Linguistics

This course focuses on the linguistic and psycholinguistic underpinnings of the bilingual mind/brain as a means of understanding the unique human capacity for language. The course begins with discussions on language acquisition before moving on to explore bilingual acquisition and what it means to "acquire" a new language. Investigation encompasses several different models of bilingualism. The course also covers code-switching, the cognitive effects of bilingualism, and multilingual education and language policy.

This course examines various aspects of Japanese language usage in relation to culture and society. It compares culture to language usage in different cultures and societies. Students explore what Japanese people living in this contemporary society are actually doing through their communicative practice. Whatever language we use, how we speak and write to others reveals many aspects of ourselves, such as what we are, how we see a situation we are in, and how we treat others. Assessment: attendance, participation, assignments, final report.

This course develops the tools and knowledge needed to investigate in a systematic way the different subsystems of language (dealing with sound, meaning, word, and sentence structure), and how these subsystems are subject to variation and change.

This course offers a discussion of recent developments in phonological theory. Each year, the course selects a topic of current interest in phonological literature. Topics covered in recent years include: OT versus rule-based theories of phonology, markedness theory, reduplication, derivational opacity, and first language acquisition and loanwords. The course introduces students to the current primary literature and provides training in how to construct and present analyses of phonological data.

This course provides an insight into the most important linguistic features of the individual language levels of German and explains the development of Germanic languages over the course of the language's history. In doing so, significant developments on the different linguistic fields (phonology, morphology, syntax) are examined and explanatory approaches for these change processes are discussed.

This survey of the world's languages covers how languages are classified into families and types as well as issues of linguistic diversity and endangered languages. The course involves regular practical work. The course satisfies the prerequisite for the advanced course, language typology, and also provides useful background for all courses in linguistics. Text: A. Lyovin, AN INTRODUCTION TO THE LANGUAGES OF THE WORLD.

In this course, students consider what happens when individuals and groups do not fit in with, or challenge, institutionalized notions of language. The course examines three main, overlapping themes. The first theme addresses the boundaries that are traditionally considered to exist between languages, examining the way such boundaries are challenged by the influences of digital technologies, the globalization of communicative practices, and contact between diverse groups. The second theme considers the impact of national boundaries on the representations of languages and their speakers, examining the effects of classifications such as "national", "regional", and "minority" languages, and considering the experiences of speakers of "transnational" languages. The final theme deals with the institutional boundaries that create a mismatch between the way language is used and the way it is expected to be used in certain contexts such as schools.

Analyzing social and cultural issues with computational text analysis has become a common research method in the age of ‘big (social) data'. Political scientists measure the quality of public debates in social networks or explore policy areas by analyzing the usage of vocabulary. Historians in the tradition of Foucault use software to examine the semantic changes in serial sources in order to identify historical watersheds, and literary scholars analyze the distribution of motifs in large numbers of texts in different literary epochs. In order to take advantage of the possibilities of the big data, programming skills are essential. Thus software development is becoming more and more an element of linguistics and digital humanities scholarship. This course introduces and discusses fundamental concepts and techniques related to programming in the field of linguistics and digital humanities. The course provides knowledge and practical experience to use programming (in Perl) as a powerful means of analyzing textual data in linguistics, the humanities and the arts. Assessment: homework, project.