ALM5290

Child language acquisition

Proposed to be offered next in 1999

Edina Eisikovits

12 points
* 2 hours per week
* Second semester
* Clayton

Objectives On the successful completion of this subject, students should have developed an understanding of the major theoretical approaches to child language acquisition and have acquired practical skill in the collation, analysis and interpretation of child language data.

Synopsis A detailed investigation of children's acquisition of their first language, from infant pre-speech through to adolescence. A number of different views of language acquisition and learning mechanisms will be considered. An examination of the acquisition of phonological, morphological and syntactic systems, the development of word meaning and the acquisition of communicative competence will furnish us with data for weighing up these different views. Students will have the opportunity to specialise in one of the above areas in the preparation of a research project as their major unit of assessment.

Assessment Research project (5000 words): 60%
* Classwork including a 2000-word class paper: 40%

Preliminary reading

Garton A and Pratt C Learning to be literate: The development of spoken and written language Blackwell, 1989
Wells G The meaning makers Hodder and Stoughton, 1987

Prescribed texts

A set of readings to be obtained from the Department of Linguistics