of dominance, which is far from being settled. This gives rise to considerable differences in the operationalization of the concept across studies. The studies in this Research Topic present a multifaceted picture of the role of language dominance for L1-maintenance/attrition, L2-development and CLI. Though a unified story cannot emerge for such a complex subject, interesting new venues are explored including the impact of dominance shift during L1-re-exposure, comparisons of different types of bilingual groups, or operationalization of dominance through experiential measures. The variety of approaches and results is in part owed to the many language combinations studied and the fact that bilingual children, adults and atypical speakers are investigated. This diversity constitutes the interest of this Research Topic.

Bilingual Language Development: The Role of Dominance

Elisa Di Domenico

Simona Matteini

The volume contains 18 contributions from senior and junior scholars covering core issues within the theoretical investigation of the architecture and the mechanisms of the faculty of language, with particular emphasis on the computational component. They all pursue a comparative approach, investigating and comparing different languages and dialects or comparing different modes of acquisition, as in Adriana Belletti’s work, to whom the volume is dedicated. The papers in the first part (by Chomsky, Rizzi, Bianchi & Chesi, Cinque, Costa, Calabrese) deal with theoretical issues such as labeling, the cartography of structures and the locality of derivations in a broad sense. The papers in the second part (by Haegeman & Lohndal, Delfitto & Fiorin, Cruschina, Lahousse, Di Domenico and Contemori, Dal Pozzo & Matteini) concentrate on the realization of structure relative to discourse, particularly on topic and focus positions in the vP periphery, and on referential dependencies. The third part collects papers (by Cardinaletti & Volpato, Friedmann, Yachini & Szterman, Snyder & Hyams, Hamann & Tuller, Cecchetto & Donati, Grewendorf & Poletto) that specifically target intervention effects in relative clauses as apparent in different structures, different languages, and different populations.

Cornelia Hamann

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