Linguistics

The Celtic languages remain the media of communication to a greater or lesser extent in communities scattered on the western fringe of 21st-century Europe, in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Brittany. These are the survivors of a history traceable over two and a half thousand years encompassing, at one time, nearly the whole of western Europe and much of central and eastern Europe. The modern Celtic languages interact in various ways with the societies in which they are embedded, the official and unofficial institutions of those societies (government, legislation, industry, etc.), and with the wider cultures of the countries where they are used. This course introduces students to the study of the Celtic languages in these contexts and the sociolinguistics of the Celtic languages, and considers the ways in which they are endangered as languages of the lives and thoughts of the people who use them. Students also examine ways in which their existence and status can be strengthened and expanded, through language planning, looking also at the cases of Cornish in Cornwall and Manx in the Isle of Man, where, though technically dead languages, vigorous revival movements work to prove that news of their demise was premature.

This course introduces students to the interpreting industry of Japan, covering legal and court interpreting; news and broadcast interpreting; medical and hospital interpreting, and sign-language interpreting. The course also covers the concept and framework of community interpreting, analyzing the role of interpreters in the Japanese community through their own experience of living in Japan. 
 

The course provides the opportunity to research fields in Japan where community interpreting is still lacking and how a proper framework may be established to meet these societal needs. 

This course introduces the fundamentals of English syntactic ideas and theories through close readings and discussions of assigned passages in the textbook. It addresses the core theories of contemporary linguistics. 

The course examines the foundation, nature, applications, and development of language. Themes addressed include language and communication: language among systems of communication; animal communication; language traits; and writing; the cognitive bases of language: brain and language; language disorders; origin and evolution; and the relationship between thought and language; historical linguistic development: language before and after the 19th century as well as in the 20th century; and the evolution of grammar; universal grammar and classification of languages.

The course offers a theoretical and practical introduction to translation and translation studies. It discusses seminal theorists on the topic of translation including Jakobson, Benjamin, Schleiermacher, and Tymoczko. This course examines key translation concepts such as fidelity, loyalty, equivalence, and types of translation. 

This course is a general introduction to Psycholinguistics, the study of how humans acquire, comprehend, and produce language. The course explores the fundamental questions in the field such as, What does it mean to know a language? How does an individual access and use that knowledge when producing or understanding language? How did we come to use language as we do now? 

This course explores the theoretical and practical concepts of the varieties of the English language around the world. It discusses traits of these varieties of English such as vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar. Topics include: language, dialect, and accent; regulatory varieties and vernacular varieties; English as a native language, a second language, and a foreign language; dominant normative varieties-- American English and British English; other national varieties; vernacular varieties in the English-speaking world; English as a second language-- Africa and Asia; English as a foreign language for international communication; models of English for teaching foreigners.