Lydia White (born 1946) is a Canadian linguist and educator in the area of

second language acquisition Second-language acquisition (SLA), sometimes called second-language learning—otherwise referred to as L2 (language 2) acquisition, is the process of learning a language other than one's native language (L1). SLA research examines how learners ...

(SLA). She is

James McGill James McGill (6 October 1744 – 19 December 1813) was a Scottish-born businessman, politician, slaveholder, and philanthropist best known for being the founder of McGill University in Montreal, Quebec. He was elected to the Legislative Assembl ...

Professor Emeritus of

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

McGill University McGill University (French: Université McGill) is an English-language public research university in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Founded in 1821 by royal charter,Frost, Stanley Brice. ''McGill University, Vol. I. For the Advancement of Learning, ...

.Faculty Page
McGill University. Retrieved on April 6, 2020

Biography

She received her BA in Moral Sciences and Psychology from

Cambridge University The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

in 1969 and PhD in

linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of language. The areas of linguistic analysis are syntax (rules governing the structure of sentences), semantics (meaning), Morphology (linguistics), morphology (structure of words), phonetics (speech sounds ...

from

in 1980. Her PhD dissertation, published in book form as ''Grammatical Theory and Language Acquisition'', concerns the theoretical problem of first language acquisition from the perspective of

generative grammar Generative grammar is a research tradition in linguistics that aims to explain the cognitive basis of language by formulating and testing explicit models of humans' subconscious grammatical knowledge. Generative linguists, or generativists (), ...

. Her 1989 survey of SLA research, ''Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition'', has become a standard textbook in many university level SLA courses. The book puts particular emphasis on research which explores the implications that the theory of linguistic universals (the Universal Grammar theory) has had upon second language acquisition approaches. In 2003, Lydia White published the book ''Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar'', which extends the claims that the process of second language acquisition is guided and constrained by Universal Grammar.

Honors and distinctions

In 2010 she was elected as a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...

in the Academy of Arts and Humanities. In 2012, she received the

Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal The Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal () or The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Medal was a commemorative medal created in 2012 to mark the 60th anniversary of Queen Elizabeth II's accession in 1952. There are four versions of the medal: one iss ...

. She currently serves on the editorial boards of the journals ''Language Acquisition'', ''Linguistic Approaches to Bilingualism'', and ''

Second Language Research ''Second Language Research'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal in the field of linguistics, concerned foremost with second language acquisition and second-language performance. Each year, one special issue is published, devoted to some current ...

''. Together with

Roumyana Slabakova Roumyana Slabakova ( Bulgarian: Румяна Слабакова) is a linguist specializing in the theory of second language acquisition (SLA), particularly acquisition of semantics, and its practical implications for teaching and studying lang ...

, she is also co-editor of the book series ''Language Acquisition and Language Disorders''. A

Festschrift In academia, a ''Festschrift'' (; plural, ''Festschriften'' ) is a book honoring a respected person, especially an academic, and presented during their lifetime. It generally takes the form of an edited volume, containing contributions from the h ...

in her honor, ''Inquiries in Linguistic Development'', was published in 2006.

Selected publications

Books

*"Grammatical Theory and Language Acquisition", 1982, Dordrecht: Foris *"Universal Grammar and Second Language Acquisition", 1989, Amsterdam: John Benjamins *"Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar", 2003, New York: Cambridge University Press

Articles

Lydia White has edited special issues of several leading journals in the field, and authored many articles in ''Language Learning'', ''Studies in Second Language Acquisition'', ''

'', and ''Language Acquisition''. Some notable examples include the following: *Prévost, Philippe and Lydia White. 2000. "Missing surface inflection or impairment in second language acquisition? Evidence from tense and agreement." ''Second Language Research'' 16: 103-133. *White, Lydia. 1991. "Adverb placement in second language acquisition: Some effects of positive and negative evidence in the classroom." ''Second Language Research'' 7: 133-161. *White, Lydia. 1985. "The "pro-drop" parameter in adult second language learning." ''Language Learning'' 35: 47-62.

References

Sources

McGill University
James McGill / William Dawson Programme
McGill University, Associate Provost (Planning and Budgets). Retrieved on April 19, 2009

External links

Faculty profile at McGillThe ReporterJohn Benjamins Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:White, Lydia Bilingualism and second-language acquisition researchers Linguists from Canada Academic staff of McGill University Living people Canadian women linguists Canadian women academics Developmental psycholinguists Women cognitive scientists 1946 births McGill University alumni