Language Acquisition

Learning Outcomes

The first few weeks will introduce you to some of the most important theories of first language acquisition as well as the main questions guiding research in this field, in particular how much of the acquisition process if innate and how much is social. These first sessions will also allow you to familiarise with the linguistic milestones reached by children from birth to about five years of age in the areas of vocabulary, morphosyntax and phonology. In the second part of the module the focus is shifted to language acquisition in bilingual contexts by both children and adults. The role that both linguistic and social factors play in the success of bilingual acquisition will be explored in detail. You will also learn about language attrition, when acquisition of a first language is interrupted and even reversed, and about the learning experience of ‘heritage language speakers’ Topics are likely to include: -Biological Bases of Language Development. Exploring the ‘human language faculty’. Animal vs human language. -Theories of language acquisition: Piaget, Vygotsky and Chomsky. -Acquiring a first language: defining the task and main milestones -Acquiring a first language: phonological, syntactic and lexical development -Acquiring a first language: how much is innate? -Acquiring a first language: the role of social interaction and gesture. -The Critical Period Hypothesis. -Child bilingual acquisition: exploring the role of input -Child bilingual acquisition: biological foundations and lifelong consequences. -Incomplete language acquisition: exploring heritage language acquisition. -Adult bilingualism: exploring native language attrition

Teaching methods include -1 lecture per week -1 seminar per week The lectures serve to introduce, analyse and investigate key aspects of language acquisition, bilingualism and attrition. The seminars provide you with preliminary general guidance to apply that knowledge to the analysis of real acquisition data which will be drawn from established datasets (e.g. CHILDES and ‘Talkbank’).