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1 - 10 of 136 results for: LINGUIST

LINGUIST 1: Introduction to Linguistics

This introductory-level course is targeted to students with no linguistics background. It is designed to provide an overview of methods, findings, and problems in eight main areas of linguistics: Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Historical Linguistics, and Sociolinguistics. Through lectures, in-class activities, and problem sets, you will come away with an overview of various linguistic phenomena, a sense of the diversity across languages, skills of linguistic analysis, an awareness of connections between these linguistics and applications of linguistics more broadly, and a basis for understanding the systematic, but complex nature of human language. While much of the course uses English to illuminate various points, you will be exposed to and learn to analyze languages other than English. By the end of the course, you should be able to explain similarities and differences of human languages, use basic linguistic terminology appropriately, apply the tools of linguistic analysis to problems and puzzles of linguistics, understand the questions that drive much research in linguistics, and explain how understanding linguistics is relevant for a variety of real-world phenomena.
Terms: Aut, Sum | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-SI

LINGUIST 21N: Linguistic Diversity and Universals: The Principles of Language Structure

The human capacity for language is able to support a staggering diversity of languages. But is anything possible in a human language, and is there anything that is common to all languages? Looking past the vast surface differences, linguists have discovered deep commonalities among the languages of the world as well as strict limits on the observed variation and on what a possible human language is. In this seminar, we will seek to uncover the building blocks of language and the laws that govern their interactions. Our goal will be to reach an understanding of the ways in which languages are systematically alike and different, as well as of the nature of language in general. We will investigate a variety of topics, including crosslinguistic differences and similarities with respect to word order, the grammatical structure of questions, and how languages mark subjects and objects. We will explore the structure of both sentences and words, identifying and studying their fundamental properties. In this pursuit, we will rely on data from a range of languages, such as English, Navajo, Zulu, and many others. This seminar will teach you how to view language as an object of scientific study, introducing you to central concepts and methods of linguistics (with a particular emphasis on syntax) along the way. It will give you the tools to describe and analyze even unfamiliar languages, and will teach you to construct explicit hypotheses about how language works and to test them empirically. There are no prerequisites for this course and no experience with linguistics will be assumed; the course is Socratically taught and there will be no textbook.
Last offered: Autumn 2017

LINGUIST 30N: Linguistic Meaning and the Law

We will investigate how inherent properties of language, such as ambiguity, vagueness and context-dependence, play into the meaning of a legal text, and how the meaning of a law can remain invariant while its range of application can change with the facts and with our discovery of what the facts are. Our focus will be on the perspective linguistic analysis brings to legal theory, addressing current controversies surrounding different conceptions of `textualism¿ and drawing on well-known examples of legal reasoning about language in cases of identity fraud, obstruction of justice and genocide.
Terms: Win | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: WAY-FR

LINGUIST 35: Minds and Machines (CS 24, PHIL 99, PSYCH 35, SYMSYS 1, SYMSYS 200)

(Formerly SYMSYS 100). An overview of the interdisciplinary study of cognition, information, communication, and language, with an emphasis on foundational issues: What are minds? What is computation? What are rationality and intelligence? Can we predict human behavior? Can computers be truly intelligent? How do people and technology interact, and how might they do so in the future? Lectures focus on how the methods of philosophy, mathematics, empirical research, and computational modeling are used to study minds and machines. Students must take this course before being approved to declare Symbolic Systems as a major. All students interested in studying Symbolic Systems are urged to take this course early in their student careers. The course material and presentation will be at an introductory level, without prerequisites. If you have any questions about the course, please email symsys1staff@gmail.com.
Terms: Aut, Win, Sum | Units: 4 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, WAY-FR

LINGUIST 47N: Languages, Dialects, Speakers

Preference to freshmen. Variation and change in languages from around the world; language and thought; variation in sound patterns and grammatical structures; linguistic and social structures of variation; how languages differ from one another and how issues in linguistics connect to other social and cultural issues; the systematic study of language.
Terms: Spr | Units: 3 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci
Instructors: Anttila, A. (PI)

LINGUIST 54N: Social Bias and Earwitness Memory

As individuals, we would like to believe that we are free from biases and that we are somehow immune to acting on the social biases that we have been socialized to since birth. We would like to believe that we can report experiences accurately, recalling events as they truly happened. But, memory is faulty and stereotypes and social biases are pervasive. And, at a level beneath our own control, these biases slip in and influence our memory of events. Eyewitness memory, and the inaccuracy and unreliability of eyewitnesses, is a perfect example of this. But, what about the things we hear? Speech carries a great deal of information; packets of co-varying cues we have been raised to recognize categorically, informing us about a talker's race, accent, emotion, and gender. We have, through our ears, information about events that occur. And, we have in our minds, stereotyped expectations about how various groups of people behave and what various groups of people might say. In this course, we more »
As individuals, we would like to believe that we are free from biases and that we are somehow immune to acting on the social biases that we have been socialized to since birth. We would like to believe that we can report experiences accurately, recalling events as they truly happened. But, memory is faulty and stereotypes and social biases are pervasive. And, at a level beneath our own control, these biases slip in and influence our memory of events. Eyewitness memory, and the inaccuracy and unreliability of eyewitnesses, is a perfect example of this. But, what about the things we hear? Speech carries a great deal of information; packets of co-varying cues we have been raised to recognize categorically, informing us about a talker's race, accent, emotion, and gender. We have, through our ears, information about events that occur. And, we have in our minds, stereotyped expectations about how various groups of people behave and what various groups of people might say. In this course, we will explore how these two types of information (e.g., the percept of what is actually heard vs. our stereotypes about who is likely to have said what) clash together and influence 'earwitness memory'. We will read and critique journal articles, blogs, and popular science articles, think about the reliability of memory for auditory events, and we will work together to develop three well-designed thought experiments that address questions at the heart of this issue. Along the way, we will learn a bit about the acoustics of speech, social variation in speech, speech perception and spoken word recognition, memory, and experimental design and analysis. Students in this course should be committed to reading the assignments, sharing their ideas about the readings (without concern for 'being right'), and think creatively about ways we can explore the idea of earwitness memory together. While this is a one-quarter course, my goal is to pursue our thought experiments collaboratively, with any interested students in subsequent quarters.
Last offered: Autumn 2022

LINGUIST 55N: Language in the City

Language communicates a great deal more than the meaning of our words. Our regional accents, for example, offer clues about where we grew up. And even though accents are usually labeled in geographical terms, their symbolic meanings extend far beyond mere coordinates on a map. When we hear a New Yorker, we not only wonder whether they¿re from Brooklyn, but also conjecture about the kind of person they are: they might prefer to walk down the street quickly over strolling, they might enjoy lively conversations where people talk over one another, and they might tend to express their opinions bluntly. This seminar explores the linguistic practices and social meaning of accents spoken in San Francisco. nClass participants will collectively choose a neighborhood in San Francisco for in-depth examination. Through a series of field trips (once every two or three weeks), students will document the varieties of English spoken by lifelong residents of the neighborhood. Field assignments will consist primarily of observation and audio-recorded interviews. Interviews will serve as data for linguistic analysis (transcription, quantitative analysis of a linguistic feature of interest) throughout the term. Linguistic patterns will be analyzed in relation to salient social issues in the community, which will be identified in both interview content and historical records.nUpon completing the seminar, students will have (a) learned how to treat language as an object of scientific analysis, (b) developed an understanding of the social ramifications of linguistic practice, (c) gained fieldwork skills in general and interviewing skills in particular, and (d) come to appreciate the diversity of experiences in an urban community near Stanford.
Last offered: Spring 2019

LINGUIST 55S: Language, Speech, and Social interaction

We use language to communicate every day, but we take its complex and dynamic nature for granted. This introduction to Linguistics will ask students to rethink their assumptions about language and communication as it approaches the field with a special focus on speech and social interactions. The course is grounded in the production and perception of speech sounds: its physiological basis, its acoustic signal form, and its cognitive process of perception. From this foundation, the course will move on to explore how the subtle variation and change of sounds is used to construct identity, foster relationships, and shape community. We will also investigate how exciting linguistic research sheds light on important contemporary social debates and on speech technology. Throughout the course, students will supplement readings, exercises, and discussion with lab sessions that will teach them how to manipulate and analyze speech sound recordings. Their accumulated theoretical and practical knowledge will find its expression in an intensive research project drawing on social media data. There is no prerequisite for this course.

LINGUIST 61S: Language Evolution and Change

Every human culture has a sophisticated, systematic means of communication which we call "language". Why? What makes languages the way they are, and what makes them keep changing over time? In this course, we will explore proposed explanations for language evolution and their connections to language change. In doing so, we will address a major roadblock in scientific inquiry: how do you study something you can't directly observe? Language evolution left no fossils behind, so how can different proposed explanations for it be evaluated? We will examine the argumentation behind different proposed explanations and the various methodologies that have been used to support them. Students will put to practice the knowledge and critical thinking skills gained from this course by developing and workshopping their own research project proposals. Students taking the course for 3 units will be expected to complete a project proposal and peer review in addition to the regular assignments.
Last offered: Summer 2018

LINGUIST 65: African American Vernacular English (AFRICAAM 21, CSRE 21, LINGUIST 265)

Vocabulary, pronunciation and grammatical features of the systematic and vibrant vernacular English [AAVE] spoken by African Americans in the US, its historical relation to British dialects, and to English creoles spoken on the S. Carolina Sea Islands (Gullah), in the Caribbean, and in W. Africa. The course will also explore the role of AAVE in the Living Arts of African Americans, as exemplified by writers, preachers, comedians and actors, singers, toasters and rappers, and its connections with challenges that AAVE speakers face in the classroom and courtroom. Service Learning Course (certified by Haas Center). UNITS: 3-5 units. Most students should register for 4 units. Students willing and able to tutor an AAVE speaking child in East Palo Alto and write an additional paper about the experience may register for 5 units, but should consult the instructor first. Students who, for exceptional reasons, need a reduced course load, may request a reduction to 3 units, but more of their course grade will come from exams, and they will be excluded from group participation in the popular AAVE Happenin at the end of the course.
Last offered: Spring 2019 | UG Reqs: GER:DB-SocSci, GER:EC-AmerCul, WAY-EDP
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