Linguistics

This course explores major themes in theories of meaning, including the relationships between form and meaning, meaning and truth, and meaning and praxis. Core questions in the field—such as universality, figurativeness, immanence, and compositionality—are examined through presentation and discussion. Students practice using metalanguage for analyzing signification across different levels of language.

The course offers a unique opportunity to learn one of the official languages of Scotland. Students develop simple strategies to learn languages and gain confidence in holding a basic everyday conversation. This course is suitable for students with no previous knowledge of the language. Students achieve the equivalent of the A1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR)and develop their confidence in holding a basic everyday conversation. Students develop these basic linguistic skills through a variety of comprehension and production activities. The course focuses on language that is required for communicating in real everyday situations, such as introducing oneself and others and talking about the daily routine. The course includes autonomous learning activities, which enable students to practice and consolidate their skills.

This course reflects upon the characteristics of linguistic, paralinguistic and non-verbal content of communication that works to exercise violence against others.  Through the identification of patterns, linguistic messages, and other methods of communication, the class analyzes a type of nonphysical moral violence equally as important in its overall study.  The course also covers forms of violence prevention. 

This course examines the nature and scope of semantics and pragmatics and their place within linguistics. Topics in semantics include: the nature and analysis of lexical meanings, the relationship between meaning and cognition, the relationship between semantics and grammar, and semantic change. Topics in pragmatics include: speech act theory, politeness theory, implicature and presupposition. 

This course explores various theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of language as a resource for social actors and communities, and as a resource to produce anthropological knowledge. The course analyzes how language emerges in the interactions between people and how it reflects and creates society and culture.  

Understanding these dynamics, however, requires more than just an impressionistic, commonsensical understanding of how language works. For example, what is important about language is not so much the literal meaning of words, but the connotation of accents, the channels through which people choose to communicate, and the silences and elisions. This course develops skills that enable one to investigate these dynamics in a sophisticated manner, yet one that remains solidly grounded in social and cultural theory.  

This course introduce students from the major Modern Languages and Literature (English, French, German, Italian, and Portuguese) to fundamental concepts, strategies, and procedures of translation and translation studies, to initiate a process of reflection and practice.

Multilingualism can be investigated from many perspectives such as language acquisition, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics and so forth. This course examines multilingualism mainly from the perspective of applied linguistics, focusing on the distinction between societal multilingualism and individual multilingualism (sometimes described as plurilingualism). It looks at some important definitions and distinctions and the idea of language choice, both at the individual level and in society, and how those choices are shaped (e.g. through official policy and planning decisions). The course touches on topics such as code-switching, heritage languages and language attrition, as well as multilingual pedagogies and assessment. This course introduces students to issues and concepts in individual and societal multilingualism and to examine situations where several languages are present in an individual’s language repertoire or speech community. The course takes as its point of departure multilingual individuals and the process of becoming multilingual throughout life. It examines global, critical and interdisciplinary perspectives on the topic of multilingualism, addressing decolonization and multilingualism in the Global South amongst other topics.

This linguistics course covers the following topics: form and meaning; meaning and truth; and meaning and praxis. The course covers major themes and questions in the field of theories of meaning: universality, figurativeness, immanence, and compositionality. The course uses presentation, discussion, and practice of metalanguage relevant to accounting for meaning on various levels of language.

In this course students take a scientific approach to literature by applying ideas from linguistics and cognitive science to the analysis of literary texts. The course explores the textual and cognitive foundations for literary interpretations and aesthetic effects, and the underlying ideological and psychological implications of particular linguistic choices.

This course explores the history and evolution of the Spanish language. It discusses dialect and speech, where Spanish is spoken, semantics and pragmatics, and changes in the language.