BBI 3209 Language Acquisition Wong Bee Eng Department of English Faculty of Modern Languages and Communication Universiti Putra Malaysia

BBI 3209 Assessment The assessment requirements for the course include: Project / Assignment:30% Mid-semester test:30 % Final examination:40 % Project / Assignment The description for the project / assignment will be posted online. Wong Bee Eng FBMK 2

Mid-semester Test The mid-semester test will include topics covered in the first face-to-face, and units 1, 2, and 3 of this module. Types of question: Multiple-choice Structural 2 questions which require longer answers (paragraphs) Wong Bee Eng FBMK 3

Task Select a Malaysian subject aged between 2 and 5 years. The first language (L1) of the subject could be Malay, Mandarin Chinese or Tamil. Make 3 recordings of about minutes over a period of about 4 or 5 weeks at regular intervals (10 days or 2 weeks). Then transcribe the subject’s utterances. Investigate the acquisition of phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics of the child. Wong Bee Eng FBMK 4

Describe the properties that the subject has acquired up to the point of study. If stages of development of the properties you are investigating are obvious over the period of data collection, chart them. Then, explain the phenomena you observe in the data, for example, if the subject is using certain rules to produce particular forms at a particular time. (Please seek written consent from the parents of the child before you begin. You may prepare a letter on which a parent has to sign giving you consent. This letter should be submitted together with the assignment.) Wong Bee Eng FBMK 5

rt should: Your report should: 1. be around 15 pages long including appendixes (12 point, double spacing). 2. include a cover page with the course code, title of the course, your name and matriculation number. 3. have a content page. 4. have in-text referencing/citations wherever applicable (surname of author/s, year, page number). 5. include a list of references that you had referred to in your assignment. NB: Submit the hard copy of the report with a CD /soft copy which should have the taped sessions with the subject, the transcribed data and the report saved. Don’t forget to include the letter of consent as well. Wong Bee Eng FBMK 6

Your report should include the following: include the following: A. Introduction Include the objective or provide research questions for the study. B. Literature review Write a review of L1 acquisition and the stages an infant goes through in the acquisition of the first language. C. Methodology Describe the subject (age, gender, background and if possible, include photographs of subject and activities carried out during the taping sessions) and the procedure (collection, transcription and analysis of data). Also describe the equipment or tools used. D. Results and discussion Analyse, interpret and discuss the data. E. Conclusion F. References Wong Bee Eng FBMK 7

References O’Grady, W. & Cho, S. W. (2012). First Language Acquisition (pp ). In O’ Grady, W. & Archibald, J. Contemporary Linguistic Analysis: An Introduction (Seventh Edition). Toronto: Pearson Canada. Hoff, E. (2009). Language Development (Fourth Edition). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning. Wong Bee Eng FBMK 8