Second Language Acquisition

The study of second language acquisition (SLA) is an increasingly interdisciplinary field that draws on various branches of linguistics as well as cognitive psychology, educational research, sociology, and neurology to describe exactly how second languages are learned by different individuals in different contexts, and to explain the biological, cognitive, and social mechanisms underlying these phenomena. Factors commonly studied include the role of instruction, age, aptitude, native language, universal grammar, communicative practice, and sociolinguistic context.

Some students also pursue a certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) in the Department of Linguistics.

Multiple research clusters fall under the Second Language Acquisition ARCO.

Second Language Acquisition

Language processing and working memory

People in Second Language Acquisition:

Alan Juffs

Professor

Matthew Kanwit

Associate Professor

Dawn E. McCormick

Teaching Professor

Richard Donato

Professor of foreign language education, linguistics, and French

Charles Perfetti

Professor of psychology and linguistics

Natasha Tokowicz

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Angela Krak

Juan Berrios

Shaohua Fang

Sebastian Leal Arenas

Irene Soto Lucena

Amanda Huensch

Assistant Professor

Mayte Barnuevo Zayas

Bilingualism

Multilingualism is the use of two or more languages, either by an individual speaker or by a community of speakers. It is believed that multilingual speakers outnumber monolingual speakers in the world's population. More than half of all Europeans claim to speak at least one other language in addition to their mother tongue. Multilingualism is becoming a social phenomenon governed by the needs of globalization and cultural openness. Owing to the ease of access to information facilitated by the Internet, individuals' exposure to multiple languages is becoming increasingly frequent, thereby promoting a need to acquire additional languages. People who speak several languages are also called polyglots.

People in Bilingualism:

Melinda Fricke

Assistant Professor

Matthew Kanwit

Associate Professor

Marta Ortega-Llebaria

Associate Professor

Natasha Tokowicz

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Tessa Warren

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Irene Soto Lucena

Language Contact

We Investigate the evolution of language due to contact between different languages. Languages can come into contact in a variety of ways, such as direct contact between speakers of different languages (e.g., migration, invasion, slavery) and indirect contact, with no contact between speakers of different languages (through media). The outcomes of contact are varied and include pidgin or creole formation, bilingualism, language death, language attrition, code-switching, and borrowing.

People in Language Contact:

Shelome Gooden

Professor

Jevon Heath

Teaching Assistant Professor

Matthew Kanwit

Associate Professor

Joseph Patrick

Prosody & Intonation

In linguistics, intonation is variation of spoken pitch that is not used to distinguish words; instead it is used for a range of functions such as indicating the attitudes and emotions of the speaker, signalling the difference between statements and questions, and between different types of questions, focusing attention on important elements of the spoken message and also helping to regulate conversational interaction. It contrasts with tone, in which pitch variation in some languages distinguishes words, either lexically or grammatically.

People in Prosody & Intonation:

Melinda Fricke

Assistant Professor

Shelome Gooden

Professor

Marta Ortega-Llebaria

Associate Professor

Mandy Simons

Professor of philosophy, Carnegie Mellon University

Miroo Lee

Sebastian Leal Arenas

Irene Soto Lucena