EARLY LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

This course examines early language development, from when a child is around two years old to when they are three and a half. We will ask questions about the nature of early linguistic representations, the development of the language processing systems, the relationship between competence and processing, and we will become familiar with different hypotheses concerning language development and developmental trajectories. We will examine the nature of children's early linguistic representations in the domains of phonology, morphophonology and syntax. Two broad and contrasting views of the acquisition process will be introduced to stimulate students' critical thinking skills and hone their abilities to evaluate different types of evidence against the predictions of different theories. We will address questions such as: What is the nature of the initial state in language acquisition? Is it continuous with the adult state? What is the nature of the developmental trajectories in different domains? What is the relationship between children's competence and their processing systems (comprehension and production)? In addition to addressing these questions, we will address the role of input, specifically, the relationship between input quantity and quality and language development.

In this course students will:
1. Acquire an understanding of the basic issues and controversies in first language acquisition
2. Develop skills for analyzing children's spontaneous language production
3. Learn the basic experimental procedures used to test children's linguistic knowledge
4. Learn how to analyze and critique primary research articles
5. Design a language acquisition study suitable for the age and background of the child
6. Analyze and critically understand areas where there is debate and/or theoretical disagreement
7. Develop academic communication skills and practice organizing and delivering a talk with peers

By the end of the course students should be able to:
1. Explain current controversies in first language acquisition and relate them to broader issues in speech science, linguistics, psychology, and philosophy
2. Understand the components of good methods in language acquisition research
3. Critique primary experimental and theoretical articles in language acquisition
4. Develop a research question in language acquisition and outline a line of approach
5. Demonstrate knowledge of key theoretical claims about children's knowledge and use of language and the mechanisms of language development
6. Deliver a talk with peers

General linguistics: syntax; phonetics and phonology
Statistics: descriptive statistics and distributions, hypothesis testing, differences between means, analysis of variance

Linking early abstraction versus lexical specificity to nativism and empiricism
Methods to assess children's linguistic knowledge and language use
Measures of child language complexity
Experimental methods
Phonological development
Syntactic development
Children's developing performance systems
Determiners
Null subjects
Argument structure
Passives
Wh-questions

Bencini, G. M. L. & Valian, V. V. (2008). Abstract sentence representations in 3-year-olds: Evidence from language production and comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 97–113.
Charest, M. & Johnston, J. R. (2011). Processing load in children’s language production: A clinically oriented review of research. Canadian Journal of Speech-Language Pathology and Audiology, 35, 18–31.
Demuth K. (2019). Prosodic constraints on children’s use of grammatical morphemes. First Language, 39, 80–95.
Demuth K., Moloi, F., & Machobane, M. (2010). 3-year-olds’ comprehension, production, and generalization of Sesotho passives. Cognition, 115, 238–251.
McDaniel, D., McKee, C., & Garrett, M. F. (2010). Children’s sentence planning: Syntactic correlates of fluency variations. Journal of Child Language, 37, 59–94.
McKee, C., McDaniel, D., & Garrett, M. C. (2018). Children’s performance abilities: Language production. In E. Fernández & H. Smith Cairns (eds.), Handbook of psycholinguistics, 491–515. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Mealings, K. T. & Demuth, K. (2014). The role of utterance length and position in 3-year-olds’ production of third person singular-s. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 57, 484–494.
Messenger, K., Branigan, H. P., & McLean, J. F. (2011a). Evidence for (shared) abstract structure underlying children’s short and full passives. Cognition, 121, 268–274. doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2011.07.003
Messenger, K., Branigan, H. P., McLean, J. F., & Sorace, A. (2012). Is young children’s passive syntax semantically constrained? Evidence from syntactic priming. Journal of Memory and Language, 66, 568–587.
Savage, C., Lieven, E., Theakston, A., & Tomasello, M. (2006). Structural priming as implicit learning in language acquisition: The persistence of lexical and structural priming in 4-year-olds. Language Learning and Development, 2, 27–49.
Savage, C., Lieven, E., Theakston, A., & Tomasello, M. (2003). Testing the abstractness of children's linguistic representations: lexical and structural priming of syntactic constructions in young children. Developmental Science, 6, 557–567.
Pozzan, L. & Valian, V. (2017). Asking questions in child English: Evidence for early abstract representations. Language Acquisition, 24, 209-233.
Valian, V. (2016). Null subjects. In J. Lidz, W. Snyder, & J. Pater (Eds.), Oxford handbook of developmental linguistics (Chapter 17). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Valian, V. (2015, revision of 2009). Innateness and learnability. In E. Bavin & L. Naigles (Ed.), The Cambridge handbook of child language (Ch 2, pp 14-36). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Valian, V. (2014). Arguing about innateness. Journal of Child Language, 41 (S1), 78-92.
Valian, V. (2013). Determiners: An empirical argument for innateness. In Sanz, M., Laka, I., & Tanenhaus, M. (Eds.). Language down the garden path: The cognitive and biological basis for linguistic structure (Chapter 14). New York: Oxford University Press.
Valian, V., Solt, S., & Stewart, J. (2009). Abstract categories or limited-scope formulae: The case of children's determiners. Journal of Child Language.
Valian, V., Prasada, S., & Scarpa, J. (2006). Direct object predictability: effects on young children’s imitation of sentences. Journal of Child Language, 33, 247-269.
Valian, V. (2006). Young children's understanding of present and past tense. Language Learning and Development, 2, 251-276.
Valian, V., & Aubry, S. (2005). When opportunity knocks twice: two-year-olds' repetition of sentence subjects. Journal of Child Language, 32, 617-641.
Valian, V. & Casey, L. (2003). Young children's acquisition of wh-questions: The role of structured input. Journal of Child Language, 30, 117-143.

Attenders (must attend at least 13/15 classes): A written exam consisting of three essay questions and seven multiple choice questions. [See below for details on grade breakdown.]. A presentation to be completed during the course of the semester working in preassigned groups of 2-3 peers and a final oral presentation to the entire class. [See below for details on grade breakdown.]
Final grade for attenders: average of the grades from the written exam and the class presentation
1. Written exam: Out of 30 points. Grade breakdown is as follows: essay questions are 6 points each; six multiple choice questions (2 points each). For each wrong answer in the multiple choice section one full point will be taken off.
2.Group project: maximum 30 points. Assessment is based on: quality of the material sent in to the instructor and shared with peers; quality of the final presentation. Individual contributions to the group project: 1-3 points based on the quantity and quality of the work contributed to steering the group and accomplishing the tasks.

Final grade for attenders: grade on the written exam: marked out of 30 points (maximum grade). Grade breakdown is as follows: essay questions are 6 points each; six multiple choice questions (2 points each). For each wrong answer in the multiple choice section one full point will be taken off.

The class adopts a graduate seminar format. Students will read original theoretical, empirical, and computational articles. For each class, I will assign one or two articles. Readings should be done prior to class. Students should be prepared to participate in class discussion. A participation grade will be assigned based on class participation.

English

Accessibility, Disability and Inclusion: Information regarding accommodation and support services for students with disabilities and students with specific learning impairments

Ca Foscari abides by Italian Law (Law 17/1999; Law 170/2010) regarding support services and accommodation available to students with disabilities. This includes students with
mobility, visual, hearing and other disabilities (Law 17/1999), and specific learning impairments (Law 170/2010). If you have a disability or impairment that requires accommodations (i.e., alternate testing, readers, note takers or interpreters) please contact the Disability and Accessibility Offices in Student Services: disabilita@unive.it.

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