Second language syntax

Aims

The module provides a thorough introduction to issues in the development of syntactic knowledge in second language acquisition (SLA).

In addition, students will learn about key issues in experiment design and analysis in the field of SLA.

By the end of the course, students should be able to:

understand the main current theories of SLA, and their different proposals about the roles of Universal Grammar and first language knowledge in SLA;
show how second language (L2) data are used to provide evidence for (or against) the main theories of L2 syntactic development;
explain the significance of major SLA research findings in the context of theories of L2 syntactic development;
give an account of techniques for investigating L2 syntactic development.