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Course Criteria
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3.00 Credits
North Americans on the whole are far more exposed to commercial advertising, arguably the most sophisticated propaganda in human history, than to the cruder versions we imbibe in church and school, or associate with Nazi Germany or Orwell's 1984. On this subject, we are jaded experts: hip to the "white noise" on TV, on thinternet, and in glossy magazines. Yet even with TiVo, we are unable to tune it out completely. The main purpose of this course is to apply the concepts and techniques of linguistic semantics to the analysis of advertising and the ideology which it both nurtures and reflects. What is the semiotic function of Ronald MacDonald Why did so many otherwise rational Americans once believe that the person most likely to blow up the world was Muammar (Who ) Khaddafy What are the propaganda consequences of the collapse of the Evil Empire Why are we fascinated by Brad Pitt and bored by Cesar (Who ) Chavez What is the role of propaganda in creating the cult of beauty Why are advertisements which make fun of themselves so effective Why is war propaganda almost always more effective than anti-war propaganda No prerequisites. Alternate years; next offered Spring 2010. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
Nearly all natural languages are spoken. Biological properties of the human ear, pharynx, larynx, tongue, and lung impose limits on the sounds of human languages, which can be studied from both a biological and an acoustic point of view. In this course you will be trained to produce and recognize (almost) all the sounds which human languages make use of, and to develop a systematic way of analyzing and recording them. Since sounds are perceived as well as produced, you will also be introduced to the acoustic analysis of speech, learning how acoustic signals of frequency, amplitude, and duration are translated into visible, quantifiable images. You will learn the art of decoding these spectrograms into sounds and words and sentences. The linguistics laboratory contains several different programs for practicing and listening to sounds from many of the world's languages. This course is recommended for students of foreign languages, drama, music and anyone who wants to become more aware of their (and other people's) pronunciation. No prerequisites. Every fall. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
Sociolinguistics is the study of the social language variation inevitable in all societies, be they closed and uniform or diverse and multicultural. Language and culture are so closely tied that it is nearly impossible to discuss language variation without also understanding its relation to culture. As humans, we judge each other constantly on the basis of the way we talk, we make sweeping generalizations about people's values and moral worth solely on the basis of the language they speak. Diversity in language often stands as a symbol of ethnic and social diversity. If someone criticizes our language we feel they are criticizing our inmost self. This course introduces students to the overwhelming amount of linguistic diversity in the United States and elsewhere, while at the same time making them aware of the cultural prejudices inherent in our attitude towards people who speak differently from us. The class involves analysis and discussion of the readings, setting the stage for exploration assignments, allowing students to do their own research on linguistic diversity. No prerequisites. Fall semester. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
This course deals with the formal properties of discourse organization above the word level. Using local English as our test case, we introduce and refine the conceptual apparatus of theoretical syntax: syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic categories, the ways they are coded in English, phrase structure rules and recursion, semantic and pragmatic motivations for formal structures, movement rules, anaphora, and dependence relations. Some properties of English are (probable) language universals. No prerequisite. Alternate years. Next offered Spring 2010. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
Languages are constantly changing. The English written by Chaucer 600 years ago is now very difficult to understand without annotation, not to mention anything written a few centuries before that. This course investigates the nature of language change, how to determine a language's history, its relationship to other languages and the search for common ancestors or "proto-languages." We will discuss changes at variouslinguistic levels: sound change, lexical change, syntactic change and changes in word meaning over time. Although much of the work done in this field involves Indo-European languages, we will also look at change in many other language families. This is a practical course, most of class time will be spent DOING historical linguistics, rather than talking about it. We will be looking at data sets from many different languages and trying to make sense of them. In the cases where we have examples of many related languages, we will try to reconstruct what the parent language must have looked like. Prerequisite: either Linguistics 100 (Introduction to Linguistics) or 104 (Sounds of Language). Every three years. Next offered Fall 2011. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
In 1870, the Linguistic Society of Paris decreed that all papers on the topic of the origin of speech were inadmissible. In recent years, speculations about the evolutions of language have become respectable once again, as attested by the number of international conferences on the topic, and journals devoted to it. Although we are only a little closer to a description of "proto-human" than we were back in 1870, it is now universallyrecognized that there are no primitive languages, and that neither the comparative method of historical linguistics nor internal reconstruction can allow us to reconstruct the earliest human languages (although they still allow us to make inferences about Proto-Indo-European and other ancient extinct languages). But there have been advances in our understanding of the neurological substrate for linguistic ability, communication in (some) other species, and in the application of the uniformitarian hypothesis: the processes we now observe in different kinds of language change are themselves capable of producing all the recognized "design features" ofhuman language out of earlier structures in which these features are lacking. Prerequisite: Linguistics 100 or 301. Every three years. Next offered Spring 2010. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
This course is the natural extension of the Sounds of Language course, as well as the prerequisite to the capstone course in the cognitive track. Students learn how to conduct linguistic research from the bottom up, from forming a hypothesis to constructing word and sentence lists for elicitation, or stimuli for recognition, to recording speakers, running tests, analyzing the data obtained, and writing up the final research paper. By the end of the semester, students should be familiar with all the equipment in the linguistics laboratory and what kinds of questions each is designed to explore, and to be able to conduct their own independent research. Prerequisite: Linguistics 104, Sounds of Language. Alternate years. Next offered Spring 2010. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
Although all humans are born with the capacity to learn the sounds of any language, part of learning our native language is learning to categorize sounds into groups specific to that language, thereby filtering out many of the actual phonetic distinctions and concentrating only on those that are important. Just as we, as English speakers, may have trouble hearing the difference between the voiced and voiceless click consonants in Zulu, so speakers of other languages may not hear the difference between the vowels in "beat" and "bit," because this smadistinction isn't important in their language. Phonology is the study of how different languages organize sounds into perceptual categories. In this class we will look at data from a wide variety of different languages, as well as from several dialects of English, including children's acquisition of a phonological system. Emphasis will be on practical skills in solving problem sets. Prerequisite: Linguistics 104, Sounds of Language. Alternate years. Next offered Spring 2009. (4 credits)
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3.00 Credits
Language loss is accelerating at alarming rates. In fact, linguists predict that only five percent of the six thousand languages currently spoken in the world are expected to survive into the 22nd century. In this course, we will examine the historical, political, and socio-economic factors behind the endangerment and/or marginalization of languages in every continent of the world. We will also concentrate on the globalization of English (and possibly other languages) which plays a primary role in language endangerment and marginalization. Additional topics include: linguistic diversity, language policy, multilingualism (both individual and national), global language conflict, and language revitalization. Students will have the opportunity to learn first-hand about these issues by interviewing speakers of an endangered and/or minority language. No prerequisites. Every three years. Offered Fall 2009. (4 credits)
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4.00 Credits
This course aims at understanding communicative strategies employed by Japanese speakers. Students of Japanese language often wonder what cultural assumptions and strategies lie behind the language they are studying. In language classrooms such issues are touched upon but never fully explained in the interest of time. This course offers in-depth explorations of the interrelationship between Japanese language and society. Students will be encouraged to reflect upon their own communicative strategies. They will also read about strategies used by American English speakers as a point of comparison. How is gender articulated in Japanese society Is the so-called feminine speech in Japanese real If the feminine speech is considered "powerless,"how do women in authoritative positions speak Problems in U.S.-Japan business and other negotiations are often reported in the popular press. How are they related to how people in each country communicate with one another Japanese people are supposed to be "polite." How, to whom, and in what context do they expresspoliteness Are their politeness strategies markedly different from those of other countries Students will have opportunities to explore issues such as these. No Japanese language ability required. Alternate years. (4 credits)
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