First Language Acquisition

Rating:
Summary: Heavy on data, not so much on readability
Review: Although it was refreshing to read an account of language acquisition from the point of the view of Pragmatics, I felt the text was very dense and not organized well within the chapters. Dr. Clark includes information about many relevant experiments, but at times it was hard to distinguish her own interpretations from paraphrased citations. The chart dealing with phonetics also had quite a few errors.

I hope the second edition turns out to be better than this one!

Rating:
Summary: Readable and precise
Review: Clark is one of those few scholars who can present a complicated topic in a very accessible way. She touches on the most important and interesting areas of child language acquisition, citing others' studies as well as her own research. You don't need any previous knowledge of this field to enjoy this book. I highly recommend it!