Linguistics

This course provides an introduction to contemporary approaches to the study of the varieties of the English language observed across nations, regions, social groups, and contexts. The two major goals of the course are to illustrate the concepts of sociolinguistics that are essential to studying the expansion and resulting diversity of English and to examine the social, cultural, and linguistic impact of English in countries where English is taught and used as a second or foreign language.

Phonetics deals with the sounds of the spoken languages of the world. This course addresses the following questions: In human speech, how are sounds produced and perceived? How can they best be described and represented? How can one assess them better or differently through using computers? The course also includes practice in the production of a variety of sounds from different types of languages. 

This course covers topics in phonetics, including but not limited to acoustic phonetics, articulatory phonetics and auditory phonetics. The course also introduces and analyzes segments and suprasegments of world languages with respect to theories of phonetics sciences. 

Course Prerequisite: Introduction to Linguistics I and II, or consent of the instructor. 

This course examines how speech sounds are organized and patterned typologically; how speech sounds are processed mentally; how we learn the sound systems of language and communicate with each other.

This course examines core methodologies and techniques in computational linguistics in order to develop the ability to conduct computational-oriented linguistic analysis. Each class is divided into two sessions: lecture and discussion, and in-class Lab session. Lab session give participants hands-on experience in performing computational linguistic tasks with Python programs. Assessment: participation and exercises (60%), term project (40%).