Description
Second Language Acquisition is the study of how second/foreign languages are learned. It is the study of why most second language learners do not achieve the same degree of proficiency in a second language as they do in their native language, and it is also the study of why some learners do appear to achieve native-like proficiency in more than one language, while other learners do not. Additionally, second language acquisition is concerned with the nature of the hypotheses (conscious or unconscious) that learners develop regarding the rules of the second language. Are the rules like those of the native language? Are they like the rules of the language being learned? Given all these questions and concerns, the study of second language acquisition draws on and contributes to with other fields, most notably linguistics, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis and pragmatics. Given the close relationship between second language acquisition and these fields, there are numerous approaches from which second language data may be examined, each way of looking at the data bringing its own goals and methodologies. This course attempts to clarify the nature of second language acquisition from such multiple perspectives. The elicitation and analysis of second-language acquisition data as well as the format of second-language acquisition studies is dealt with in a research component of the course. A third component of the course aims at developing the necessary authorship (as opposed to hapless dependence on source text) for reporting one’s own (small-scale) research.
Teaching method
Two-hour seminar per week
Course objectives
The objective of the course is to attain sufficient understanding of second language acquisition to be able to successfully plan, research and write up an M.A. thesis on some specialized subject within the field.
Required reading
James Dean Brown & Theodore S. Rodgers, Doing Second Language Research, Oxford University Press 2002.
Susan M. Gass and Larry Selinker, Second Language Acquisition: An Introductory Course (Topics in Applied Psycholinguistics), Routledge 2008.
Test method
Two extended essays, 33% of the grade for the first essay, 67% for the second.
Time table
Click here for the timetable
Information
English Department, P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 102c. Phone: 071 527 2144, or by mail: English@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Registration
Students can register through U-twist before 15 July. After 15 July students can only register through the Departmental Office.
Blackboard
This course is supported by Blackboard.