Language Acquisition and Development
Language acquisition is the process by which individuals acquire the capacity to perceive and comprehend language, as well as to produce and use language units (words) and structures to communicate both in their native tongues and in other, non-native languages. The basic process of language acquisition of the native language occupies approximately first five years, after which it is developed and restructured, aiming at the adult grammar of the language community in which it is spoken.
Language acquisition refers both to first (native) language acquisition, which studies infants' acquisition of their native language by the exposure to the language spoken in the child’s environment, and non-native (second or foreign) language acquisition, which deals with the acquisition and learning (in both children and adults) of additional languages (both the second and the subsequent ones) in differentiated contexts. Second learning (and teaching) is typical of post-colonial official contexts, whereas foreign languages are learnt and taught in the school context all over the world.
If the capacity to acquire and use language is a key aspect that distinguishes humans from other beings and is based on the same type of global processes both for native and non-native languages, there are also factors of non-native acquisition that depend on specificities of the learning context and of the proper learner (cognitive, linguistic and social factors), as well as language-dependent and language-contact-dependent characteristic
Students are expected to acquire the following general, metacognitive and specific competences of:
(i)Analysing problems in areas of Language and Cognition, Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition, as well as planning and organizing linguistics and cognitive activities both individually and in groups;
(ii)Developing and carrying individual academic projects (diagnosis, selection, treatment, analysis and application of new and highly specific information;
(iii)Promoting linguistic research on teaching Portuguese as a second language;
(iv)Reflecting on the Portuguese linguistic acquisition data, and analysing the Portuguese language structure (phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and/or sociolinguistic language dimensions);
(v)Diagnosing and analyzing problematic aspects in the acquisition of Portuguese as a Second Language;
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Students are expected to acquire the following general, metacognitive and specific competences of:
(i) Analysing problems in areas of Language and Cognition, Psycholinguistics and Language Acquisition, as well as planning and organizing linguistics and cognitive activities both individually and in groups;
(ii) Developing and carrying individual academic projects (diagnosis, selection, treatment, analysis and application of new and highly specific information;
(iii) Promoting linguistic research on teaching Portuguese as a second language;
(iv) Reflecting on the Portuguese linguistic acquisition data, and analysing the Portuguese language structure (phonetic, phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic and/or sociolinguistic language dimensions);
(v) Diagnosing and analyzing problematic aspects in the acquisition of Portuguese as a Second Language;
Obligatory references:
SIM-SIM, INÊS (1998) Desenvolvimento da Linguagem, Lisboa: Universidade Aberta
http://loja.uab.pt/pesquisa.aspx?keywords=Desenvolvimento%20da%20linguagem&categoria_id
Other references:
FARIA, Isabel Hub et al. (org.) (1996). Introdução à Linguística Geral e Portuguesa, Lisboa: Editorial Caminho.
LEIRIA, Isabel (1991). A aquisição por falantes de Português Europeu língua não materna dos aspectos verbais expressos pelos Pretérito Perfeito e Imperfeito. Dissertação de Mestrado em Linguística Portuguesa Descritiva. Universidade de Lisboa, Faculdade de Letras
Lisboa, 1991. http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/conhecer/biblioteca-digital-camoes/cat_view/118-dissertacoes-e-teses.html
LEIRIA, Isabel (2007). Léxico: Aquisição e Ensino do Português Europeu Língua não-materna, Lisboa: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian e FCT (Tese de Doutoramento, Lisboa: FLUL, 2001). http://cvc.instituto-camoes.pt/conhecer/biblioteca-digital-camoes/cat_view/118-dissertacoes-e-teses.html
LEIRIA, Isabel et al. (2008). Orientações Programáticas de Português Língua Não-Materna. Lisboa: DGIDC (ME) http://sitio.dgidc.min-edu.pt/linguaportuguesa/Documents/OrientProgramatPLNMVersaoFinalAbril08.pdf
MATEUS, Maria Helena Mira et al. (2005–2008) Projecto Diversidade Linguística em Escola Portuguesa, Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian 2008, CD1 (Primeiros resultados) 2005, CD2 (Análises e materiais) 2006. http://www.iltec.pt/divling/index.html
MOTA, Maria Antónia (1996) “Línguas em contacto” in: Isabel Hub Faria et al. (org.) 505-534.
É obrigatório o recurso a um computador com ligação de banda larga à Internet. Esta unidade curricular pode utilizar bibliografia em inglês e em francês.