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Course Criteria
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4.00 Credits
Examines the role of language in communities in the United States, specifically within African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American populations. Explores the relationship of language to culture, race, and ethnicity. In particular, looks for similarities and differences across these communities and considers the role that language experiences play in current models of race and ethnicity.
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4.00 Credits
Examines the place of linguistics within cognitive science from multiple perspectives. Foundational questions for a science of linguistics are addressed both from within linguistics and from philosophy and psychology. Issues include the nature of the evidence for constructing grammars, the interpretation of grammatical rules as cognitive or neural operations, the significance of neo-behaviorist approaches to language and computational modeling for a cognitive theory of language, the connection between linguistics theory and genetics, and the importance of sociocultural and historical variation for understanding the nature of language. Students are expected to engage in debate over these issues, bringing to the table their own backgrounds in one of the relevant disciplines, as well as what they learn from the assigned readings. Guest speakers with complementary expertise join the primary instructor for several of the lectures.
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4.00 Credits
We easily recognize printed and spoken words, understand novel and complex sentences, and produce fluent speech thousands of times each day. It is also remarkable that children seem to learn the sounds and structures of their native languages with little effort. Psycholinguistics aims to understand the mental processes that underlie both the representation and acquisition of language. Topics covered include language acquisition, speech perception, lexical representation and access, sentence production, and the relationship between phonology and orthography.
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4.00 Credits
The languages of the world are dying off at an alarming rate. We attempt to answer the following questions during the semester: Why do languages die off? If a language dies, does a culture die with it? How is the structure of a language (phonology, morphology, syntax) affected by language death? Why should we care about language endangerment, and is there anything we can do about it? Each student "adopts" an endangered language and looks into it extensively during the course of the semester.
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4.00 Credits
Considers primary source material on the mindbody problem and on linguistic criteria for intelligence, starting with Galileo and Descartes and continuing up to the present day. Examines mechanical analogies of mind developed since 1500. Readings from Galileo, Descartes, Voltaire, Huxley, Darwin, Arnauld, Turing, Kuhn, and Penfield. Focuses on Chomsky's Cartesian linguistics and the claim that current ideas concerning mind, language, and intelligence parallel closely those of the Cartesians of the 17th century.
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4.00 Credits
We examine the possibility that in the evolution of human and animal brains, no selectional pressure existed for any brain to evolve to understand its own principles of operation. Brain tissues, and the functional capacities correlated with them, evolved to increase perceptual, cognitive, and language capacities to aid in eluding predators, capturing prey, mate selection, nest building, infant rearing-all novel evolved complexity-yielding survival advantages. We argue that no survival advantage correlates with the brain's ability to introspect and understand its own operation. We examine novel "graphically orientated" computer models of self-replicating machines called "cellular automata" by Wolfram (A New Kind of Science) and Kurzweil, which define "complexity" that correlates with languages, cognition, and perception. We study Darwin's idea of "monstrosities" in relation to human evolution from earlier primates. No hard math is required. Lectures use computer-generated graphics, sound, and animation.
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4.00 Credits
Focuses on the acquisition of sound systems by firstand second-language learners. In some ways, these tasks are very similar, but they differ in other crucial aspects. We discuss scientific data from both firstand second-language acquisition of sound systems to understand how humans learn language both in infancy and adulthood. Presupposes an introduction to phonetics, phonology, and/or psycholinguistics.
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4.00 Credits
Examines the building blocks of words and sentences: the atomic units of word structure, their hierarchical and linear arrangement, and their phonological realization(s). Provides an introduction to fundamental issues in morphology, including allomorphy, morpheme order, paradigm structure, blocking, and cyclicity. The field of morphology currently embraces much of what goes on in linguistics as a whole; syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics, and variation all play an essential role, and their interactions are highlighted here.
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4.00 Credits
An introductory overview of the grammar of English. No prior knowledge of linguistics is assumed. We survey the major areas of English grammar, including the following: parts of speech (verb, noun, adjective, preposition, adverb), participles, auxiliary verbs, count and noncount nouns, definite and indefinite articles, subjects, objects, predicates, types of clauses (declarative, interrogative, exclamative, imperative), passive versus active verbs, negation, and relative clauses. The course is of interest to students of English literature, English grammar, linguistics, computer science, philosophy, and psychology. Also useful to people thinking of going into language teaching and those interested in improving their writing through greater attention to English grammar. Note: This is not an English as a Second Language (ESL) course. Students are expected to be native speakers of English or to have a very high level of proficiency in English.
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4.00 Credits
Traces the origin and development of English words. Discusses ways in which new words are created. Introduces concepts of phonological and semantic change, which students apply in identifying cognates linking English with other languages, in particular, but not limited to, Latin and Greek.
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