45 courses with the subject LING, each shown exactly as we captured it from the college's catalog, with every element we hold. Where the wording looks broken, that is our reading of the catalog, not the college's text.
LING 100Introduction to Linguistics4
The aim of this course is to make you aware of the complex organization and systematic nature of language. You will be studying yourself and those around you, since you are all language users. Most of your knowledge of language, however, is unconscious, and earlier education may have given you confusing or misleading notions about language. This course is intended to clarify your ideas about language and bring you to a better understanding of its nature. You will learn more about how languages work by observing and analyzing language(s) (from people you know, from yourself, videos, in-class data sets, social media, texting etc.) By the end of the course you should be familiar with some of the terminology and techniques of linguistic analysis and be able to apply this knowledge to the description of different languages. Every semester.
In this course you will be trained to produce and recognize (almost) all the speech sounds which human languages make use of, and to develop a systematic way of analyzing and recording them. We will learn how to transcribe data in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Class time will focus on practicing perceiving and producing the speech sounds found in spoken languages (vowels, tones, trills, clicks, etc). Each student will have the opportunity to conduct research on the phonetics of a language of their choice, working closely with a native-speaking consultant. This course is recommended for students of languages, linguistics, theater, music and anyone who wants to become more aware of their (and other people’s) pronunciation. Every spring. In odd years, it is offered in the Fall and Spring.
Cross-Listed as ASIA 150 , JAPA 150 and WGSS 150 Japanese is considered to be a gendered language in the sense that women and men speak differently from each other. Male characters in Japanese animation often use “boku” or “ore” to refer to themselves, while female characters often use “watashi” or “atashi.” When translated into Japanese, Hermione Granger (a female character in the Harry Potter series) ends sentences with soft-sounding forms, while Harry Potter and his best friend Ron use more assertive forms. Do these fictional representations reflect reality? How are certain forms associated with femininity or masculinity? Do speakers of Japanese conform to the norm or rebel against it? These are some of the questions discussed in this course. Students will have opportunities to learn about the history of gendered language, discover different methodologies in data collections, and find out about current discourse on language and gender. Offered alternate years.
Cross-Listed as SOCI 175 Sociolinguistics is the study of the social language variation inevitable in all societies, be they closed and uniform or diverse and multicultural. Language and culture are so closely tied that it is nearly impossible to discuss language variation without also understanding its relation to culture. As humans, we judge each other constantly on the basis of the way we use language, we make sweeping generalizations about people’s values and moral worth solely on the basis of the language they use. Diversity in language often stands as a symbol of ethnic and social diversity. If someone criticizes our language we feel they are criticizing our inmost self. This course introduces students to the overwhelming amount of linguistic diversity in the United States and elsewhere, while at the same time making them aware of the cultural prejudices inherent in our attitude towards people who communicate differently from us. The class involves analysis and discussion of the readings, setting the stage for exploration assignments, allowing students to do their own research on linguistic diversity. Offered every spring.
All languages have structure, and syntax is the study of how language users combine words into meaningful phrases, sentences, and conversations. The world’s languages vary enormously in how they express events and describe situations, and in this class, you will learn about the many different ways in which their structures make this communication possible. We will explore this syntactic diversity by going hands-on with real data from a variety of languages - including specific languages of your choice. Every fall.
Cross-Listed as ANTH 206 Language loss is accelerating at alarming rates. In fact, Linguists predict that only five percent of the six thousand languages currently spoken in the world are expected to survive into the 22nd century. In this course, we will examine the historical, political, and socio-economic factors behind the endangerment and/or marginalization of languages in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, and North and South America. We will also concentrate on the globalization of English (and other major languages), which plays a primary role in language endangerment and marginalization. Additional topics include: linguistic diversity, language policy, multilingualism (in both nations and individuals), global language conflict, and language revitalization. Students will have the opportunity to learn first-hand about these issues by interviewing speakers of an endangered and/or minority language.
Cross-Listed as MUSI 220 Language and music are two uniquely human enterprises with a number of parallels: both rely on sound and/or signs, display hierarchical organization and culturally-specific practices, and can convey both communicative and social meaning. This course examines the intersection of language and music from a linguistic perspective. We will engage with questions such as: How can syntax, phonology, and morphology change when language is sung instead of signed or spoken? How do speakers of tone languages understand lyrics in sung melodies? Is hip hop different in different languages? What does it mean to study melody and rhythm in language? Can music help people learn languages? How do drum- and whistle-languages work? How does music contribute to language revitalization? No musical ability is required. Every year.
Cross-Listed as ANTH 225 and ENVI 225 Human beings have an unprecedented ability to shape the environment around them, yet the environment powerfully shapes both individuals and species. Two main questions run throughout this course: 1. How does language influence the way we think about and perceive nature, which in turn influences the way we interact with and shape nature? 2. How has our environment shaped the Language faculty and individual languages? To answer these questions, we’ll start by asking, what is language and what is nature? Then we’ll turn to the way that our environment has impacted the evolution of Language. Next we’ll look at indigenous knowledge as it is encoded by language and the Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis, which says that language influences the way we perceive the world. With this as background, we’ll look at the language of environmental discourse. Next, using the metaphor of ecology, we’ll examine languages as if they were organisms and analyze the ecosystems that sustain them. Knowing what makes a healthy language, we’ll look at endangered languages and the connections between linguistic diversity and biodiversity. Offered yearly.
Cross-Listed as ASIA 236 , CLAS 202 , and RELI 236 Like Latin and Greek in Europe, Sanskrit is a highly inflected language of scholarship and revered as the perfect medium for discourse on everything from science and sex to philosophy and religion. It flourished in its classical form after the age of the Buddha (5th century BC) and served as a scholarly lingua franca in India until the Islamic period. This course serves as an introduction to the grammar an script of Sanskrit, and we will advance to a point of reading simplified texts from the classical epic Ramayana.Students will be expected to attend class regularly and spend at least ten hours a week outside class studying the grammar and vocabulary. Without this sort of effort, no progress is possible in such a complex language. In addition to the rigorous study of the language, we will consider both the role of the language in classical Indian culture and religion, and some texts from the Ramayana, looking at both English translation and Sanskrit originals. Alternate years.
LING 265Translation as Cross-Cultural Communication4
Cross-Listed as INTL 265 and RUSS 265 When communication takes place across language barriers, it raises fundamental questions about meaning, style, power relationships, and traditions. This course treats literary translation as a particularly complex form of cross-cultural interaction. Students will work on their own translations of prose or poetry while considering broader questions of translation, through critiques of existing translations, close comparisons of variant translations, and readings on cultural and theoretical aspects of literary translation.
ANTH 101 or ANTH 111 . Offered occasionally. (4 Credits)
LING 282Language and Identity in Japanese, Asian-American, and Other Communities4
Cross-Listed as ASIA 282 and JAPA 282 This course aims to investigate the complex relationship between language and identity in Japanese, Asian American, and other diasporic communities. Language plays a significant role in conveying one’s identity, as do other semiotic means such as clothing. By exploring scholarship that considers language as it relates to identity, students will discover how speakers/writers use their agency in expressing their identity and how identity emerges as a social and cultural phenomenon. They will learn about multiple interrelated factors that affect how speakers/writers view and use language such as race, ethnicity, nationality, and multilingualism. No knowledge of Asian languages is required. Alternate years.
LING 100 - Introduction to Linguistics , LING 104 - Sounds of the World’s Languages , plus one of: LING 200 - Structures of the World’s Languages or LING 205 - Phonology . Every fall. (4 Credits)
SPAN 305 and another 300-level Spanish course or consent of the instructor. SPAN 309 recommended. Generally taught alternate years. (4 Credits)
LING 336Japanese Sociocultural Linguistics4
Cross-Listed as ASIA 336 , JAPA 336 This course aims to give students the opportunity to find the joy of analyzing Japanese language by enhancing their understanding of its complex and rich sociocultural meanings. In Japanese language courses, students learn the norms (i.e., what is considered to be correct and proper) regarding honorifics, speech levels, orthography, the so-called gendered language, and other linguistic forms. In this linguistics course, they will find out how actual speakers/writers observe or deviate from the norms to create sociocultural meanings and how the adherence to or subversion of the norm often reflects language ideologies. In the process they will reflect on their own as well as others’ speech and writing, and learn how to critically evaluate and analyze language in the media. In addition to reading and discussing academic articles in English, students will collect and analyze authentic Japanese data such as anime, TV drama, films, manga, novels, and blogs. Japanese Language and Culture majors who are juniors and seniors may count this course as their capstone experience. The course also fulfills the Asian Studies, Japanese, and Linguistics major and minor requirements.
