Exploring individual differences in language learning abilities: from linguistic morphology to brain morphology

The present PhD theses project, covering in a rare interdisciplinary way the fields and work of three PhD students, have the overarching aim of investigating individual differences in first and second language acquisition performance, proficiency and aptitude – from linguistic, psycholinguistic, psycho-cognitive and neurological perspectives. All topics are interrelated and profit from the exchange of theoretical background and methodological experimental material. Individual differences in the process, performance and proficiency levels of first and second language acquisition have long been observed by us, but are very difficult to be investigated experimentally, because of their eclectic interdisciplinary nature (spanning the fields of psychology, linguistics, cognitive science, social sciences, biology and neurosciences). Here the doctoral students propose a novel interdisciplinary project to overcome these experimental difficulties by investigating language acquisition from three different standpoints: a psycholinguistic view (PhD 1), a cognitive-psychological view (PhD 2) and a cognitive-neuroscientific one (PhD 3). The far-reaching aim of the project is to improve and develop testing material (language acquisition and aptitude tests) which could be further used in the fields of linguistics, psycho- and neurolinguistics and be useful for advances in language teaching methodology.