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Courses

A summary of each course to help with your selection.

Academic Year

Programs

Course ID

Course ID	Course
LIN 570	LIN 570 Language & Culture Acquisition Course Credits: 3 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.
LIN 571	LIN 571 Training Across Cultures Course Credits: 3 This course provides linguists, translators and literacy trainers with principles of adult learning to increase their knowledge, skills and attitudes as effective trainers of adults in cross-cultural settings. Students will interact with literature in adult education; describe how these principles might apply cross-culturally; practice teaching using these methods; then analyze and compare approaches used in other cultures with practical application to training across cultures. While the focus is for training linguists, the principles can be applied to training adults in a wide variety of training situations.
LIN 572	LIN 572 Orthography Course Credits: 3 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
LIN 575	LIN 575 Scripture Use Course Credits: 3 This course focuses on literature use as the goal of a language development project. The course is designed to create an early awareness of the interrelated parameters of literature use, its timing in language development planning, and the logistics of promotion and distribution. Topics covered include: culture variation and cross-cultural communication, the role of religion in culture, literacy strategies, promotion and distribution methods and strategies, and the role of non-print media. A few workshop sessions may be planned upon request for those already involved in a language program. Participants with sufficient field data and/or experience may work on their own data/projects for the class assignments, in consultation with the instructor.
LIN 576	LIN 576 Acoustic Phonetics Course Credits: 3 This course introduces students to fundamental principles of acoustics that are relevant to the study of human speech sounds. Students gain a basic understanding of properties of speech sound waves and learn to investigate these properties instrumentally using acoustic analysis software. Students gain extensive practice interpreting acoustic displays such as waveform graphs, fundamental frequency graphs, and spectrograms. A major focus of the course is the effective use of these displays as an aid to correctly transcribing speech sounds and understanding their phonetic properties in the context of descriptive phonetic and/or phonological fieldwork. Significant attention is also given to the complex interrelationships among acoustic, articulatory, and perceptual correlates of speech sounds.
LIN 577	LIN 577 Language Ecology: Sociolinguistics Course Credits: 3 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.
LIN 580	LIN 580 Field Methods: Data Management & Analysis Course Credits: 3 Practical methodology for managing, analyzing and describing language data. Working with a native speaker of a non-Indo-European language, students gain experience in the ethics of fieldwork, techniques of data collection and recording, analysis using the scientific method and the use of linguistic software.
LIN 581	LIN 581 Anthropological Ling: Ethnography Course Credits: 3 This course introduces crucial concepts in anthropology and ethnography to linguists. It focuses on cross-cultural communication with an emphasis on participant observation as an effective methodology for such research. Students collect and analyze data related to topics such as oral traditions, kinship, and social structure. They are introduced to various tools for ethno-semantic analysis, including analysis of cultural themes and worldview, semantic domain analysis, and taxonomic analysis.
LIN 582	LIN 582 Issues in Community Literacy Course Credits: 3 The issues in community literacy work that are covered in this course include various program issues such as introducing literacy in an oral community, motivation for literacy, capacity-building and sustainability, training of personnel and evaluation of the program, and using participatory approaches in all aspects of the program.

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