Linguistics Course Descriptions
- Psychology of Language Acquisition
See Psychology 296 for description.
Psychology 296 Description
- General Linguistics
Full course for one semester. Intended to give a broad introduction to linguistics. The course provides sufficient background in the various aspects of the discipline to allow students to pursue more specialized courses and to read independently in the field. The course employs readings and empirical problems in a wide range of the world’s languages. Topics introduced include the nature of language and the aims of linguistic description; historical linguistics; phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax; linguistic semantics; and selected issues in pragmatics, language variation and change, and socio- and psycho-linguistics. This course is open to first-year students with consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Anthropology 311.
Anthropology 311 Description
- Advanced Linguistics
Full course for one semester. An opportunity to pursue intensive readings in specialized topics in linguistics. The focus of the course shifts from analytic procedures and basic concepts developed in Anthropology 311 to individual research and theoretical problems in linguistics. The topic for 2005-06 will be language and space. May be repeated for credit with consent of the instructor. The topic for fall 2006 will be the phonetics, phonology, and pragmatics of prosody. Prerequisite: Anthropology 311 or Linguistics 311 or equivalent. Conference-seminar. Cross-listed as Anthropology 312.
Anthropology 312 Description
- Language in Society
Full course for one semester. The course will introduce the study of language, both spoken and written, as a central element in the construction of social life. On the one hand, society occasions and constrains language; on the other, linguistic behavior creatively affects social relationships and the contexts of social action. The class will use both ethnographic materials and modest field investigations of its own to explore this dual relationship. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311, either previously or concurrently, or consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Anthropology 313.
Anthropology 313 Description
Full course for one semester. Although no two utterances sound exactly the same, speakers of a language overlook distinctions to which mechanical recording devices are sensitive, and they “hear” contrasts that are objectively not there. This course examines the nature of the complex links between abstract language-specific perceptual worlds and the real world of actual sounds in light of the major empirical approaches and theoretical currents in the study of linguistic sound systems. It will consider the relations between the articulatory gestures of language and other levels of linguistics description, notably morphology and syntax, and will also explore different models for formulating phonological rules. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2006-07.
- Introductory Syntax
Full course for one semester. The goal of syntax is to characterize the (largely unconscious) knowledge that enables speakers of a language to combine words into larger units such as phrases and sentences, and to ‘parse’ (i.e., assign a structural representation to) the phrases and sentences which they read and hear. This course—accessible to students with no previous training in linguistics—will introduce increasingly explicit grammar fragments of English. The goal is to present a range of phenomena of concern to syntax, and to explore formal devices that have been proposed to account for such phenomena. The course will consider such topics as argument structure and grammatical relations, constituent structure, subcategorization and selectional restrictions, idioms, movement and locality, case assignment, empty categories, and the interpretation of pronouns. The course also introduces central concepts and notation from contemporary theoretical syntax, focusing on the Principles and Parameters framework developed by Noam Chomsky and others. Conference.
- Advanced Topics in Syntax
Full course for one semester. This course gives students the opportunity to build on concepts and methodologies learned in introductory syntax by exploring current research problems in formal syntax. Readings for the course include influential papers from the history of generative grammar, as well as more recent contributions to the field. This course also builds on the topics discussed in Morphosyntactic Typology by considering data from a wide variety of languages, and addressing the issue of how formal syntactic theories handle cross-linguistic variation. Topics covered may include word order variation, constraints on phrase structure and movement, functional categories, and the theory of anaphora. Prerequisite: Linguistics 323 or equivalent, or consent of the instructor. Linguistics 328 is recommended. Conference.
Full course for one semester. Within linguistics, the analysis of discourse includes the study of linguistic units larger than the sentence and extends, more generally, to the study of stretches of speech (as well as written language) in the context of their use. This course will introduce a linguistic approach to discourse, touching topics possibly familiar from other disciplines: the nature of text, the determinants of style, the variety of linguistic genres, both written and spoken, and literacy and orality, including conversation and gesture. The class will use empirical materials from a variety of languages and cultural traditions to fuel this exploration. Along the way, we will consider some well-known conundrums surrounding such notions as meaning, reference, topic, coherence, and context. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2006-07.
- Morphosyntactic Typology
Full course for one semester. The course will develop the notion of linguistic typology and explore proposed universals of language, based on the comparative study of the morphology and syntax of the languages of the world. It will consider such topics as parts of speech, word order, case marking, grammatical relations cross-linguistically, passive and its friends, causatives, relative clauses, and configurationality—all with reference to both the familiar languages of Europe and less familiar languages of the Americas, Africa, Asia, Australia, and Oceania. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311, Linguistics 323 or consent of the instructor. Conference.
Full course for one semester. This course is an introduction to the study of the internal structure of words, providing an overview of contemporary morphological theory and analysis. Topics will include a survey of word formation processes (such as affixation, reduplication, and stem changes); the interface between word structure and other domains of organization in the grammar, such as sound structure (phonology) and sentence structure (syntax); and the reality of morphological categories such as "morpheme." Prerequisite: Linguistics/Anthropology 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2006-07.
- Dialects of English
Full course for one semester. This course is an introduction to dialectology (the study of regional variation in language), with an emphasis on the survey and analysis of the varieties of English currently spoken in the world. Students will acquire a practical knowledge of major lexical and structural differences among dialects of English, and will gain hands-on experience in the planning, implementation, and analysis of a dialect survey. Forms of English to be discussed include varieties of American English (Boston, New York, Southern, "Valley Girl") and British English (BBC, Liverpool, Scottish), as well as Indian English, Australian English, Singaporean English, and other colonial dialects. Other topics include Yiddish English, English-based pidgins and Creoles, and the influence of gender on language variation. Most of the dialects will be illustrated in the classroom either by native speakers or by audio-visual material, including video clips and songs. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference.
- Language and Politics
Full course for one semester. This course examines some of the core issues of contemporary sociopolitical theory from a semiotic- and linguistic-anthropological perspective. We address questions such as: To what degree is power a semiotic phenomenon? In what sense are “nations” and other political communities linguistically constructed? How might states be legitimated or authorized by particular discursive forms? Is a common language necessary (or sufficient) for forming a cohesive political community? What role do the institutions of linguistic standardization play in modern statehood? What are the semiotic and linguistic mechanisms through which novel political structures are instituted? How does political rhetoric, or propaganda, “work”? Readings will include classic statements on the nature of political power—in which language often plays an essential, if implicit and routinely unnoticed, theoretical role—as well as contemporary work, both theoretical and ethnographic, on the politics of language and the language of politics. Prerequisites Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Anthropology 334.
Anthropology 334 Description
- Linguistic Field Methods
Full course for one semester. Through the empirical study of a non-European language, using native speaking informants, the course will explore the aims and techniques of linguistic fieldwork. Students will be expected to produce fragments of linguistic description based on individual and conjoint elicitation. Prerequisites: two courses in linguistics or consent of the instructor. Conference with laboratory sessions.
- Language Acquisition
Full course for one semester. A central goal of linguistic theory is to explain how children learn a first language despite significant structural and typological differences between different possible languages. The course explores patterns in the acquisition of linguistic structure, concentrating on problems posed by cross-linguistic variation. The course devotes special attention to how children acquire spatial language in comparative perspective. The course also considers the influence on acquisition of the sociocultural matrix in which language use emerges. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference-seminar. Not offered 2006-07.
Full course for one semester. The course will introduce the systematic study of meaning in language, ranging from problems in the semantic structure of lexical systems, and syntactic and morphological contributions to sentence meaning, to competing theories of truth-conditional semantics, situational semantics, and putative universal semantic primitives for integrated linguistic description. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference-seminar. Not offered 2006-07.
- Historical Linguistics
Full course for one semester. This course will introduce the classical comparative method for identifying and comparing related languages. It will consider sound change, grammatical and semantic change, and the diffusion of linguistic features. It will consider further perspectives on language change, including structuralist (-functionalist) views, generative and variationist perspectives, and notions of lexical diffusion. Prerequisite: a previous course in linguistics or consent of the instructor. Conference. Not offered 2006-07.
- Languages of the Americas
Full course for one semester. The study of the language families of the Americas has been a central focus of both linguists and anthropologists. The diversity of the languages, their exotic nature compared to Indo-European, and the richness of materials available makes especially rewarding intense study of particular groups of languages. This course will concentrate, in any given year, on one such family. Beginning with typological considerations that locate the languages of the family within wider parameters of linguistic description, the course will include detailed syntactic treatment of at least one member of the family. We shall try to evaluate competing descriptive mechanisms in light of the structure, both syntactic and semantic, of the languages in question. May be repeated for credit with consent of the instructor. Prerequisite: Anthropology/Linguistics 311 or consent of the instructor. Conference-seminar. Cross-listed as Anthropology 348. Not offered 2006-07.
Anthropology 348 Description
Full course for one semester. Speech is normally accompanied by movements and attitudes of the body that seem transparently to relate to aspects of the speech itself: its rhythm, its construction, and/or its meaning. The course will critically examine research on gesticulation to consider two general sets of questions, one linguistic and the other ethnographic. First, are the cognitive processes that produce spoken language and those that produce gesture related? Is the semiotic structure of gesture language-like or distinct? In general, is gesture part of language or something apart? Second, does gesture present or presuppose knowledge of the world and the surroundings in a way parallel to or distinct from that characteristic of spoken language and other communicative modalities? How does it enter into communicative action? The course will move from typologies of gesture, and proposals about cognitive mechanisms underlying gesticulation, through a variety of descriptive studies, to more detailed examination of different kinds of gestures (their origins and nature), and finally to interactive studies in which the interpretability of gestures is the central issue. The course will require original research by participants. Prerequisite: Linguistics 311, Anthropology 211, or consent of the instructor. Conference. Cross-listed as Anthropology 373. Not offered 2006-07.
Anthropology 373 Description
See Psychology 393 for description.
Psychology 393 Description
See Anthropology 430 for description.
Anthropology 430 Description
Full course for one year.
- Independent Reading
One-half or full course for one semester. Open only to upper-class
students with special permission.
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