Applied Linguistics

How do children and adults learn, develop, and use language? Language is crucial to human communication. Language acquisition is the key focus of the track Applied Linguistics, part of the Bachelor’s programme Communication and Information Studies.

On the one hand, language acquisition seems to be the easiest task on the earth: every healthy child learns to speak his or her mother tongue without ever paying attention to learning it. On the other hand, language acquisition can be so complicated. 

Why does learning one’s native speech cost little effort whereas learning a second or a third language can be time- and effort consuming? Or even: frustrating? Why are certain aspects of languages extremely difficult to grasp, while others are relatively easy to learn? 

For students taking our Communication and Information Studies track Applied Linguistics, such questions,  addressing different facets of language acquisition will keep coming back during their study. 

This track is entirely in English and studies how language systems are built up, how young children learn their mother language, how adults learn new languages and how to analyse these processes.