Advances in the Acquisition of Prosody

Dear Colleagues,

We are guest editing a Special Issue of Languages entitled ‘Advances in the Acquisition of Prosody’.

Prosody is central to language and communication; it comprises sub-syllabic units to sentence and discourse-level units and interfaces with segmental phonology, morphology, and syntax. It is relevant to information structure and pragmatics and plays a key role in language processing and language acquisition. Prosodic impairments may considerably affect social interactions and typical language development. It is thus crucial to understand how prosody is acquired and how it develops in first-language, second-language, and multilingual settings, in perception and production, and in typical and atypical language development. Arriving at a comprehensive picture of the acquisition of prosody requires input from diverse disciplines such as language sciences, psychology, cognitive science, neuroscience, speech therapy, speech and hearing science, or computer science. This Special Issue aims to advance current knowledge on the acquisition of prosody, taking advantage of recent theoretical and methodological developments in language-related fields, as well as of interdisciplinary undertakings.

We invite cutting-edge original work on prosodic acquisition and development and all approaches to investigating the acquisition of prosody are welcome, including theoretical, instrumental, behavioral, perceptual, electrophysiological and neuroimaging studies. Under-represented languages, topics, or populations, and cross-linguistic or interdisciplinary contributions are particularly welcome.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 200 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the guest editors (mdimperio2@gmail.com and sfrota@edu.ulisboa.pt ) and to Languages editorial office (languages@mdpi.com). Abstracts will be reviewed by the guest editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the special issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review.

Tentative Completion Schedule

Abstract Submission Deadline: 30 September 2024
Notification of Abstract Acceptance: 11 October 2024
Full Manuscript Deadline: 20 December 2024

Prof. Dr. Mariapaola D’Imperio
Prof. Dr. Sónia Frota
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.