Linguistics

This course provides a study of the history and evolution of the English language. It examines the major phases and commonly recognized periods of English, the main changes and characteristics of each phase, and the historical and cultural context in which they developed. Topics covered include: fundamentals of historical-comparative linguistics; English among the Germanic languages; migration of Germanic groups to England; Old English; Middle English; Modern English; late Modern English; Contemporary English and new perspectives on change.

Language is often considered a “tool” of communication, but what kind of “tool” is it? What are some other ways of perceiving language? Do people with different mother tongues and cultures tend to think and behave differently? How do misunderstandings in intercultural communication happen? How can we develop a competence that will enable us to reach better understanding of ourselves as well as people from various cultures? These are some of the questions examined in this course. The course introduces some major topics concerning language, culture, and intercultural communication.

This course examines Japanese phonetics and phonology, dealing with segmental and prosodic aspects of the language. Lectures focus on the typical characteristics of the sound systems of Japanese in relation to phonetic and phonological theories. The course focuses mainly on theory, but practical pronunciation training is included to aid understanding of the theories. 

The course covers different theories of human communication and utterance comprehension are discussed, including Gricean, neo-Gricean, and relevance-theoretic approaches. The specific topics and data discussed vary from year to year but are taken from the following list: referring expressions and speaker’s reference, conversational implicatures, pragmatic enrichments of explicit content, word meaning modulation, unarticulated constituents, indexical saturation, and non-literal uses of language (metaphor, hyperbole, metonymy, irony).

This course considers the shifting nature of Gaelic identities in Scotland from the Middle Ages to the present and assesses the ideological and discursive presentation of these identities. The course also addresses the current sociolinguistic dynamics of the language, particularly in relation to the effect of English-Gaelic bilingualism and the impact of recent revitalization initiatives.

This course examines language and politeness (and by extension also language and impoliteness). The first part of the course will provide a critical overview of major approaches to linguistic (im)politeness, including early classic politeness and impoliteness theories and more recent developments in the field and look at how (im)politeness is defined, theorized and analyzed differently by different approaches. The second part of the course will turn to topics in relation to linguistic (im)politeness such as (im)politeness and culture as well as (im)politeness in (social) media communication. Examples will be drawn from a wide range of sources such as everyday conversations, political communication and online communication.

This beginners’ course is aimed at non-mother tongue speakers of Swahili. This course provides a broad overview of the study of sociolinguistics with specific reference to Southern Africa. Topics such as language and gender, language and power, linguistic prejudice as well as language planning are covered. The latter is a very important and controversial field in Southern Africa, given the liberal constitution, which allows for 11 official languages. The course focuses on two specific arenas or work situations i.e. the legal and medical fraternities, in order to assess what complications and challenges arise in a multilingual work environment. How are these challenges being addressed? Why is it important for you to be a multilingual citizen? DP requirements: Students are expected to complete all tests and assignments and attend at least 80% of all lectures, tutorials and language labs. Assessment: Coursework 50%; exam 50%.

This course introduces students to the core concepts, terminology, and technical apparatus of the structural parts of linguistics (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics), as well as the conceptual underpinnings of the discipline. Students learn about fundamental concepts such as contrast and distribution; structure; rules and representations; the cognitive basis of language, and how that is distinct from its social basis; and language universals and variation. They also learn how to solve problems of linguistic analysis using these concepts and the terminology and techniques of the discipline as well as how to use hypothesis testing to devise solutions to these problems. 

Through a diverse range of specific case studies, this course introduces students to the study of language policy, incorporating language management, language practices and language beliefs. Crucially, this field sheds light on the balance of power between different languages and their users. In addition to framing key concepts in the field, four specific sociolinguistic case studies will typically be considered: these vary from year to year, but may include languages such as Gaelic, Greenlandic, Russian, the Sámi languages, Scots, and Spanish (no prior knowledge of any of these is required). Thematic topics and approaches to be covered also vary, but may include globalization, minoritization, indigeneity, legal frameworks, education, commodification, media, language visibility, superdiversity, pluricentrism, and language contact.