Department of Second Language Studies

What is it you know when you “know” a language? Can you acquire a first and second language equally well? This Discovery Experience trains students in language data analysis. Students will extract information directed at addressing questions related to different components of multilingual competence. The data analysis methods are typical of the social sciences, and the software used has broad applications, even beyond the social sciences. The skills developed in class are progressive and build on work done in previous weeks. There are two assignments during the semester, in which students will explore linguistic data. In addition to answering specific questions in each assignment, students will provide the code used for arriving at quantitative and graphical results and provide a rationale for the parameters that they selected. As a final project, students will design a poster to present research completed during the course, and also develop a proposal for future research.