Child Second Language Acquisition

Course content

In this course, we will focus on the language acquisition among children who start to acquire a second or foreign language between the ages of 4 and 8 years. As the start of foreign language instruction has been moved into childhood in many Western countries, it is ever more important to understand the nature and the developmental dynamics of child L2 acquisition. From a formal linguistic perspective, we will compare processes and outcomes of child SLA to early simultaneous and successive bilingualism as well as to adult SLA. Key topics will be the role age of acquisition, the timing of acquisition, differential development, i.e. profile effects, in lexicon and grammar as well as the impacts of internal and external learner factors. Although the focus will be on L2/3 English, we will also consider the development of the first (heritage) language of bilingual learners who learn additional languages in childhood. Participants are required to have prior knowledge of second language acquisition, e.g. by having taken the A2 course on SLA. Please enrol in Stud.IP.