This course takes a sociolinguistic approach to the study of bilingualism, with specific focus on the social factors which give rise to and constrain bilingualism, and the linguistic consequences of language contact. Topics include: societal bilingualism and diglossia; linguistic minorities in law and education; language maintenance and shift; and language mixture. Special emphasis is placed […]
This course deals with the interaction of spoken language and writing structure. Topics such as the origin and development of alphabetic writing in the ancient Near East and its later development in Greek and Roman cultures will be studied. A close look at various modern orthographies will also be undertaken, including Cyrillic, Arabic and Hebrew […]
This course provides a survey of theoretical and methodological issues in the study of language variation and change, using the framework of variationist sociolinguistics. Topics include: the sociolinguistic variable; variable rules; phonetic and phonological variation; grammatical variation; language-internal constraints on variation; style; social class and social networks; speech communities; sex/gender; ethnicity; language change; and language […]
CROSSLISTED COURSES: GL EN 3606 & GL LIN 3606 This course provides an introduction to second language acquisition. Issues discussed include linguistic, biological, cognitive, socio-psychological, and socio-educational aspects of second language acquisition. A variety of theoretical models are also considered. COURSE CREDIT EXCLUSIONS: GL/EN/LIN 3606 3.0. FORMAT: One 3-hour session weekly. PREREQUISITES: AP/LING 1000 6.0 […]
This section of the course approaches the psychology of language from the perspective of linguistics. After a brief introduction to language structure, the main focus of the course will deal with issues concerning the kinds of representations and processes used to produce and comprehend speech; that is, how are words and grammatical structure stored and […]
This course provides an introduction to children's acquisition of linguistic knowledge, including lexical, morphological, phonological, syntactic, and pragmatic development, and familiarizes students with fundamental issues in current theoretical models of language acquisition. In addition, children's use of processing strategies for comprehension and production and the roles of cognitive and social development will be examined. COURSE […]
CROSSLISTED COURSES: GL EN 4608 & GL LIN 4608 This course provides an introduction to discourse analysis, that is, the analysis of spoken and written texts in context. Central issues examined include: the relation between linguistic form and function; the relation between text and context; and the question of 'textuality' (i.e. how a randomly-ordered set […]
This course is an introduction to topics in formal semantics. The emphasis is on providing students with an understanding of a wide range of semantic phenomena by adopting a truth-conditional account of meaning using a limited formal apparatus. Topics covered include propositional and first order logic, modality and possible worlds, definite and indefinite descriptions, event […]
This course focuses on core aspects of syntactic theory from a Minimalist perspective. Concepts covered in AP/LING 2140 are assumed throughout. Topics discussed include argument structure, VP shells, properties of functional categories, Case theory, head and XP movement, and DP structure. FORMAT: Two 90-minute sessions weekly. PREREQUISITES: AP/LING 2130 3.0 and(/or for CogSci students) AP/LING […]
This course builds on the skills acquired in AP/LING 2120 3.0. Students will continue with problem sets from a variety of languages, while being introduced to key issues in current phonological theory. FORMAT: Two 90-minute sessions weekly. PREREQUISITES: AP/LING 2110 3.0 and AP/LING 2120 3.0 with a grade of C or better, or permission of […]