Linguistics

This course offers an introduction to the field of linguistics, the systematic study of language. The study of linguistics reflects a combination of reasoning found in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Students review key concepts, the analysis of human language properties, and empirical possibilities and impossibilities of natural language. The course examines a range of topics which include the definition of language, how language works, shared properties of language, how language is learned, outside influences on language, and language variation and change. This course consists of lectures, discussions, student presentations, and projects.

Using contemporary texts, this course explores recent issues in philosophy of language. Topics include context and indexicality, indefinites and definites, quantifiers, modality and tense, or the relationships among singular propositions, singular thoughts, and singular terms. 

The course introduces students to the foundational concepts in the study of language from the perspective of cognitive science. It explores questions that are still a matter of debate in the field, critically evaluating both evidence and arguments. Students develop a deeper understanding of how language works, some of the principles governing the complex interactions between language and other cognitive dimensions (such as attention, perception, and thought), and a basic understanding of how language functions in the brain.

This course establishes the accessibility and practical usefulness of linguistics in a variety of fields. Formal instruction is integrated with hands-on activities and theoretical insights are systematically correlated with applied work. The course examines key linguistic concepts, grammatical categories, and methodological procedures.

This course provides fundamental knowledge of the issues, insights and methods of psycholinguistics. It also trains basic methods for data collection, data processing, statistical analysis, academic argumentation and presentation. The course includes various cognitive models which form a bridge between language as a communicative phenomenon and language as part of human biology. The course provides insight into and experience of using basic tools connected to the planning, implementation, and statistical analysis of a scientific experiment. The course also provides insight into some of the psychological and neurobiological processes which are the foundation of language. Students also acquire skills in quantitative research which can be used in independent work. The course is closely linked to analytical courses in phonetics/phonology, grammar, semantics and pragmatics, and to courses in conversation analysis, language development, and sociolinguistics.

This course offers an introduction of corpus linguistics for graduate students, including the necessary tools, techniques, and analysis methodologies for doing corpus-based studies and corpus annotation projects. Existing major corpora are scrutinized for a better understanding of their linguistic uses. The course enables students to make, annotate and search corpora, as well as to perform a quantitative analysis of some linguistic phenomenon. Students will also gain hands-on experience in these areas by working on a specific topic of their own interest. 

The six-week summer lab research program at National Taiwan University places students in various science, engineering and social science research labs and/or projects under the supervision of faculty. Students spend approximately 30 hours per week in lab activities.