ALLENCAM (Language Acquisition from Multilingual Catalonia) is the research group on LANGUAGE ACQUISITION based at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (UPF) since 2004, when it was officially recognized by the Catalan government (2021 SGR 00472; 2017 SGR 1028; 2014 SGR 1563). Currently, a total of 27 members are part of the group, both nationally (UPF, Universitat de les Illes Balears and Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) and internationally (University of Ottawa, Georgetown University, New York University, Rutgers University, Université de Lille, Universität Wuppertal, among others). Our research interests lie in the field of language acquisition processes and outcomes in different learning situations: both in formal instruction (FI) and naturalistic contexts, during study/residence abroad (SA), and in bilingual, trilingual or multilingual settings such as Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL) and English-Medium Instruction (EMI). We focus on different linguistic phenomena in language development: syntax, morphology, phonetics, discourse and pragmatics, as language learners make progress in different sociocultural environmental conditions, that is, in different contexts. We also analyse how learner attributes dynamically interact with language use and linguistic progress in such contexts. We use different methods of data gathering (production, comprehension, corpus and online processing data) and research designs, both descriptive and experimental. ALLENCAM belongs to the Research Unit in Linguistics (UR-LING) at UPF.

 

 The group is organized along three research lines which investigate language acquisition; these lines also define our research projects:

(1) Sociolinguistic and sociocultural contexts in which languages are acquired and used.

(2) Educational contexts that promote efficient language acquisition.

(3) Intrinsic features of linguistic systems that are most affected by the quality and quantity of exposure to the languages.