1 - 10 of 12 results for: LINGUIST

This course introduces students to the basic skills of critical thinking and provides a venue to apply these skills to a controversial topic: the emergence of human language. We discuss the following questions: what is language? Do animals have it? How did humans begin to talk? How do children learn to speak? In discussing these questions, we cover the basics of the scientific method and critical thinking. Students practice how to read scientific articles, find their main claims, differentiate between factual and theoretical claims, assess the evidence supporting the factual claims, and critically evaluate the arguments. Students practice small scale data collection, hypothesis formation, and hypothesis testing as part of their final project. We discuss the problems that researchers face in each of these phases of research.

How do people use language to construct identities and achieve interactional goals? How is that language use represented, circulated, and discussed in the media? This course will explore the way that language operates in society with a particular focus on popular and new media. The media, as both a platform for the display and dissemination of linguistic creativity as well as a site for explicit commentary about language, is ripe for analysis of both language use and language attitudes. To do this, we'll examine specific contexts: how public figures, actors, and corporations use language in movies, television, and advertising, and how individuals use language in new media (e.g. YouTube) and on social media (e.g. Twitter). We'll discuss the function of linguistic variation in the construction, recognition, and circulation of social types and conventionalized notions about language.

Restricted to Linguistics Ph.D. students. May be repeated for credit.

Restricted to Linguistics Ph.D. students. May be repeated for credit. Student presentations of ongoing research plus professional development sessions.

Restricted to Linguistics Ph.D. students. May be repeated for credit. Meets weekly to support student writing projects