Linguistics

The course covers linguistic behavior (speaking, writing, and gestures), production, perception, and understanding processes, as well as language acquisition. The course provides an increased understanding of the language acquisition process and how natural language is processed by language users in both production and perception. For example, it covers first language acquisition in children and second language learning in older children and adults as well as different theories of how language is processed from the point of view of behavioral science and neurocognition and methods for how these can be tested. Theories of language processing and acquisition of phonology, morphology, and syntax as well as semantics and vocabulary, are illustrated with and applied to authentic examples.

This is a survey course introducing students to the field of pragmatics. There are no prerequisites except for curiosity about how we communicate using words. Pragmatics is the study of how we use language to make and interpret meaning beyond the literal meaning inherent to the words we use. For instance, “You can swim” can mean that “you’re allowed to swim,” that “you have the ability to swim” or that “swimming is one way for you to get to some destination.” For any given utterance of this, we infer the intended meaning based on the meaning of the words, our common world knowledge, the context, and speaker and hearer intentions. An aim of pragmatics is to give an explicit, systemic account of this process.
 

The first 10 class meetings will introduce 9 representative areas of inquiry in pragmatics research. Students will gain an understanding of fundamental linguistics terminology and acquire the skills to make explicit analyses of language in use. Although the examples discussed in the textbook are mostly from English, students will be encouraged to apply the concepts to their native language during class discussions. The 11th class meeting will review a real research paper in pragmatics chosen based on the class members' interests.

Additionally, students will be required to write a paper about a pragmatics theme of their choice, using data from Japanese or some other language, of between 1000-2000 words. In the last 3 classes, students will present an outline of the research themes they have chosen to write about in their term papers.

This course addresses a range of issues related to the acquisition of a second language. It starts by examining the nature of the task by looking at how sound systems, words and word forms, sentence structure, and the meaning of phrases and sentences are learned. It then explores further topics such as language use by language learners (comprehension, discourse, sociolinguistic aspects), the role of the input in second language learning (exposure, instruction, correction), and the effect of the starting age on learning second languages.

This course introduces perspectives on language. It starts with very fundamental questions and assumptions about the nature of language itself and proceed by analyzing basic linguistic structures of the languages course participants know. The course aims to discover that the comparison of languages leads us to linguistic categories some consider universal (same categories in all languages no matter how different they appear to be on the surface), asking the questions: If all languages are more or less alike than why is it so hard to learn a foreign language?  This course considers perspectives from the fields of psychology or anthropology gives us clues, thereby looking at some of the findings the science of language owes to other sciences.

This course introduces the lexicographical approach implemented in language dictionaries as well as different types of relation and construction of meaning in lexicon. The course covers synonyms, homonyms, antonyms, hyponymy, hyperonymy, derivatives and compounds, and the phenomena of multiple meanings. It provides an opportunity to practice categorizing and organizing the uses of words in the form of mock dictionary entries.

This course analyzes language from diverse perspectives (biological, cognitive, social, and cultural) and discusses its fundamental questions, such as its evolution, variation, acquisition, and relationship with other semiotic systems. 

This course provides an introduction to the various fields within English linguistics, including theoretical, interdisciplinary, and applied branches, and helps students understand what types of linguistic phenomena are of interest and how such phenomena are observed and analyzed in each of the fields. Topics include phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax/grammar, semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis, neurolinguistics, first/second language acquisition, dialectology/sociolinguistics, cultural linguistics, corpus linguistics, natural language processing/artificial intelligence, and other related topics. 

In recent years, there has been growing interest in sign language along with increasing social awareness that sign language is a real language worthy of systematic study. This course is a general education survey course introduces students to the many different social and communicative aspects of signing found around the world in deaf and non-deaf communities. Even hearing communities such as aboriginal and monastic ones have found the need to communicate visually when, for whatever reason, speech cannot be used.

By the end of this course, students are expected to: Learning Goals:
1) Have acquired insight into a different visual world of communication.

2) Have increased awareness of changes in attitudes regarding disability, identity, and culture.

3) Have a better understanding of educational and social welfare practices affecting the deaf in Japan and around the world.

This course deals with syntactic change in the history of English (in comparison, in particular, with German and French). Phenomena to be discussed will include the loss of inflectional morphology, the loss of free word order, the change from OV to VO word order, the loss of verb movement and the development of do-support, and the shift from a general verb-second language to a residual verb-second language.