Teaching

This course investigates the nature of bilingualism from different perspectives, considering cognitive and interactional factors involved in the development and outcomes of bilingualism, as a domain of language acquisition and linguistics. We will not only consider the interactions between two languages, three and more but also processual mechanisms like age of acquisition, transfer, and convergence. We first consider the formal properties and consequences of different types of bilingual development and knowledge (child bilingualism: simultaneous vs. sequential, child vs. adult L2 acquisition/bilingualism), and explore aspects of language processing by bilinguals, regarding both comprehension and production.

In Generative Linguistics, syntactic structure is generated by a formal rule system and by applying constraints to its output. Some of these rules and constraints have been hypothesized to be innate, or "unlearned" (most likely a species-specific system). That is supported by how human language acquisition (or grammar growth) takes place, in a fast and successful way across the species, and by the observation of striking structural similarities across different human languages. Other aspects of our linguistic knowledge appear "learned", i.e. determined by an interaction between human biology and the particular linguistic experience individuals are exposed to, motivating different but constrained aspects of variation among human languages. This class explores a Generative and Minimalist approach to the analysis of human syntactic knowledge, focusing on the investigation of how various postulated (arguably "simple") rules and constraints can interact to generate ("complex") structures, characteristic of the potentially infinite number of human language sentences one can produce.

This course introduces students to the cognitive processes involved in language, memory, and conversation. We discuss aspects of language comprehension, production, and development, and how human language compares with communication systems in non-human animals and computers. Are humans unique in their use of language? What is the relationship between language and thought? Why and how do children learn language? Students will learn what is known (and what is still unknown) about how language is processed. We use these topics to learn about the relationship between theories and hypotheses in cognitive science, and to explore a variety of state-of-the-art methods in psycholinguistic research.

This course explores global multilingualism in the context of language policy, planning, and contact, focusing on its social effects across different communities. Some language contact situations involve conflict, while others involve long-term coexistence.The course is structured in three units, each examining language contact from a distinct angle: (i) Cognitive: how multilingual individuals store and process multiple languages (ii) Sociohistorical: how language contact affects language structure, including creation, endangerment, loss, and revitalization, and (iii) Policy: how language attitudes and laws shape multilingual settings. While the course does not predict specific outcomes of language contact, it offers a broad comparative analysis of how language interacts with society at both national and local levels.

This course in linguistic analysis introduces students to the methods and theoretical principles used by linguists for rendering speakers' implicit knowledge of their language explicit. Drawing on data from various languages of the world, we investigate the sounds of language, how they are produced and perceived (phonetics), and how they pattern into syllables and words (phonology). We study processes of word formation (morphology), sentence structure (syntax), and the relation between these structures and the construction of meaning (semantics). We consider data such as errors children make when acquiring language, language games, historical reconstructions of extinct languages, instrumental measures, and experimental findings. Our goal is to understand the properties shared by all languages as well as the ways in which languages can differ from each other and change, with the broader aim of understanding the formal structure of human language — how language "works". 

Language, a defining trait of humans, is arguably unique among mammalian cognitive properties; all humans acquire a linguistic system, yet linguistic systems come in many diverse forms. This course is intended for students who are interested in the diversity of languages around the world, but who have no formal training in linguistics. Although a review of all major topics of interest to linguists is not possible during one semester, students will gain understanding of select topics from the areas of phonetics, phonology, morphology, and syntax. In addition, while it is not possible to cover all language groups, we will examine several language areas in depth. All work in this class is done with the following underlying questions in mind: What differentiates one language from another? What is the relationship between language and culture? What does the diversity of languages tell us about the human mind?

In this course, we explore the uniqueness of language and its place under the larger umbrella of (human and non-human) communication. While learning about different forms of animal communication, we also make comparisons between language acquisition among children and adults, as well as between spoken and signed languages. Following this course, students are be able to describe the defining characteristics of human language and situate it within the broader phenomenon of communication. They are also able to compare spoken and signed languages. Throughout this course, students compare human language to various forms of communication found in nonhuman animals, including but not limited to birds, dolphins, bees, dogs, bears, and chimpanzees.