- You know different theories of and methods used to study language acquisition and can discuss the pros and cons of the different theories
- You know the milestones in early language perception and production research
- You are able to critically discuss scientific papers and reflect on them
- You know the current debates in the field
- You can design experiments to test questions regarding (bilingual) first language acquisition and are able to present a research proposal as a scientific poster
- You are able to translate current findings in language acquisition into a popular scientific blog.
|
|
Mastering a first language is one of the most striking achievements of human development. This course starts with an introduction to theories of language acquisition, the empirical findings and milestones in early language perception and production, the current debates in the field, and research methods in the study of language acquisition. After a general introduction into the field, and into the methods used in the field, we will focus on several topics that currently are central to the field.
The acquisition of sound structure: During the first year of life infants become increasingly sensitive to language-specific features of the sound system of their native language. We review segmental, phonotactic, and prosodic aspects of phonological acquisition, and examine the research paradigms used to investigate infant and child speech perception. The results from perception studies are compared to those from production studies. Production studies show that there is a continuum between babbling and early words in terms of motor skills, but cognitive factors and the acquisition of a lexicon come into play too as children build their phonological systems.
The acquisition of information structure, syntax and the syntax-semantic interface: The second part focuses predominantly on first language acquisition and the development of grammatical processing mechanisms. We will examine research on first language acquisition and children's sentence processing, and ask what the relationship is between the development of grammatical competence and the development of processing mechanisms/strategies; how L1 parsing procedures develop in monolingual and bilingual children; and how children process sentences in comparison to adults.
During the course you learn to critically discuss scientific papers and reflect on them; to design experiments to test questions regarding (bilingual) first language acquisition; and present a research proposal as a scientific poster. Finally, you will learn to translate current findings in language acquisition into a popular scientific blog.
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|