Courses offered in 2020-2021

Courses ending with suffix "A" or "Q" :Fall term 2020 (from September until December)

Courses ending with suffix "B": Winter term 2021 (from January until April)

Course ending with suffix "L": Summer term 2021 (from May until August)

ALL COURSES ARE OFFERED ONLINE THROUGH THE OWL WEBSITE.

FALL TERM 2020

LINGUIST*9500Q/**9501Q - GRADUATE RESEARCH SEMINAR - Dr. Jacques Lamarche
Start Date: September 11, 2020
Scheduled time: Fridays 9:30am-12:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

 *LINGUIST9500Q: Course number reserved for 2nd year MA students only
**LINGUIST9501Q:Course Number reserved for 1st year MA students only

As part of your training in linguistics, you will develop valuable transferrable skills that can be effectively applied in a wide range of job settings. This course aims to help students identify and strengthen their marketable skills and learn to present themselves effectively to prospective employers both within and outside of academia. These skills include time management, oral communication, grant writing, teaching, leadership, research, project management, editing, interpersonal skills, and an appreciation of ethical and civic responsibility.

LINGUIST9600A/4248A- Generative Syntax- Dr. Michiya Kawai
Start Date: September 9, 2020
Scheduled time: Wednesdays 9:30am-12:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

Critical analysis of the development of transformational generative grammar from Chomsky’s (1957) approach to the present theoretical framework (Minimalism).

The course will be conducted through lectures and classroom discussions based upon the reading materials, students’ individual research, videos and other materials. 

Students are expected to actively participate in discussion and conduct their own research.   

LINGUIST9619A- Language variation- Dr. David Heap
Start Date: September 8, 2020
Scheduled time: Tuesdays 9:30am-12:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

This course offers students the opportunity to explore a range of scholarship in the theory, methodology and findings of sociolinguistic research on language variation. Through a four-phase research project (annotated bibliography, abstract, in-class presentation, final paper), students will carry out an empirical analysis of a set of language data as part of their course project, or do a critical survey of the literature to argue a position on a given sociolinguistic topic. Specific topics of particular interest to students will be chosen in consultation with the instructor (specific weightings of assignments will be discussed at the first class meeting). The language of instruction will be English but students have the option of submitting written work in English, French or Spanish. Students in French Studies graduate programs are required to submit all written work in French.

LINGUIST9709A/SP9720A- Second Language Speech Learning in Context- Dr. Yasaman Rafat
Start Date: September 9, 2020
Time and Location: Wednesdays 1:30-4:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

In this course, we will be examining a variety of themes related to the acquisition of L2 phonetics and phonology. We will discuss theories and models of L2 speech reading as well as empirical studies on L2 speech learning of a number of languages including English, Spanish, Italian, German, Estonian, Arabic, Farsi, & Japanese. Experimental paradigms most often used in laboratory research will be presented.

LINGUIST9237A/ANTHRO3237A - Field Techniques in linguistics- Dr. Tania Granadillo
Start Date: September 9, 2020
Time and Location: Wednesdays 2:30-4:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

The purpose of this course is to introduce students to Linguistic Fieldwork. As such, this course will lead you into the field to seek native speaker consultants, to collect, transcribe and analyze linguistic data of a given language and to present that data in such a way that it is useful to others. We will be working with a language unfamiliar to the students.  The 1-hour class will be devoted to lecture and going over data and the 2-hour class to data gathering and elicitation with a language consultant. We will be working with a variety of digital tools and students must be prepared to spend ample time familiarizing themselves with these tools. 

WINTER 2021

LINGUIST9703B- Bilingualism, Language Change and Relearning- Dr. Yasaman Rafat
Start Date: TBA
Scheduled time: Wednesdays 1:30-4:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

This course aims to study phonetic and phonological change/attrition and relearning/reactivation in bilingual speakers. We will explore bilingual language change from both a synchronic and diachronic point of view. We will read and discuss empirical studies on important phenomenon in bilingual communities including heritage speakers around the world.

LINGUIST9621B/4247B- Phonology- Dr. Jeff Tennant
Start Date: TBA
Scheduled time: Wednesdays 9:30am-12:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

The course addresses the interface between phonetics and phonology by focusing on the study of aspects of sound structure using recorded speech. While some aspects of segmental phonology will be examined (e.g. formant measurements for analyzing vowel systems, voice onset time (VOT) for analyzing consonant inventories), a prominent place will be given to prosodic phonology, particularly rhythm and intonation patterns. In addition to a variety of online learning activities, students will complete a number of steps in a research project: literature review, data analysis, abstract, presentation (recorded screencast posted online), and final paper.

Courses offered in other Departments:

To take a course outside the program, please contact Chrisanthi Ballas to request a form.

ANTHRO9215B- Discourse and Society- Dr. Karen Pennesi
Start Date: TBA
Scheduled time: Mondays 1:30-4:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

The goal of this course is two-fold: 1) to give students hands-on experience in analyzing discourse, broadly defined as communicative actions involving spoken or written language; and 2) to examine the micro/macro relationship between discourse patterns, ethnography, and larger sociopolitical contexts. Students will explore how discourse influences and is shaped by understandings of the world, the structures of language, social relations, prior discourses, and various speaker purposes. We will be asking how particular discourse patterns help speakers interpret their daily experiences and negotiate their relationships within questions of power, identity, inequality, modernity/tradition, globalization, and others. We will take an explicitly ethnographic approach to discourse, in order to show how speakers and speech are simultaneously located in interactional, local, national, and global contexts. Students are expected to make connections to their own research and apply the theories and methods from the readings to analyses of their topics of interest.

SPANISH9733B- L2-L3 Acquisition of Morphosyntax - Dr. Olga Tararova
Start Date: TBA
Scheduled time: Tuesdays 1:30-4:30pm EST.
COURSE OUTLINE

A 3-hour seminar in English will provide students with an overview of some of the major theories and models in the acquisition of second and third languages. We will explore the role of first language transfer, input, language typology, and age of acquisition by focusing on theoretical frameworks and empirical studies. This will be accomplished by having students undertake an experimental study of a phenomenon of their choice. This graduate course complements other graduate courses in Hispanic linguistic by covering the two core areas of grammar: morphology and syntax. It also serves as the descriptive and theoretical basis for courses on acquisition and applied linguistics.

 

Summer TERM 2021

LINGUIST9452L- History of Philosophy of Language - Dr. Robert Stainton
Start Date: TBA
Scheduled time: TBA
COURSE OUTLINE

An overview of key concepts and arguments in philosophy of language from a historical perspective. Topics will range across metaphysics, semantics and epistemology, and will likely include: the source of linguistic facts (e.g., conventional, natural or divine); the relationships between language and ontology (e.g., essences and existential commitment); truth, falsity and paradox; the ontological categories of linguistic contents (mental, concrete and abstract); varieties of meanings (e.g., of names, predicates and syncategoremata); language, mind and knowledge (e.g., nativism and the influence of language on cognition); language and communication (e.g., rhetoric and the “defects” of ordinary languages).

Texts will be drawn principally from the Ancient, later Medieval, and Early Modern period. Expect excerpts from: Plato, Aristotle, the Epicureans and the Stoics, Augustine, Abelard, Peter of Spain, Aquinas, Roger Bacon, Ockham, Buridan, Hobbes, Arnauld & Nicole, Locke, Berkeley, Leibniz, Condillac and Reid.