How Children Learn Language

Cambridge Approaches to Linguistics

by William D. O'Grady

Demonstrating how children learn to produce and distinguish between sounds, and their acquisition of words and meanings, this book explains their incredible mastery of language. William O'Grady provides readers with an overview not only of the language acquisition process itself, but also of the ingenious experiments and techniques that researchers use to investigate this mysterious phenomenon.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Psychology, Education

248 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2004

Reviews

[Aiste · Rating 5 out of 5]

Work read.

Detailed, scientific, plenty of examples, well organized, easy to read and, most importantly, interesting!

This can be helpful for anyone who work with children, have children, want to know more about language acquisition or want to learn a new language themselves (we all start somewhere, don't we?).

[Alie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I usually don’t like books that talk about theory that I read for school, but dang this book I had to read for Language Acquisition is actually really good. I hate it when I read and I’m too dumb to understand because not a single work in the book makes sense. But in this one, everything is perfectly explained so that anyone can understand, even those without a degree in the subject. The language used is easy to understand, the ideas are clear, and the text is greatly organized. Moreover, it is so interesting! I was surprised by that one.

[Harrison Large · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a textbook, this was really good! Very technical on how children learn language, which wasn't as useful for me as I hoped in learning a new language. But I won't fault the book on that. If you're after a resource on children learning to speak English (or any language) then this'll be the best book you can find for the layman.

[Kaycee Monnens · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and relatable. It was a great and easy textbook to read.

[Colleen O'grady · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learnt a fascinating story of linguistics which I had never before thought of with regards to children learning to speak from babyhood. Curiosity had me find this book. Ir was rhe name William Delaney O'Grady. As of irish descent with lots of irish tales come down from the 'oldies', Delaney has long been a middle name, usually for the third son, since 1640 Ireland and the fight against the British. Is this professor/writer a relative?

[Rebecca Timberlake · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book. It was informative, and it would have been a very quick read had I not had to read a chapter a week for class. Everything was explained well, and the examples were clear. It's clear that O'Grady knows how to write for the student; I never felt overwhelmed by the amount of information coming at me, and I never had to force myself to read it. It would work well for an Education major, or for anyone interested in linguistics.

[Gabriel Gapas · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was very interesting to know language acquisition per se! I wonder what my first word(s) and phrases were as a toddler...

[Nan Suphaphorn]

One adj. can say "interesting"

[Saydyko Fedorova]

Linguistics