21 - 30 of 129 results for: LINGUIST

Are bilinguals merely the combination of two monolinguals? Do bilinguals think differently in each language? How do bilinguals manage the complexity of two languages in their minds and daily interactions? This course offers a theoretical exploration of bilingualism and second language acquisition through a psycholinguistic lens. Topics covered include heritage and second language acquisition, language comprehension and production, speech perception, language attrition, code-switching, and cognitive and neurolinguistic development. Through lecture discussions and hands-on analysis, students will gain a deeper understanding of the intricacies of bilingual language use and its psychological underpinnings. Prerequisites: Linguist 1, Linguist 105/205, Linguist 110, Linguist 121A/121B, Linguist 145/245

Human language is one of the most remarkable phenomena in nature. Unlike all other known forms of animal communication, language allows us to transmit virtually any kind of mental content: personal memories, ancient history, cultural traditions, imaginary worlds, complex plans, religious beliefs, mathematical proofs, moral norms, and explanations of ourselves and the universe we inhabit. The existence of language raises profound questions about the human mind and brain. What do we know when we know a language? How do we translate pressure waves in air into ideas, and vice versa? How can such a complex system be learned so quickly and universally by children? What's special about our brains that enables this to happen? What's the relationship of language to our broader capacities for thinking and social interaction? This course will introduce you to the ongoing scientific project to tackle these kinds of questions. You will both (1) become familiar with major psycholinguistic research questions and results, and (2) hone your scientific thinking about language and the human mind, developing skills necessary to identify both predictions made by psycholinguistic theories and experimental strategies for testing those predictions.

This course explores the social life of spoken language. Students learn to address the following big questions about language and society: Why do languages vary across different time periods, locations, and social groups? What do our opinions about the way other people speak tell us about society? How do our social identities and goals influence the way we speak? And how do we use language to alter our social relationships?

Many people have strong beliefs that there are right and wrong ways of speaking, good and bad versions of their language. These norms are reinforced explicitly in the education system, and implicitly in the ways that people talk about language or see it portrayed in media. Students will learn about the history, development, and linguistic structure of three language varieties that are sometimes characterized by non-linguists as "bad English": Singaporean English, Jamaican Creole, and African American Vernacular English. By critically examining public discourses about these language varieties and learning to identify their systematic patterns of grammatical structure, students will discover that popular ideas about "good" and "bad" English are rooted in the narratives that surround language, not linguistic fact.

This course explores the co-articulation of language, race, and ethnicity with a particular emphasis on race relations in US contexts. We will examine the varieties of English spoken by minoritized racial/ethnic groups in conjunction with theories from sociolinguistics, linguistic anthropology, and adjacent social sciences to problematize common notions surrounding race and language. No prior knowledge of linguistics is required for this course.

This course explores linguistic structure in the contexts of everyday social interaction. Through readings and hands-on data analysis, students will learn to address the following big questions: How are everyday social interactions structured, and why is this structure typically invisible to us? How do social goals, relationships, and identities influence the linguistic structure of interactions?

Connections between gender/sexuality and language use, from smallest (sound) to largest (discourse) units of linguistic structure. Survey of classic literature and emerging perspectives from minoritized scholars.

The study of phonetic aspects of sociolinguistic variation and the social significance of phonetic variation. Acoustic analysis of vowels, consonants, prosody, and voice quality. Hands-on work on collaborative research project. This course must be taken for a minimum of 3 units and a letter grade to be eligible for Ways credit. Prerequisite: 105, 110 or equivalent, or consent of instructor.

Principles of historical linguistics: how languages change over time and the methods used to reconstruct these developments. The course focuses on phonological change, with units also covering morphological change, syntactic change, and semantic change. It will introduce students to types of evidence used in reconstruction and models used to analyze and explain language change. We will cover language relationships and the methods of establishing familial groupings, and compare patterns due to familial descent to patterns associated with language contact and borrowing. Examples will be drawn from a variety of languages, both ancient and modern. Prerequisite: LINGUIST 1 (or equivalent)