Linguistics

This is the second half of the course "Spanish of the Americas" (ESPANYOL D'AMERICA) which explores the linguistic varieties of Spanish language in Latin America and the United States. It examines dialectal divisions; sociolinguistic aspects of communication; influence from other languages in the Americas; and Spanish in the United States.

This course is part of the Laurea Magistrale program. The course is intended for advanced level students with adequate preparation. Enrollment is by consent of the instructor. The course offers an overview of psycholinguistic research from the second half of the twentieth century to the present. Special attention is placed on cognitive processes involved in language comprehension and production. The first part of the course deals with theoretical issues from a psycholinguistic point of view (i.e. development and origin of language, research methods, biological bases of language, and the system of language processing) and the study of language from the point of view of cognitive science. The second part of the course addresses issues related to research on language from an interdisciplinary perspective and the study of language as interactional practice (i.e. pragmatic and communicative aspects of language and language as joint activity). Required reading includes PSICOLOGIA DEL LINGUAGGIO by C. Cacciari, USING LANGUAGE by H.H. Clark. Exchange students who are more comfortable studying in English may substitute the Cacciari text with PSYCHOLINGUISTICS: INTRODUCTION AND APPLICATIONS by L. Menn. Assessment is based on a written exam (essay format) on course materials, readings and class discussions. Students may also be asked to elaborate on a possible experiment connected to one of the topics of the course.

This course examines the study of language meaning and looks at meaning of natural languages through a scientific lens.

This course introduces students to a number of major similarities and differences between English, Germanic languages, Romance languages, Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Japanese and other languages of interest. Emphasis is on the basic grammatical characteristics of these languages, the general principles that determine their common characteristics, and the parameters that give rise to linguistic variations. The course explores the common properties and systematic syntactic variation of human languages under the Principles & Parameters model (P&P) of the generative syntax.

This course examines English as a historical, sociocultural, ideological and personal reality for Hong Kong speakers. It covers the legitimacy of Hong Kong English (HKE) as a variety in its own right and its sociolinguistic backing; the attempts at drawing up a phonology and a morphosyntax of HKE as well as the complications involved; the current standing of HKE in comparison with the ‘inner-circle’/‘standard’ varieties (British and American English) and other varieties (e.g., other Asian Englishes); and the values of HKE as an ideological concept, a fiction, and/or as protean yet homely, lay experience.

This introductory seminar gives a survey of historical change in phonology, morphology/syntax, and the lexicon across the Old, Middle, and (Early/Late) Modern English periods to the present day as well as of current geographical and socio-functional variation in the English language. It thus emphasizes the close relationship between language change and variation. It introduces the concept of the sociolinguistic situation with its various parameters and presents language change and variation as complex processes determined by the interaction of language-internal forces and extralinguistic factors.