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Language Learning andDevelopmentPublication details, including instructions forauthors and subscription information:http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/hlld20

Editors' NoteSusan Goldin-Meadow & LouAnn GerkenPublished online: 16 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Susan Goldin-Meadow & LouAnn Gerken (2005) Editors' Note,Language Learning and Development, 1:1, 3-4, DOI: 10.1207/s15473341lld0101_2

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1207/s15473341lld0101_2

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EDITORS’ NOTE

Our vision for Language Learning and Development is that it be a place where themanydifferent approaches that are taken to the studyof language learninganddevel-opment can be brought together in a single forum. It is not a journal devoted to study-ing children, even though children are the prototypical language learners. It is a jour-nal devoted to understanding the initial state and developmental processesunderlying language learning. Both of these can be investigated by studying chil-dren. But they can also be investigated by studying language learners of all ages andtypes—infants, toddlers, adolescents, adults, atypical learners, native- and sec-ond-language learners,machines,nonhumanprimates, andperhapsevendogs.And,of course, the processes underlying language development need not be studied inlearners at all. They can be creatively explored by examining the forces that makelanguagewhat it is—forexample,bystudyinghowlanguageschangeover time;howthey are created anew; how they are processed in the brain; how they are formallystructured. To reiterate, we welcome articles that take diverse approaches and per-spectives to the problem of language learning and development—be they biological,cognitive, linguistic, social, cross-cultural,orotherwise—andthatemploywhatevermethods of investigation work to answer the question—whether experimental, ob-servational, computational, ethnographic, comparative, neuroscientific, or formal,to list a few.

There isacaveat,however.For this journal toplay its roleasa forumfor interdisci-plinary approaches to language learning, its articles must be accessible in a numberof senses. The articles need to probe questions that are at the heart of the lan-guage-learning problem—this is not a journal for archival facts, important as theyare. It is a journal for articles that can frame the facts they present in such a way thattheir significance for the language-learning problem is clear, not only to those in theparticular area, but to all readers. Articles need to articulate the assumptions onwhich they rest. It is only by making it clear why we think what we do is importantthat we will be able to set the stage for meaningful interdisciplinary exchange. Tofoster the exchange that we hope will become the journal’s trademark, we welcomeshort commentaries on the articles that appear in this journal.

The first issue of Language Learning and Development is dedicated to PeterJusczyk. As many readers know, Peter was in the process of starting this journal, aswell as the Society for Language Development, when he died suddenly in August2001whileattendingaconference inCalifornia. It isa testament toPeter’svisionand

LANGUAGE LEARNING AND DEVELOPMENT, 1(1), 3–4Copyright © 2005, Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

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energy that thesocietyand the journalhavecometofruition.Thefirstpresidentof thesociety, Lila Gleitman, has written an inaugural article to start the journal off right.But Peter is best known for his work on how babies perceive the sounds of their lan-guage. He was instrumental in making infant speech perception a field unto itself. Itis because of Peter that we know so much about the sounds that infants can makesense of over time and how the process of becoming a native listener actually works.In 1997, Peter published his book The Discovery of Spoken Language, bringing to-gether the extraordinary amount of work that he accomplished during his too-shortcareer. Just before he died, he had begun to push the field yet again, asking how thesounds children know help them to begin to master the other parts of language. As atribute to Peter, LouAnn Gerken and Richard Aslin describe his considerable contri-butions to the field in the first article of this issue. Peter Jusczyk was someone whogot better and better with age. We all hope that this can be said of us, but for Peter itwas true. The hardest part about losing him now is that the developmental processwas cut short too soon—he had much more to give, and he had the generosity of heartto be willing to give it. Peter’s last gift to the field was this journal.

The field recently suffered asecond incalculable loss. Elizabeth Batesdied inDe-cember 2003, and the second issue of Language Learning and Development will bededicated to her. Liz infused energy into an immense number of research areas. Asthe author or coauthor of 10 books and more than 200 articles, Liz leaves an enor-mous legacy in many fields—child development, language acquisition, aphasia re-search, cross-linguistic research, and adult psycholinguistics. Liz firmly believedthat language acquisition had to be viewed from multiple perspectives for it to be un-derstood—this is the working assumption of this journal. Liz herself made signifi-cant contributions to a great number of these perspectives. Unafraid of controversy,she propelled the field forward by stating her positions boldly and articulately so thatothers always knew where she stood. And Liz was an extraordinary speaker, able tocome up with analogies that not only captured the essence of her point but also stuckwithyou.DanSlobinandMichaelTomasellohaveassumed thedifficult taskof sum-marizing Liz’s many contributions to the field in an article that will appear in the sec-ond issue of the journal. Liz understood one of the important tenets of this journal—that what is interesting about development is change, the forces that drive it, theshape it takes, and the mechanisms that underlie it. Liz’s work was first and foremostabout understanding how and why language changes. It is our hope that all of the var-ied perspectives that Liz took in her too-short career will be exemplified in the arti-cles that will appear in this journal.

Susan Goldin-Meadow, EditorLouAnn Gerken, Associate Editor

4 EDITORS’ NOTE

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