LING208: Language Acquisition and Language Origins

This course is available to visiting students (ERASMUS, JYA etc) as follows:

  • Full Year (October to June) - 8 semester credits or 16 ECTS credits
  • Michaelmas Only (October to December) - 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits
  • Lent and Summer Only (January to June) - 4 semester credits or 8 ECTS credits.

Please note that visiting students who are at Lancaster for the full academic year must register for the full course. The Michaelmas Only and Lent and Summer Only options are only available to part-year visiting students.

Terms taught:

1 and 2

Aims and objectives:

The aim of the course is to provide students with a broad understanding of current thinking regarding the relationship between language and mind, an overview of the processes of first language acquisition, and knowledge of the current state of debates regarding the origin of language in human evolution.

Course description:

This course examines explanations of how we acquire our first language and how language evolved in humans. We bring psycholinguistics and theoretical linguistics together to describe and explain the processes a child goes through in learning their first language. We also look at issues such as second language acquisition in adults, animal communication systems, and experiments in teaching apes to use a human language.

The course is an introduction to language acquisition studies, psycholinguistics and theories of mind and language - looking particularly at the wide spectrum of different explanations for language acquisition.

TOPICS WILL INCLUDE:

Term 1

  • Introduction and Overview
  • Evolution 1: Meet the Family
  • Evolution 2: Evolving to Talk
  • Chomsky 1: Chomsky's Innatist Explanation
  • Chomsky 2: Universal Grammar in action
  • Language and symbolic thought - Vygotsky and Piaget
  • Tomasello 1: Symbols and grammar
  • Tomasello 2: Acquiring constructions
  • Co-evolution theories: Dawkins, Blackmore and Deacon
  • Phonological and lexical development, 1-12 months

  Term 2

  • The development of meaning and the capacity to learn
  • The development of grammatical knowledge
  • Language in context - socio-pragmatic development
  • Research and analysis projects in language acquisition
  • Kanzi and friends: animal communication, animal language
  • A closer look at the critical period
  • Second language acquisition

Recommended reading:

Aitchison, J. (1996) The Seeds of Speech Cambridge University Press

Elliot, A. (1981) Child Language Cambridge University Press

Foster, S. (1990) The Communicative Competence of Young Children Longman

Gibson, K. (1993) Tools, Language and Cognition in Human Evolution Cambridge University Press

Ingram, D (1989) First Language Acquisition Cambridge University Press

Jackendoff, R. (1993) Patterns in the Mind Harvester Wheatsheaf

Deacon, T. (1998) The Symbolic Species, Penguin

Pinker, S. (1995) The Language Instinct, Penguin

Restrictions:

None

Compulsory for:

None

Prerequisites:

At least one of the following at Part I: Linguistics, Sociolinguistics, English Language, Psychology

Assessment:

Essay (20%), research project (20%) and exam (60%)

 

For further information contact Andrew Hardie.