Anivellament

Anivellament (31369)

Master Program: Master in Theoretical and Applied Linguistics
Year: 2014-15
Quarter: first quarter
Number of ECTS credits: 5 ECTS
Number of student's hours: 125 hours
Type of course: Optional
Professor/s: Gemma Boleda
Language of instruction: English

 

1. Course presentation

This course seeks to give students with no Linguistics background a basic knowledge of the main concepts and a basic command of the methodology used in this field of study.

 

2. Objectives

  • to provide students with a basic understanding of how language works, and of Linguistics as a discipline;

  • to troubleshoot any problems students may have in the advanced courses they will be taking.

 

3. Syllabus

The actual content of the course will be tailored to the specific needs of the students taking the class. The topics we will cover are among the following:

  1. What is language? How do we approach its study?

  2. Phonetics.

  3. Phonology.

  4. Morphology.

  5. Syntax.

  6. Semantics.

  7. Pragmatics.

  8. Language and the brain.

  9. Language acquisition.

  10. Language and society.

  11. Language change.

 

4. Assessment

See Methods and Activities below for details.

  • 20%: questions about the readings.

  • 40%: homework.

  • 40%: final exam or essay, to be determined.

 

5. Methods and Activities

The course will be structured into nine weekly sessions, on Wednesdays starting at 14:30. The first session, about presentation and discussion of the actual content to be covered, will last for half an hour. The remaining eight sessions will last for one hour, and they will cover readings and homework. Since the course has a very reduced number of teaching hours, most of the work will be carried out by the students. The teaching sessions will be devoted to discussion and tutoring. Students are expected to:

  • Read the material for each class in advance and send 1-3 questions about it to the professor per e-mail, at the latest at 11:00 on the Wednesday of the relevant class. The class will be structured around the students' questions.

  • Do the homework and hand it in in class. If time permits, we will devote class time to discuss the most difficult exercises, and students will get individualized feedback through the professor's correction of their homework.

Students are expected to read one chapter per week, two if there is no homework. As for homework, it will consist of around five exercises from the course textbooks (see next section).

 

6. Basic References

The textbook of the course will be:

Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams (2011). An Introduction to Language.Thomson-Heinle, 9th edition. ISBN 1-4130-1773-8. Make sure to get the 9th edition.

 

Additional material will be drawn from:

Department of Linguistics, The Ohio State University (2011). Language Files: Materials for an Introduction to Language and Linguistics. Ohio University Press, 11th Edition. ISBN 0-8142-5179-X.

 

See further relevant references in the following link:

http://www.upf.edu/masterlinguistica/en/resources/llibresrecomanats.html