Abstract
The literature on imitation in language learning has been fraught not only with problems of what should be considered an imitation, but also with vague views of how imitation can help (for a discussion,see Oksaar, 1982; Snow, 1983). We must construct models of language learning in order to advance our understanding of that learning process. Predictions and hypotheses of how imitation can help should then be made from such models. These models should also be the basis for (1) definitions of subcategories of imitation and (2) the aspects of language chosen in order to study the effects of imitation.
Our minds seem especially tuned to pick out correlations of features in the environment and to develop categories around these correlations
J. R. Anderson
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Speidel, G.E. (1989). Imitation: A Bootstrap for Learning to Speak?. In: Speidel, G.E., Nelson, K.E. (eds) The Many Faces of Imitation in Language Learning. Springer Series in Language and Communication, vol 24. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4612-1011-5_7
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