First Language is a forum for research into how children acquire their first language, and the application of that research into practice.

First Language publishes original research, theoretical articles, review articles and book reviews in all areas of first language acquisition. Age groups studied range from neonates to adolescents.

Multidisciplinary in scope

Child language research is multidisciplinary and this is reflected in the contents of the journal: research from diverse theoretical and methodological traditions is welcome. Authors from a wide range of disciplines - including psychology, linguistics, anthropology, cognitive science, neuroscience, communication, sociology and education - are regularly represented in our pages. Empirical papers range from individual case studies, through experiments, observational/ naturalistic, analyses of CHILDES corpora, to parental surveys.

The journal encourages submissions in all of the following areas:

• syntactic, semantic, morphological, phonological, and pragmatic development; language and cognitive development
• language and social development
• language and educational development
• language of children with developmental disorders
• specific language impairment; exceptional language abilities
• bilingual development
• role of parental speech
• interrelationships between language and nonverbal development
• relationships between language and literacy
• discourse analysis; socio-economic factors and language acquisition
• preverbal communication
• language development across cultures; language and ethnic development
• measurement and analysis issues in child language research.

Potential authors who are unsure of the relevance of their work to the journal's scope are welcome to contact the Editor directly for advice.

Special Issues

First Language occasionally publishes special issues devoted to topics of pressing interest. These are usually Guest Edited by prominent researchers in the relevant areas. Recent examples include:

• The acquisition of tense-aspect morphology, edited by Yasuhiro Shirai, Dan Slobin and Richard S Weist
• Early pragmatic development, edited by Haydée Marcos
• Language-specific influences on acquisition and cognition, edited by Virginia Gathercole
• Gestures and communicative development, edited by Michele Guidetti and Elena Nicoladis
• Intervention and metalanguage, edited by Dorit Ravid

Society Discounts

Members of the International Association for the Study of Child Language (IASCL) are entitled to a 30% subscription discount to First Language (on the individual rate). Confirm details of your membership when ordering and quote the code IASCL.

For further information about the society visit http:/atila-www.uia.ac.be/iascl/index.html

Members of the British Association of Applied Linguistics are entitled to a 20% subscription discount to First Language (on the individual rate). Confirm details of your membership when ordering and quote the code BAAL.

Electronic Access:
First Language is available electronically on SAGE Journals Online at http://fla.sagepub.com