Development of Language Processing - Einzelansicht

This course examines the grammatical processing mechanisms and strategies employed by child first (L1) and adult second language (L2) learners, focusing on sentence-level processing. Specific questions to be examined include: What role does the ability to process the input play in L1 and L2 acquisition? Are language processing mechanisms universal or language-specific? Do sentence parsing strategies develop in conjunction with, or independently from, language learners' grammatical competence? Do adult language learners process the L2 input in the same way as native speakers of the target language do? Do L2 learners transfer any language-specific sentence processing strategies from their L1?

The course presupposes a good basic grounding in grammatical theory and description. Some familiarity with current issues, models and methods used in experimental sentence processing research is desirable but is not a requirement.