25 Jan 2022 - 18:00

Description: This CPD event will center around Maltese language acquisition, both first and second language acquisition, with a focus on the acquisition of Maltese morpho-syntax. A brief overview of the study Morpho-syntactic errors in Maltese, performed by children whose first language (L1) is English and whose second language (L2) is Maltese (M. Vella, 2020), will be given. Insights on the work Maltese first language acquisition: A longitudinal study, currently being researched, will also be presented. This study will provide theoretical and practical applications within the clinical and educational contexts and will be of special interest to speech language pathologists (SLPs) since it aims at providing a normative reference point of Maltese first language acquisition (FLA) which SLPs can then use to compare typical FLA to atypical FLA cases they come across.

 

By the end of this event the attendees will have a clear overview of a recent study and an ongoing study relating to Maltese second language errors and Maltese first language acquisition, respectively. By the end of this event the attendees will have engaged in a discussion on Maltese language acquisition and the issues of debate and concern in this field.

 

Presenter: Ms. Michela Vella, Bachelor of Arts (Hons) Linguistics

Bio: Michela Vella obtained First Class Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in Linguistics from the University of Malta in 2020 with an A+ in her dissertation. She had the honour of being awarded the Faculty of Arts Dean’s List Award in 2020. Michela is currently reading for a PhD in Linguistics with the Institute of Linguistics and Language Technology.