Type of course

Admission requirements

A bachelor's degree (180 ECTS), or equivalent qualification, in English language, or a degree combining English language and literature (minimum 80 ECTS in English). Applicants who hold a bachelor's degree or equivalent issued in Europe, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand: An average grade equivalent to C or better is required. Applicants who hold a bachelor's degree or equivalent issued in countries other than the above-mentioned region/countries: An average grade equivalent to B or better is required.

ENG-2019 is recommended as a previous course for internal applicants but is not required.

Application code: 9371 - Enkeltemner på masternivå (Nordic applicants).

Course content

Recommended prerequisites

Objectives of the course

By the end of the course, the students have the following learning outcomes:

Knowledge

The aim of the course is to acquaint students with established results in this area from the fields of linguistics, psychology and neuroscience. By the end of the course, the students will have gained:

• knowledge of our current understanding of the mental processes involved in the processing and production of natural language in normal bi-multilingual adults of various types (simultaneous, sequential, naturalistic in immersion, classroom learners, etc.) across the lifespan, starting in young adulthood through advanced aging
• knowledge of the various neurocognitive empirical methods used to test linguistic behavior and (hypothesized to be) related domain-general cognition inclusive of how they can be interpreted
• an understanding of the relationship between bi-/multilingualism and outcomes of linguistic and neurocognitive competencies, inclusive of the experiential factors argued to condition individual differences
• an understanding of the added value in studying the aforementioned related to societal impacts and health at multiple levels as well as equitable understanding of bi-/multilingualism, minority languages and their communities.

Skills

By the end of the course, the students have acquired the following basic skills:

• the ability to communicate clearly the knowledge objectives described above both orally and in writing
• the ability to think about and discuss issues concerning the relationship between linguistic and neurocognitive data and what it might tell us about the mind/brain and its relationship with language/multilingualism more generally
• a critical appreciation of different theories of linguistic representation, language processing, general cognition and the relationship between lifestyle enrichment factors (multilingualism as an potential independent source of improvement) and cognitive aging as found in the research literature
• a basic ability to conduct original empirical research in the covered areas.

Language of instruction and examination

Teaching methods

The course will consist of lectures, discussion of specific readings and project work.

All courses will be evaluated once during the period of the study program.

Information to incoming exchange students