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Availability :	D2
Credit Points	4
Convenor(s)	Rosalind Thornton
Prerequisites	LING210 or LING211 or LING214

 

Contact hours:

2 hours of lectures plus a tutorial

Unit objectives:

The aim of this unit is to introduce students to current theories of language acquisition, and to give students an understanding of the expected ‘path’ and time course of acquisition in children acquiring language normally. The course is designed to be a foundation course for linguistics students who would like to study language acquisition, as well as for students studying speech pathology, audiology and education.

Content:

The course will cover different theories of language acquisition, highlighting key differences between usage-based approaches and nativist proposals about how language knowledge is achieved. The central areas to be covered in the course are children’s development of phonology, word learning, morphology and syntax and semantics, and pragmatic knowledge. As these topics are introduced, methods for assessing children’s linguistic knowledge will be discussed. The course may also cover other topics such as bilingual acquisition in children, and child second language acquisition. The focus of the course will be children’s acquisition of English, but other languages will be discussed where relevant.

Assessment:

Tutorial exerises 40% (4 exercises worth 10% each)
Class Project Assignment 20%
Final Exam 40%

Prescribed text(s):

There is no textbook. Various chapters from books and journal articles will be made available on e-reserve.

 

 

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