Courses

This course introduces students to a wide range of linguistic theories. Students read and discuss original works written from various perspectives and gain in the process a clearer appreciation for the range of views that exist concerning the nature of human language and its syntactic, semantic, phonological, and discourse properties.

An article based course providing an in-depth exploration of current issues in the linguistic subfields of Morphology and Syntax. The types of topics addressed include: wordhood, clitics, grammatical relations, voice, valence, transitivity, noun incorporation, control constructions, raising, reflexivity & reciprocalization, complementation, evidentiality, secondary predication, and iconicity & economy. Students apply the acquired knowledge in producing a major paper.

In this course, students transcribe, organize, and analyze language data and prepare a written description of phonological, morphosyntactic, or discourse features of the language. The course focuses on applying effective fieldwork methodologies.

This course introduces students to a methodology of tone analysis, incorporating the insights of current theoretical approaches. Students also learn to apply insights from the analysis of a tone system to developing practical orthographies.

This course focuses on the question of how speakers of a given language effectively accomplish their communicative goals through the strategic use and shaping of language in both written and oral discourse. Students learn to identify different discourse genres, to chart texts for analysis, to discern hierarchical units within the macrostructure of a text, and to describe features of cohesion and participant reference, as well as identifying strategies in language for establishing the relative prominence of various streams of information. Special attention is paid to the interaction between alternate syntactic forms and their varying pragmatic functions in context.

This course introduces the students to the rudiments of linguistic and sociolinguistic survey. The focus is on purpose-driven language survey design and appropriate subsequent reporting of the findings. Consideration is given to current issues in social science research such as the ethics of sampling, and statistical significance of sample populations.

This course introduces students to theories of second language and second culture acquisition. Students develop and evaluate self-directed strategies based on personal learning styles. Practical experience in the above topics is gained by working with a speaker of a non-Indo-European-language

Prepares linguists and literacy workers to guide speakers of an unwritten language to develop an orthography that will accurately represent the sound system of the language, be acceptable to the speakers of the language, and be easily learned for reading and writing the language. This includes consideration of both linguistic and sociolinguistic factors, and representation of non-segmental features such as tone. Although the focus is on alphabetic scripts, non-Roman scripts, including syllabic and logographic, are also considered.

An exploration of the language ecology of speech communities around the world. Students engage with both theory and practice related to topics such as multilingualism, language shift, language reclamation, language advocacy, and language policy. Students will conduct sociolinguistic research, communicate research findings, and make practical applications to the language-use goals of speech communities.