Overview

Students will learn about a range of experimental research methods that are currently used in the psychological study of language and bilingualism (and a sampling of current theoretical questions), considering experimental design and the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. We'll start with a quick recap of general principles in laboratory experiment design, core theoretical questions, and commonly used behavioural tasks. Then we'll consider specific research approaches in more detail. Capitalising on the expertise we have here at Bangor, approaches typically include: classic measures of adult behaviour (errors, response times, corpora); language acquisition (looking time, assessments); timecourse methods (eyetracking, ERP); location methods (fMRI, neuropsychology); and computational modelling.

Please note that bilingualism research is an interdisciplinary topic that integrates laboratory experiments and language research with the added challenge of using multiple languages. Any student should certainly be able to succeed in this module, but students would benefit from some background in laboratory experimentation and/or the psychological or linguistic study of language.

Learning Outcomes

• Students will be able to apply their understanding of research methods in language and bilingualism to select appropriate methods to address a research question, and describe original studies that they could do using their chosen methods.

• Students will be able to critically assess the use of specific methodological approaches to evaluate particular theoretical claims.

• Students will be able to demonstrate in-depth knowledge of the key strengths and key weaknesses of each of the methodologies studied.

• Students will be able to describe how previous work applying several research methods has contributed to key theoretical claims in the study of language and bilingualism.

• Students will be able to describe practical considerations involved in applying several core methods to research in language and bilingualism