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School of Psychological Sciences

Dr Anna Theakston 

Senior Lecturer

 

Memberships of Committees and Professional Bodies

Treasurer: International Association for the Study of Child Language

Research

A usage-based approach to language acquisition

I situate my research into children's acquisition of language within a usage-based framework.  I am currently working on the acquisition of grammatical constructions, inflectional morphology, and pragmatics.

The input

In a number of studies, I have investigated relations between the language children hear and what they produce, with particular reference to the errors observed in children’s speech (e.g. case marking errors, infinitival-to omission errors, auxiliary placement and marking errors).

Auxiliary verbs & question syntax

I am interested in how children learn auxiliary verbs with relation to the constructions in which they occur, in particular between 2-4yrs, to determine how children’s early item-based knowledge becomes more abstract. Auxiliary verb use is also related to the acquisition of both yes-no and wh-questions, in particular in the use of lexically-based frames. I have worked on the acquisition of simple questions, questions with long distance dependencies, subject and object wh-questions, and double marking errors.

Inflectional morphology

In a series of studies, we are investigating the acquisition of morphological systems, including past tense verb morphology in English, and noun morphology in Polish and Finnish.

Verb argument constructions

I am interested in the acquisition of constructions - how and when children operate with abstract knowledge of grammatical constructions, and how they constrain their generalizations. My work focusses on children's knowledge of the transitive and intransitive constructions, the role of input frequencies, and how children interpret possible cues to meaning.

Pragmatics

We have focussed on the pragmatic motivations for argument drop, how this interacts with knowledge of grammatical constructions, and the role of pragmatics in the choice of ordering of phrasal constituents in complex sentences.

 

Teaching

  • PSYC20042 Developmental Psychology II
  • PSYC20900 Personal Study Module II
  • PSYC30920 Project Supervision (3rd year)
  • PSYC30041: Language - from acquisition to adulthood
  • MRes: (Programme Director) Postgraduate Research Methods Training
 

Biography

Anna Theakston received her undergraduate degree in Psychology from the University of Nottingham. From 1995 she was employed as a researcher at the University of Manchester working on two ESRC-funded projects investigating early language development in children between the ages of 2-3 years. She was awarded her Ph.D. based on this work in 1999. From 1998-2001 she coordinated the Manchester-based Max Planck Child Study Centre, funded by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, that houses a number of research assistants and postgraduate students. In 2000 she was appointed to a lectureship in developmental psychology at the University of Manchester, and to a senior lectureship in 2006.

 

Publications

2013

  • Kirjavainen-Morgan, M. & Theakston, A. L. (2013). Naturalistic Data. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Applied Linguistics. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. eScholarID:160442

2012

  • Krajewski, G., Lieven, E. V. M. & Theakston, A. L (2012). Productivity of a Polish child’s inflectional noun morphology: a naturalistic study. Morphology, 22(1), 9-34. eScholarID:106065 | DOI:10.1007/s11525-011-9199-0
  • Theakston, A. L., Maslen, R., Lieven, E. V. M. & Tomasello, M. (2012). The acquisition of the active transitive construction in English: a detailed case study. Cognitive Linguistics, 23(1), 91-128. eScholarID:130044 | DOI:10.1515/COGL.2012.004

2011

  • Ibbotson, P., Theakston, A. L., Lieven, E. V. M. & Tomasello, M. (2011). The Role of Pronoun Frames in Early Comprehension of Transitive Constructions in English. Language Learning and Development, 7, 1-16. eScholarID:98610 | DOI:10.1080/15475441003732914
  • Kirjavainen, M. & Theakston, A. L. (2011). Are infinitival to omission errors primed by prior discourse? The case of WANT constructions. Cognitive Linguistics, 22(4), 629-657. eScholarID:103274 | DOI:10.1515/COGL.2011.024, /November/2011
  • Krajewski, G., Theakston, A. L., Lieven, E. V. M., & Tomasello, M. (2011). How Polish children switch from one case to another when using novel nouns: Challenges for models of inflectional morphology. Language and Cognitive Processes, 26(4), 830-861. eScholarID:86886 | DOI:10.1080/01690965.2010.506062
  • Theakston, A. L. (2011). “The spotty cow tickled the pig with a curly tail”: how do sentence position, preferred argument structure, and referential complexity affect children’s and adults’ choice of referring expression? Applied Psycholinguistics, eScholarID:98612 | DOI:doi:10.1017/S0142716411000531

2009

  • Dabrowska Ewa, Rowland Caroline, Theakston AL. (2009). Children's acquisition of questions with long distance dependencies. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(3), 571-597. eScholarID:1d18996 | DOI:10.1515/COGL.2009.025
  • Kirjavainen MMM, Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Tomasello MM. (2009). 'I want hold Postman Pat': An investigation into the acquisition of infinitival marker 'to'. First Language, 39, 313-339. eScholarID:1d18995 | DOI:10.1177/0142723709105312
  • Kirjavainen MMM, Theakston AL, Lieven EV. (2009). Can input explain children's me-for-I errors? Journal of Child Language, eScholarID:1d17924 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000909009350
  • Matthews D, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello MM. (2009). Pronoun co-referencing errors: Challenges for generativist and usage-based accounts. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(3), 599-626. eScholarID:1d19000 | DOI:10.1515/COGL.2009.026
  • Rowland Caroline, Theakston AL. (2009). The acquisition of auxiliary syntax: a longitudinal elicitation study. Part 2: The modals and DO. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 52(6), eScholarID:1d19002 | DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2009/08-0037a)
  • Theakston AL, Rowland Caroline. (2009). The acquisition of auxiliary syntax: a longitudinal elicitation study. Part 1: Auxiliary BE. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 52(6), 1449-1470. eScholarID:1d19001 | DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2009/08-0037)
  • Anna Theakston & Caroline Rowland. (2009). Introduction to Special Issue: Cognitive approaches to language acquisition. Cognitive Linguistics, 20(3), 477-480. eScholarID:34661 | DOI:10.1515/COGL.2009.021

2008

  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV. (2008). The influence of discourse context on children's provision of auxiliary BE. Journal of Child Language, 35, 129-158. eScholarID:1d15817 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000907008306

2007

  • Cameron-Faulkner T, Lieven EV, Theakston AL. (2007). What part of no do children not understand? A usage-based account of multiword negation. Journal of Child Language, 34, 251-282. eScholarID:1d14025 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000906007884
  • Matthews D, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello Michael. (2007). French children's use and correction of weird word orders: A constructivist account. Journal of Child Language, 34, 381-409. eScholarID:1d14056 | DOI:10.1017/S030500090600794X

2006

  • Theakston AL. (2006). CHILDES database. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd Edition, Vol. 2. ( 2, pp. 310-314). Elsevier Science. eScholarID:3d501
  • Ambridge B, Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Tomasello M. (2006). The distributed learning effect for children's acquisition of an abstract grammatical construction. Cognitive Development, 21, 174-193. eScholarID:1d11214 | DOI:10.1016/j.cogdev.2005.09.00
  • B. Ambridge, Rowland C, Theakston AL, Tomasello M. (2006). Comparing different accounts of inversion errors in children's non-subject wh-questions: What experimental data can tell us? Journal of Child Language, 33, 519-557. eScholarID:1d13676 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000906007513
  • Matthews D, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello Michael. (2006). The effect of perceptual availability and prior discourse on young children's use or referring expressions. Applied Psycholinguistics, 27, eScholarID:1d13566 | DOI:10.1017/S0142716406060334
  • Matthews D, Theakston AL. (2006). Errors of omission in English-speaking children's production of plurals and the past tense: The effects of frequency, phonology and competition. Cognitive Science, 30, 1027-1052. eScholarID:1d13568 | DOI:10.1207/s15516709cog0000_66
  • Savage Ceri, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello Michael. (2006). Structural Priming as Learning in Language Acquisition: The Persistence of Lexical and Structural Priming in 4-year-olds. Language Learning and Development, 2, 27-49. eScholarID:1d10994 | DOI:10.1207/s15473341lld0201_2
  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Pine Julian, Rowland Caroline. (2006). Note of clarification on the coding of light verbs in Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax (Journal of Child Language 31, 61-99). Journal of Child Language, 33, eScholarID:17d627 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000905007178

2005

  • Matthews D, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello M. (2005). The role of frequency in the acquisition of English word order. Cognitive Development, 20, 121-136. eScholarID:1d8468 | DOI:10.1016/j.cogdev.2004.08.001
  • Pine J, Rowland C, Theakston AL, Lieven E. (2005). Testing the Agreement/Tense Omission Model: Why the data on children's use of non-nominative third singular subjects count against the ATOM. Journal of Child Language, 32, 269-289. eScholarID:1d10995 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000905006860
  • Rowland C, Pine J, Lieven EV, Theakston AL. (2005). The incidence of error in young English children's wh-questions. Journal of Speech Language and Hearing Research, 48, 384-405. eScholarID:1d8314 | DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2005/027)
  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Pine J, Rowland C. (2005). The acquisition of auxiliary syntax: BE and HAVE. Cognitive Linguistics, 16, 247-277. eScholarID:1d8262 | DOI:10.1515/cogl.2005.16.1.247
  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV. (2005). The acquisition of auxiliary syntax: an elicitation study. Journal of Child Language, 32, 589-616. eScholarID:1d9190 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000905006872

2004

  • Matthews D, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello M. (2004). The role of frequency and distributional regularity in the acquisition of word order. eScholarID:2d2214
  • Maslen R, Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Tomasello M. (2004). A Dense Corpus Study of Past Tense and Plural Overregularization in English. J. of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 47, 1001-1011. eScholarID:1d9711 | DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2004/099)
  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Pine J, Rowland C. (2004). Semantic generality, input frequency and the acquisition of syntax. Journal of Child Language, 31, 61-99. eScholarID:1d8238 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000903005956
  • Theakston AL. (2004). The Modularity Matching model: a solution to the problem of performance limitations in production? Commentary on Crain & Thornton's (1998) 'Investigations in Universal Grammar'. Journal of Child Language, 31, 508-511. eScholarID:1d8243
  • Theakston AL. (2004). The role of entrenchment in constraining children 's verb argument structure overgeneralisations: a grammaticality judgment study. Cognitive Development, 19, 15-34. eScholarID:1d8244 | DOI:10.1016/j.cogdev.2003.08.001

2003

  • Rowland C. F, Pine J. M, Lieven EV, Theakston AL. (2003). Determinants of the order of acquisition of wh- questions: Re-evaluating the role of caregiver speech. Journal of Child Language, 30, eScholarID:1d8236 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000903005695
  • Savage C, Lieven EV, Theakston AL, Tomasello M. (2003). Testing the abstractness of young children's linguistic representations: Lexical and structural priming of syntactic constructions? Developmental Science, 6, 557-567. eScholarID:1d8234 | DOI:10.1111/1467-7687.00312
  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Tomasello M. (2003). The role of input in the acquisition of third-person singular verbs in English. J. of Speech, Language, & Hearing Research, 46, 863-877. eScholarID:1d8235 | DOI:10.1044/1092-4388(2003/067)

2002

  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Pine J. M, Rowland C. F. (2002). Going, going, gone: the acquisition of the verb 'Go'. Journal of Child Language, 29, eScholarID:1d8231 | DOI:10.1017/S030500090200538X

2001

  • Theakston AL, Lieven EV, Pine J, Rowland C. (2001). The role of performance limitations in the acquisition of verb argument structure. Journal of Child Language, 28, eScholarID:1d8228 | DOI:10.1017/S0305000900004608

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