Winter

Language is a powerful tool for communication proceedig through various channels including private and public forms of communication such as mass and social media, political, literary, and scientific discourses. It is generally accepted that the way speakers chose to describe something reveals their stance toward truth as well as their rhetorical intention about the message. This affective (Giannakidou and Mari 2021) use follows from the communicative function of language: successful communication requires maximum efficiency, and as speakers choose their words, audiences recognize the intentions behind them and form veridicality judgments (i.e., judgments about the truth or not of the content conveyed, its reliability, and the like). Veridicality judgments are based on knowledge, beliefs, experiences, and ideology (i.e., a set of fixed and non-negotiable beliefs). Non-negotiable beliefs can distort the veridicality judgment and potentially damage, intentionally or unintentionally, the relation to truth. The class includes some classical readings from Plato's Cratylus, Gorgias and Aristotle's Rhetoric, as well as more contemporary readings (Giannakidou and Mari 2021, A linguistic framework for knowledge, belief and veridicality judgment, and the phenomenon of concept creep (Haslam2016) where meaning is extended in warranted or unwarranted ways to manipulate emotion.

This course continues to increase grammatical structure, receptive and expressive skills, conversational skills, basic linguistic convergence, and knowledge of idioms. Field trip required.

Mon Wed Fri : 12:30 PM-01:20 PM

American Sign Language is the language of the deaf in the United States and much of Canada. It is a full-fledged autonomous language, unrelated to English or other spoken languages. This introductory course teaches the student basic vocabulary and grammatical structure, as well as aspects of deaf culture.

Mon Wed Fri : 10:30 AM-11:20 AM

Spoken in ten countries of Eastern and Central Africa, Swahili has more speakers than any other language in the Bantu family, a group of more than 400 languages most prevalent in sub-equatorial Africa. Based on Swahili Grammar and Workbook, this course helps the students master key areas of the Swahili language in a fast yet enjoyable pace. Topics include sound and intonation patterns, noun class agreements, verb moods, and sentence structures. Additionally, this course provides important listening and expressive reading skills. For advanced students, historical interpretations are offered for exceptional patterns observed in Swahili, in relation with other Bantu languages. 

Tue Thu : 02:00 PM-03:20 PM

Swahili is the most popular language of Sub-Saharan Africa, spoken in most countries of Eastern and Central Africa by more than 50 million people. Swahili is characterized by the typical complex Bantu structure. However, it is particularly easy to pronounce and fast learned. The Elementary Swahili series is designed to help students acquire communicative competence in Swahili and a basic understanding of its structures. The course presents basic phonological, grammatical, and syntactic patterns of Kiswahili. Through a variety of exercises, students develop communicative functionality in listening, speaking, reading and writing. Emphasis is put on dialogues and role-plays, individual and group presentations, and the use of audiovisual and web-based resources. Swahili culture and African culture in general are an important component of the course. At the end of the elementary course series, the students are able to communicate efficiently in everyday life situations, write and present short descriptive notes about elementary pieces of verbal creation (documentaries and video series in Swahili). This course allows fulfilling the non-Indo-European language requirement.

Tue Thu : 11:00 AM-12:20 PM

This course expands on the material presented in MOGK 20100, enabling students to speak about topics related to employment, current events and issues of public and community interest.

Mon Wed Fri : 12:30 PM-01:20 PM

This course offers a rapid review of the basic patterns of the language and expands the material presented in MOGK 10100/30100.

Mon Wed Fri : 03:30 PM-04:20 PM

This is a survey course in the psychology of language. We will focus on issues related to language comprehension, language production, and language acquisition. The course will also train students on how to read primary literature and conduct original research studies.

Mon Wed : 01:30 PM-02:50 PM

This course familiarizes students with what it means to study meaning and use in natural language. By "meaning" we refer to the (for the most part, logical) content of words, constituents, and sentences (semantics), and by "use" we intend to capture how this content is implemented in discourse and what kinds of additional dimensions of meaning may then arise (pragmatics). Some of the core empirical phenomena that have to do with meaning are introduced: lexical (i.e., word) meaning, reference, quantification, logical inferencing, presupposition, implicature, context sensitivity, cross-linguistic variation, speech acts. Main course goals are not only to familiarize students with the basic topics in semantics and pragmatics but also to help them develop basic skills in semantic analysis and argumentation.

Tue Thu : 12:30 PM-01:50 PM

This course offers a brief survey of how linguists analyze the structure and the use of language. Looking at the structure of language means understanding what phonemes, words, and sentences are, and how each language establishes principles for the combinations of these things and for their use; looking at the use of language means understanding the ways in which individuals and groups use language to declare their social identities and the ways in which languages can change over time. The overarching theme is understanding what varieties of language structure and use are found across the world's languages and cultures, and what limitations on this variety exist.

Tue Thu : 12:30 PM-01:50 PM