Linguistics

This seminar investigates morphological patterns in which prosody plays a central role for word structure, such as clippings/ truncation (fab < fabulous, veggie < vegetarian), -er comparatives (red - redder, conventional - *conventionaler but more conventional), infixation (uni-bloody-versity, Minne-fuckin'-sota) or reduplication (mish-mash). Using English and other languages as a data source, the course introduces Optimality Theory as a framework for modelling the interaction of morphology and phonology in these constructions.

This course offers an in-depth exploration of quantitative text analysis methods for studying international relations. Students engage with advanced computational techniques, including text classification, topic modeling, and network analysis, to systematically examine textual data. The class places emphasis on methodological rigor, critical interpretation of results, and the application of these tools to address key research questions in the field. It is designed to equip students with the skills needed to conduct independent research using text as data.

This course introduces students to the key ideas in the study of language in society, with a focus on sociolinguistic phenomena which are observable in London. The course takes a survey approach, ensuring that the breadth of sociolinguistic scholarship is explored. The course is research driven, and students are exposed to the range of methodologies used in the discipline; students have the chance to carry out a project on dialectology and language attitudes within class sessions, and are taken a field trip to photograph the linguistic landscape in Brick Lane, China Town, and Camden. 

This course is an introduction to linguistic pragmatics, an interdisciplinary subfield of linguistics which studies the relationship between language form and language use. It seeks to understand what it is to use language or what we do when we use language (Verschueren 1999). The course is divided into three units: the basic theoretical concepts in pragmatics, such as Grice’s maxims of conversation, conversational implicatures, deixis, and speech acts; key analytical (and contentious) issues such as salience and implicit meaning by analyzing different types of discourse; and the analysis of conversational interaction. Here, students explore such phenomena as turn-taking and preference structure, politeness phenomena, formulaic language, humor, and pragmatic/discourse markers. 

This course familiarizes students with the fundamental semantic notion of cohesion. Indeed, it is cohesion that makes it possible to form a discursive whole, whether written or oral. The main cohesive links defined by Halliday and Hasan's COHESION IN ENGLISH (1976) are reviewed, defined and discussed: reference, substitution, ellipsis, the main types of reiteration and comparison. Conjunction and collocation are omitted. Each lesson is devoted to recognizing, locating, and activating these various links.

This course examines how linguistic forms and literary devices are related to aesthetic effects and ideological functions. It will analyze and discuss how the choice and the patterning of words, sounds and images orchestrate to embody, mediate and elicit feelings and thoughts, and views and values. Topics include: towards characterizing literary linguistics; collocation, deviation and word play; prosody, parallelism and performance; discourse into discourse; narration and representation of speech and thought; reader positioning and response.

The course focuses on the main concepts of unification-based syntax and their application to the analysis of English. It examines the features that make up sentences, syntagms, words, and grammatical morphemes.

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.