Universal Grammar and the Initial State of Second Language Learning

​Dr Weifeng Han currently lectures on linguistics and phonetics in speech pathology at Flinders University in South Australia. His teaching and research interests encompass what and how linguistics may contribute to what SLPs need for practice in multilingual and multicultural contexts. He is currently working on a series of projects investigating how the ability to use multiple dialects in the first language may affect the learning of English as a second language among Chinese child learners, and how this will have implications for speech and language diagnosis and assessment. He is an expert on the application of mixed methods in data analysis and discussion.

1 Introduction.- 2 Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition.- 3 Cross-Linguistic Transfer and Second Language Learnability.- 4 Syntax-Semantics Interface and the Form-Meaning Mismatch Between L1 and L2.- 5 Chinese as the L1 in L2 Learning.- 6 Chinese Multidialectal Child Learners’ Acquisition of English at the Syntax-Semantics Interface.- 7 Conclusion.