Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to demonstrate:
1. An understanding of competing theories of language acquisition.
2. An understanding of the neurological bases of language processing.
3. An understanding of the nature of language acquisition universals.
4. Advanced presentational skills relevant to specialist studies in Linguistics.
5. Advanced research and general information literacy skills

1. Main theories of first language acquisition: behaviorist approaches to language acquisition; Piaget's constructivism; Chomsky's Universal Grammar; connectionism; Whorfian relativism.
2. The neurological base of language: brain lateralisation; left hemispheric dominance; maturational constraints on language acquisition; language pathology; bilingualism
3. Evidence about the innateness of language: animal communication; developmental aspects of language; linguistic research into the acquisition of language universals
4. The lexicon and the brain: aspects of the acquisition of the lexicon; lexical storage and retrieval.

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0

LING1110 & LING1120 or equivalent

Internal Mode

Lecture

Lecture: for 2 hour(s) per Week for Full Term