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After completing this course students are able to:
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describe the theoretical concepts and principles relevant to language development,
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identify current explanations of a set of central acquisition phenomena,
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evaluate scientific literature on language acquisition critically,
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discuss current research and experimental methods in the field,
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design a language acquisition experiment.
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This course familiarizes students with current issues in research on child language-development. In the first half of the class, students study phenomena in child language in which claims from linguistic theory and cognitive science have been tested. The phenomena are based on both natural and experimentally obtained data. At the same time, the topics addressed are used to train the students to raise new questions and hypotheses, and to set up experiments where these hypotheses can be tested. In the second half of the class, students are presented with a case study in the acquisition of sentence meaning. This is connected to a research program directed by the instructor that focuses on the relative contribution of linguistic competence and performance in children and adults.
Format
The class meets twice a week. Students are expected to have read assigned readings prior to class. Classroom sessions consist of a combination of lecture, discussion, and student presentations.
Every week, students must formulate a question or comment on the readings assigned (for that week) and bring it to class. Each student is expected to present his/her question or comment to the class in order to promote discussion.
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