The University of the West Indies, Mona

This course explores what linguists sometimes call ‘The Big Question’ – how it is that children are able to acquire a native language in just a few years’ time, and that they do so despite the errors and deficiencies in the speech they hear around them. Students learn some methods used in studying child language acquisition, and will look in some detail at the major milestones in the acquisition of phonology, morphology and syntax. The course also deals with the differences between first and second language acquisition, and with some of the neurolinguistic aspects of language acquisition.