Education 58 - Language Acquisition

Institution:

Dartmouth College

Subject:

Description:

09W: 10A Human language is one of the most spectacular of the brain's cognitive capacities, one of the most powerful instruments in the mind's tool kit for thought, and one of the most profound means we as a species use in social, emotional, and cultural communication. Yet the breakneck speed and seemingly "effortless" way that young children acquire language remain its most miraculous characteristic. We will discover the biological capacities and the important social, family, and educational factors that, taken together, make this feat possible and establish the basic facts of language acquisition, involving children's babbling, phonology, early vocabulary, morphology, syntax, semantics, and discourse knowledge, as well as their early gestural and pragmatic competence. Prevailing theoretical explanations and research methods will be explored. We will dispel the myths of how bilingual children acquire two languages from birth. We will leave our hearing-speaking modality and explore the world of language acquisition in total silence-regarding the acquisition of natural signed languages-as an innovative lens into the factors that are most key in acquiring all language. Crucially, we will evaluate the efficacy of how language is presently taught to young children in schools in light of the facts of human language acquisiOpen to all classes. Dist: SOC. Nelson.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.dartmouth.edu

Phone Number:

(603) 646-1110

Regional Accreditation:

New England Association of Schools and Colleges

Calendar System:

Quarter

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