This volume dedicated to Dorit Ravid, offers 29 new chapters on the multiple facets of spoken and written language learning and usage from a group of illustrious scholars and scientists, focusing on typologically different languages and anchored in a variety of communicative settings. The book encompasses five interrelated yet distinct topics. One set of studies is in the field of developmental psycholinguistics, covering the acquisition of lexical and grammatical categories from toddlerhood to adolescence. A second topic involves a section of studies on the interface of cognition and language, with chapters on processing, production, comprehension, teaching and learning language in usage and in historical perspective. A third topic involves a theoretical and applied perspectives on the acquisition and development of literacy competence, including reading, writing, spelling and text production. A fourth topic brings together an array of studies on social, environmental andclinical diversity in language, highlighting novel issues in multilingualism, immigration, language and literacy disorders. Finally, a section of the volume examines in depth questions in Modern Hebrew linguistics, as the home language and launching base of Dorit Ravid's research work.

Offers an up-to-date overview of language development and the acquisition of literacy Introduces the Usage-Based framework for analysing and explaining language learning and use Presents an array of innovative studies of written language production and comprehension

Autorentext

Ronit Levie is a Speech-Language Therapist by training, a faculty member specializing in developmental psycholinguistics at the Department of Communication Disorders, Tel-Aviv University. Ronit is interested in the emergence and development of the Hebrew morphology and lexicon across the learning years. Her research derives from Usage Based models, focusing on corpus analyses of typical and atypical populations from different socio-economic backgrounds. She has published papers in leading journals, such as Morphology, Reading and Writing, First Language, The Mental Lexicon, and Dyslexia.

Amalia Bar-On is a Speech and Language Therapist by training and a senior faculty member at the Department of Communication Disorders, Tel-Aviv university. She has developed a psycholinguistic model of Hebrew reading development which is widely accepted among researchers, clinicians, and educators. Her research addresses the orthographic features of the Hebrew orthography,focusing on Hebrew-specific as well as universal processes of reading and learning to read in typical and atypical populations. She has published papers in leading journals, such as Reading and Writing, Applied Psycholinguistics, and Journal of Learning Disabilities.

Orit Ashkenazi is a senior Speech and Language Therapist and a developmental psycholinguist teaching at Hadassa Academic College in Jerusalem. Her research focuses on the acquisition of the Hebrew verb from a usage-based perspective. Her seminal dissertation on this topic has expanded into various research avenues including verb analyses in peer conversations and an investigation of Hebrew verb binyan functions. Orit has published in leading journals such as Journal of Child Language, First Language and Morphology.

Elitzur Dattner is a linguist, teaching at the Department of Communication Disorders, Tel-Aviv university, and at the Department of Hebrew and Semitic Languages, Bar-Ilan University. Elitzur's research focuses on a cognitive-discursive perspective on morphological and syntactic phenomena, by applying new and advanced statistical methodologies in a usage-based framework. He collaborates with developmental psycholinguists and speech-language therapists to model the cognitive representation of language and its development, as governed by usage, discourse pragmatics and communicative needs. He published papers in leading journals, such as Linguistics, Reading and Writing, and Applied Psycholinguistics. He acts as the assistant editor for the journal Written Language and Literacy, and was an editorial associate of two large-scale edited books.

Gilad Brandes is a speech-language therapist teaching at the Department of Communication Disorders, Hadassa Academic College. He is alsoa doctoral student at the School of Education, Tel Aviv University. His doctoral research, under the supervision of Prof. Dorit Ravid, focuses on the development of clause combining in Hebrew written narratives. His work has been published in First Language and Written Language and Literacy. The recipient of the Israeli Ministry of Education's Zalman Aran scholarship for outstanding doctoral students in education.

Inhalt
Introduction.- Effects of the learning environment on aspects of early language: Evidence from Turkish by Aksu Koç, Ayhan.- Interactive storybook reading: Direct and delayed effects of interventions guiding preschoolers' mothers in different dyadic activities by Aram, Dorit, & Iris Levin.- Children's command of plural marking on Hebrew nouns - evidence from Russian-Hebrew bilingual children by Armon Lotem, Sharon & Julia Reznick.- Life and death expressions in Hebrew through time by Bat Zeev Shyldkrot, Hava & Kuzai Einat.- From toddlerhood to adolescence: The case of the subordinator 'that' in Hebrew by Berman, Ruth A..- On the role of suffixes in the formation of Hebrew nouns and adjectives by Bolozky, Shmuel.- Subjects on the left by Clark, Eve.- The clinical profile of young children with ASD: Research and clinic under a single roof by Dromi, Esther & Rum, Yonat.- When does language end and spelling start? On the interface between linguistic and orthographic skills in Arabic spelling by Elena Saiegh-Haddad, Elena Ranya Bsharat-Farraj, & Lior Laks.- On the subitizing effect in language contact by Gardani, Francesco.- Morphological development in a new population of congenital hearing impaired children: the case of auditory brainstem implants by Gillis, Steven.- Personal Introduction by Hora, Anat.- John effect in literacy acquisition: The role of morphological awareness by Joshi, R. Malatesha **** [Shuai Zhang, Bing Han, Alida Hudson, Karol Moore, & R. Malatesha Joshi].- The role of the academia in bridging linguistic gaps among school-age immigrant children: preliminary outcomes of a language intervention program by Kishon Rabin, Liat [Shira Cohen, Bonnie Levin-Asher, & Liat Kishon-Rabin].- Morphological verb families in German-speaking children and parents of two SES backgrounds according to a groundbreaking model by Dorit Ravid and colleagues by Korecky Kröll, Katharina, Sabina Somer Loli, Veronica Mattes & Wolfgang U. Dressler.- The distribution of Arabic verbal patterns in text production: Between varieties and modalities by Laks, Lior, Elinor Saiegh-Haddad, Ibrahim Hamad & Faten Yousef.- Moveable figures and grounds: universal and language-specific pressures on linguistic structure and memory for events by Mueller Gathercole, Virginia C..- Later syntactic development: The past tense counterfactual sentence by Nippold, Marilyn, & Valencia C. Perry.- Choosing target populations for early literacy intervention programs by Olshtain, Elite & Esther Cohen.- Understanding written documents by Olson, David.- Reading with text pointing: what finger movements reveal on reading skills by Pirrelli, Vito [Marcello Ferro, Claudia Marzi, Andrea Nadalini, Vito Pirrelli, Loukia Taxitari].- The role of morphological structure in novice and advanced spellers by Sandra, Dominiek.- The auditory representations of root morphemes in the mental lexicon: A comparison between typically developed and dyslexic readers by Schiff, Rachel.- On a singlepattern and its trails by Schwarzwald, Ora.- Endorsement by Share, David.- Typological perspectives of verb processing and acquisition by Smolka, Eva.- Towards a comprehensive mod…