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Paula Menyuk

Bio: Paula Menyuk is an academic researcher. The author has contributed to research in topics: Socialization (Marxism). The author has an hindex of 1, co-authored 1 publications receiving 267 citations.

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Journal ArticleDOI

271 citations


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BookDOI
01 Nov 2000
TL;DR: From Neurons to Neighborhoods as discussed by the authors presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how children learn to learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior, and examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.
Abstract: How we raise young children is one of today's most highly personalized and sharply politicized issues, in part because each of us can claim some level of "expertise." The debate has intensified as discoveries about our development-in the womb and in the first months and years-have reached the popular media. How can we use our burgeoning knowledge to assure the well-being of all young children, for their own sake as well as for the sake of our nation? Drawing from new findings, this book presents important conclusions about nature-versus-nurture, the impact of being born into a working family, the effect of politics on programs for children, the costs and benefits of intervention, and other issues. The committee issues a series of challenges to decision makers regarding the quality of child care, issues of racial and ethnic diversity, the integration of children's cognitive and emotional development, and more. Authoritative yet accessible, From Neurons to Neighborhoods presents the evidence about "brain wiring" and how kids learn to speak, think, and regulate their behavior. It examines the effect of the climate-family, child care, community-within which the child grows.

5,295 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This article reviewed a substantial part of the research on linguistic politeness, with the objective to evaluate current politeness theories and to outline directions for future politeness studies, including the distinction of politeness as strategic conflict avoidance and social indexing.

570 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors reviewed existing studies with a focus on learning, examining research findings in interlanguage pragmatics that shed light on some basic questions in SLA, and exploring cognitive and social-psychological theories that might offer explanations of different aspects of pragmatic development.
Abstract: Unlike other areas of second language study, which are primarily concerned with acquisitional patterns of interlanguage knowledge over time, most studies in interlanguage pragmatics have focused on second language use rather than second language learning. The aim of this paper is to profile interlanguage pragmatics as an area of inquiry in second language acquisition research, by reviewing existing studies with a focus on learning, examining research findings in interlanguage pragmatics that shed light on some basic questions in SLA, exploring cognitive and social-psychological theories that might offer explanations of different aspects of pragmatic development, and proposing a research agenda for the study of interlanguage pragmatics with a developmental perspective that will tie it more closely to other areas of SLA.

484 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The authors argue that the traditional positivist paradigm is no longer the only prominent paradigm in the field: Relativism has become an alternative paradigm, which is healthy and stimulating for a field like SLA.
Abstract: Looking back at the past 15 years in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), the authors select and discuss several important developments. One is the impact of various sociocultural perspectives such as Vygotskian sociocultural theory, language socialization, learning as changing participation in situated practices, Bakhtin and the dialogic perspective, and critical theory. Related to the arrival of these perspectives, the SLA field has also witnessed debates concerning understandings of learning and the construction of theory. The debate discussed in this article involves conflicting ontologies. We argue that the traditional positivist paradigm is no longer the only prominent paradigm in the field: Relativism has become an alternative paradigm. Tensions, debates, and a growing diversity of theories are healthy and stimulating for a field like SLA.

436 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Japanese and American mothers' speech to infants at 6, 12, and 19 months was compared in a cross-sectional study of 60 dyads observed playing with toys at home, finding cultural differences in interactional style and beliefs about child rearing strongly influence the structure and content ofspeech to infants.
Abstract: This study explored both universal features and cultural variation in maternal speech. Japanese and American mothers' speech to infants at 6, 12, and 19 months was compared in a cross-sectional study of 60 dyads observed playing with toys at home. Mothers' speech in both cultures shared common characteristics, such as linguistic simplification and frequent repetition, and mothers made similar adjustments in their speech to infants of different ages. American mothers labeled objects more frequently and consistently than did Japanese mothers, while Japanese mothers used objects to engage infants in social routines more often than did American mothers. American infants had larger noun vocabularies than did Japanese infants, according to maternal report. The greater emphasis on object nouns in American mothers' speech is only partially attributable to structural differences between Japanese and English. Cultural differences in interactional style and beliefs about child rearing strongly influence the structure and content of speech to infants.

396 citations