LuCiD Seminar | Language development in internationally-adopted children: A special case of very early second language learning
| Dates: | 24 February 2015 |
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| Times: | 12:00 - 13:30 |
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| What is it: | Seminar |
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| Organiser: | School of Psychological Sciences |
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| Who is it for: | Alumni, Current University students, University staff |
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| Speaker: | Prof Fred Genesee |
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Host: School of Psychological Sciences
About the event:
Internationally-adopted children are a special case of very early second language acquisition – they discontinue acquisition of the birth language at adoption at which time they learn and use only the second language.
They raise a number of important and interesting issues with respect to language learning and loss: “Is a very early acquired ‘second language’ acquired like a first or like a second language?”; “What are the underlying explanations for differences in early second language versus first language acquisition?”; “Is a first language completely lost when exposure to and use of that language terminates?”.
In this talk, Prof Fred Genesee (McGill University) will present longitudinal behavioural results of a 10-year longitudinal study of internationally-adopted children from China in comparison to matched monolingual control children indicating that they differ from monolinguals. He will also present data suggesting that gaps in their acquisition of their “second first language” is related to underlying lags in verbal memory.
Finally, some recent fMRI data will be presented that reveal whether they actually entirely lose their birth language and whether the adopted language is processed in the same way as that of native-speaking monolinguals.
Further information:
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Speaker
Prof Fred Genesee
Role: Professor
Organisation: McGill University
Travel and Contact Information
Find event
4.205
University Place
Manchester
