Second Language Acquisition - 1st semester
Code
722131105
Academic unit
Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas
Department
Linguística
Credits
10
Teacher in charge
Ana Maria Lavadinho Madeira
Weekly hours
3 letivas + 1 tutorial
Teaching language
Portuguese
Objectives
a) To provide students with opportunities to develop in-depth knowledge of models of analysis and
fundamental theoretical concepts in the area of Second Language Acquisition
b) To enable students to develop skills which will enable them to research and interpret information autonomously and to critically evaluate competing theoretical proposals
c) To provide students with training in the scholarly presentation of published work in the area, as well as of their own research work, encouraging them to develop the ability to construct clearly structured arguments
d) To enable students to develop the ability to apply theoretical knowledge and methodological tools in original research in the area of Second Language Acquisition
Prerequisites
Subject matter
1. Key concepts and research questions in second language acquisition
2. Crosslinguistic influence in L2 acquisition - the concept of ´transfer´ in different theoretical models
3. The logical problem of second language acquisition - hypotheses on the initial state
4. The development of grammatical knowledge: lexicon, (inflectional) morphology, syntax and semantics
5. The acquisition of interface properties: syntax/semantics and syntax/discourse
6. Age and critical period effects - child L2 acquisition
7. Other types of acquisition: L3, heritage and bilingual acquisition
8. L2 acquisition and language teaching and learning
Bibliography
Doughty, C. & C. Long (eds) (2003) The Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Blackwell
Herschensohn, J. & M. Young-Scholten (eds) (2013) The Cambridge Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Cambridge University Press
Montrul, S. (2004) The Acquisition of Spanish: Morphosyntactic development in monolingual and bilingual L1 acquisition and adult L2 acquisition. John Benjamins
Pires, A. & J. Rothman (eds) (2009) Minimalist Inquiries into Child and Adult Language Acquisition: Case Studies across Portuguese, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter
Ritchie, W. & T. Bhatia (eds) (2009) The New Handbook of Second Language Acquisition. Leeds: Emerald
Slabakova, R., S. Montrul & P. Prévost (eds.) (2006) Inquiries in Linguistic Development: In honor of Lydia White. Joh Benjamins
Snape, N., Y. Leung & M. Sharwood Smith (eds) (2009) Representational Deficits in SLA: Studies in honor of Roger Hawkins
White, L. (2003) Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar. Cambridge University Press
Teaching method
The topics to be addressed in the seminars will be scheduled at the beginning of each semester. Students should read the recommended texts in preparation for each seminar. There will be regular tutorial sessions with individual students or in small groups.
Evaluation method
(a) Participation in the seminars, with presentation of assigned readings and discussion of topics (30%).
(b) Presentation of a research paper:
- written paper (60%)
- oral presentation and discussion of the paper (10%)