The Linguistic Study of Bilingualism
MIT OpenCourseWare offers the course materials for this linguistics class on how the brain handles two or more languages. Topics include competing models of bilingualism, how linguists judge the grammaticality of code-switching between languages, the question of a critical period for language acquisition, and what brain imaging studies reveal about bilingual and multilingual cognition. The course asks how first languages are learned so quickly compared to later ones, and whether acquiring a second language works by the same mechanisms. Materials include the syllabus, readings, and assignments as posted on MIT OpenCourseWare, free to access with no certificate offered. The course is suited to students with some background in linguistics who want to look closely at the psycholinguistic evidence behind bilingual language processing rather than a general overview of language learning.