This course provides an intensive overview of the field of first language acquisition, covering issues of language development from birth to adolescence. Although the course focuses on the acquisition of emerging linguistic capabilities proper, the material covered provides an interdisciplinary perspective, and should be of interest to linguists, psychologists, speech pathologists, educators and parents. Topics to be addressed include the biological bases of language, the first words, and phonological, syntactic and semantic development. Social variables influencing development of language, bilingualism, models of language development as well as methods of data gathering and analysis will also be discussed.