Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Berks · Courses
LING
39 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 100Foundations of Linguistics3
The course consists of a general survey of language and linguistics. A number of topics relating to human knowledge and use of language are systematically and scientifically investigated. The focus of the course is not on any specific language or languages; rather, it is on properties common to all languages and on ways in which languages may differ. The focus is on examination of speakers' knowledge of language and the idea of language as a system of human communication; the course provides students with the tools needed for the recording, investigation, and close analysis of language. Areas of study include phonetics and phonology (the details of sound analysis), morphology (word structure), syntax (sentence structure), and semantics and pragmatics (the deep investigation of meaning). Another part of the course teaches the students about aspects of language in society through topics such as sociolinguistics and/or historical linguistics. This aspect of the course is crucial to students' understanding of how language and culture reflect and affect each other. The course uses examples from English and from non-English languages and cultures in order to investigate these topics, though no previous knowledge of any language other than English is presumed. A knowledge of basic linguistics is, however, generally very helpful in the learning of foreign languages.
In this course we investigate a common, yet often misunderstood, trait of our everyday language: swearing. We explore this topic from historical, societal, and psychological contexts, focusing on core questions such as: why we swear, what constitutes a swear, how swears change over time, what associations to we, as individuals and societies, make about people who (commonly) swear, and what sorts of psychological and neurological processes are involved when we swear. Students will take an active role in class discussions and mini-presentations as we survey emerging ideas in swearing and linguistic taboos and how to learn about these ideas using linguistic analysis techniques. This course assumes no prior knowledge of linguistics.
This course will provide an introduction to language in Africa from linguistic and cultural perspectives. Course topics include: the study of African language families and what they teach us about the history of the continent, the analysis of unusual linguistic structures found in indigenous African languages, multilingualism in Africa and the interaction between colonial and indigenous languages, linguistic traditions such as storytelling, ceremonies, ethnobotany, etc., and language development, including literacy practices and language and technology. The course will explore these topics in-depth through case studies focusing on four diverse geographical areas in West, North, East and Southern Africa. The capstone of the course will be a two-week trip for interested students to study linguistic practices in Benin, West Africa in both urban and rural settings.
Principles of grammatical analysis in the generative framework; an overview of syntactic structures across languages. LING 402 Syntax I (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. The aim of this course is to provide students with the background needed to understand advances in modern generative syntactic theory and to encourage them to do creative and informed research in this area on English or other languages that they might know. The course provides a historical overview of the development of generative syntax. We explore in depth a number of topics that challenge any syntactic theory and we attempt to propose testable hypotheses concerning language structure.
LING 404 Phonology I (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course is about sound patterning in language. In particular, we will learn how human speech sounds are produced and how they function together as a system. We will learn the International Phonetic Alphabet applied to English. We will discuss phonological data from many different languages to seek common phonological processes that occur despite the apparent surface diversity of languages. We will do extensive work on phonological problems in order to master basic phonological analysis.
Introduction to Historical Linguistics is designed to teach the theories, methods, and data linguists used to study ancient and modern languages and language families, and the connections that can be traced through language between seemingly diverse peoples and cultures. This course will teach the methodologies used by historical linguists to seek to understand language change, and to reconstruct ancient language forms. These methodologies require students to already have a basic understanding of linguistics, in particular phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics, as the course teaches students how to use methodologies within those subfields to investigate historical phenomena. The course will also investigate how linguistic analysis can be used to inform the study of human history. Topics include how languages change and evolve over time; language families, language change due to language contact, and the connection between language, history and archaeology. Students will thus also learn what language can teach us about the history of people groups around the world.
Morphology is the scientific study of words and word structure. This course provides a detailed exploration of morphological processes from a largely comparative method. Students are also introduced various formal models that will guide our investigations. Throughout the course we will scaffold our knowledge of morphological structure and processes with the aid of these theoretical concepts.
LING 414Phonetic Analysis: Acoustic and Auditory Phonetics3
This course is an exploration of phonetic analysis with a focus on acoustic and auditory phonetics (the properties of sound waves, particularly speech sounds, and how hearers perceive sounds given the constraints of the human auditory system). We will focus on how acoustic and auditory phonetics can enhance our understanding of sounds in languages around the world, and how it can inform analytical methods such as those used in sociolinguistics, linguistic field methods, and laboratory-based research involving sounds. This course will include training in specialized acoustic analysis software.
Relations between language and cognition; cognitive implications of normal and impaired language development; cognition and bilingualism. LING (PSYCH 426) 429 Language and Thought (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. Is language a special and uniquely human ability that develops and functions independently of other cognitive processes? Do individuals who speak different languages also have different concepts about the meaning of objects and ideas? Does language development depend on exposure to spoken language? In this course we will examine the relation between language and thought by considering evidence on language and cognition in both children and adults. Topics to be covered include the typical development and use of language as well as language and cognition in individuals whose language and/or cognition is impaired in some form. The latter include individuals with aphasia who have sustained brain damage following stroke or head injury, schizophrenics whose language reflects aspects of their disorder, children diagnosed with Williams Syndrome who appear to have good or even precocious language abilities in the face of severe cognitive impairment, and Alzheimer's patients in whom semantic memory has begun to deteriorate. The course will also discuss the acquisition of sign language among deaf individuals and the consequences of bilingualism for children raised with two languages and for adults with proficiency in more than a single language.The purpose of this course is to provide a survey of current scholarship on the relation of language and thought, including a review of recent developments in the primary literature. The necessary background is covered in introductory Psychology and Linguistics courses, which serve as alternative prerequisites. Students will learn about the consequences of typical and impaired development for relations between cognition and language ability. It is distinguished from PSYCH 457, Psychology of Language, by a focus on the implications of language, language development, and language impairment, for cognitive processes. It covers some topics also addressed by current courses in Linguistics and in Communications Sciences and Disorders, but is distinguished from those courses by its focus on perspectives and theories from cognitive psychology. This course may be used toward the 400-level PSY requirements of the PSYBA and PSYBS majors, and toward the PSY minor. Students typically will be assessed on the basis of class participation and discussion (20%), four papers (total 60%), and an in-class presentation based on reading original research literature (20%). The course typically will be offered once each year at the University Park campus with an enrollment limit of 50.
How children learn their first language; psycholinguistic aspects of lexical, syntactic, semantic, and phonological development. LING 446 (PSYCH 427) L1 Acquisition (3) (BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements.This course focuses on how children learn their first language from the theoretical perspectives of imitation theories, social construction theories, and innateness theories. In addition, the course covers the various stages of language acquisition including phonological (sound system), morphological (word meaning), syntactical (grammar) and semantic (meaning) development from birth to adulthood. Other related subfields covered in the course include the acquisition of Pidgin and Creole languages, bilingual and multilingual acquisition, and language acquisition and linguistic change.
Explores the social and psychological aspects of bilingualism; topics include languages in contact, transference, maintenance, and loss. LING 447 Bilingualism (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course presents a panoramic view of the major questions, research methods and results in bilingualism research. We will cover the following topics, in addition to those topics that emerge from students' research: bilingualism in society; political and social results of language contact; effects of social attitudes on bilinguals; how bilingualism affect language: transfer, code-switch, language contact and language change; the bilingual brain, psycholinguistic effects of having two grammars in sentence production, phonological perception and lexical storage; childhood bilingualism; developmental and educational consequences of bilingualism.
Issues in the study of language in its sociocultural context; analysis of social dialects and speech styles. LING 448 Sociolinguistics (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course investigates sociolinguistics variation and linguistic change. We will be concerned with identifying the mechanisms by which changes come about and are transmitted within a linguistic system. The course contrasts traditional studies of change and variation which concentrate on linguistic internal factors to those that are based on sociolinguistic factors. Research from a wide variety of languages and cultures will be examined.
LING 449 Semantics I (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. This course examines our best understanding of how humans produce and understand utterances to have particular meanings. This course examines lexical semantics, which is concerned with word meaning, phrasal semantics, which examines phrase meanings and with pragmatics, the study of meaning in contexts. Because meanings cannot always be built up or deduced from the combined meaning of smaller elements, students will attempt to divulge the semantic principles at work in human language through a wide variety of problems, activities, and formal analyses.
Overview of psychological research and theory on language processes, including speech perception, word recognition, meaning representation, comprehension, and language acquisition. LING (PSYCH) 457 Psychology of Language (3)(BA) This course meets the Bachelor of Arts degree requirements. How do we process language? Why do we easily adjust to a speaker with a foreign accent? How do young children come to speak the language to which they are exposed? Why is it difficult to learn a second language as an adult? This course focuses on the cognitive processes engaged by language use. Topics to be covered include speech perception, word recognition, representation of word meaning, comprehension of sentences, spoken production of words and sentences, and first and second language acquisition. In addition, the role of language in the study of thought and the role of biological mechanisms in theories of language learning will be discussed, as well as ways in which research on the language of special populations (e.g., deaf signers, dyslexics, aphasics) can inform theories of language processing and representation.
In this course, students work directly (in groups) with a native speaker of a foreign language with which no one in the class has any prior familiarity. The students will work to uncover the set of sounds relevant to the language in question by winnowing down possible sound contrasts made in human languages. They will begin to construct a lexicon (vocabulary) built with a phonetic alphabet to discover how words and sentences are formed in the language. They will refine their techniques of questioning their research participant based on principles of linguistic field work.
Advanced topics in syntactic analysis and theory. LING 500 Syntax II (3) The aim of this course is to provide students with the skills necessary to contribute to our understanding of modern generative syntactic theory (although other theories may be introduced by professors from different theoretical backgrounds). An overview of the theory of early generative grammar and its attendant problems will be presented in this course. Attempts to resolve these issues in contemporary syntax via the minimalist program will be covered in as much depth as possible. Using the skills and arguments developed in this course, students will be required to do original research on a particular problem of syntax.
Principles of comparative linguistics; language families; reconstruction of lost languages. LING 502 Historical Linguistics (3) The goal of this course is to engage graduate students in an analysis of the competing theories of the methods for classifying the world's languages. The course will provide an historical overview of the field with a major emphasis on contemporary debates. At issue will be whether all languages can be reconstructed to a common source. Is there possible evidence for such a reconstruction? Can the methodology faithfully extend to the very remote past?
Advanced topics in phonological analysis and theory. LING 504 Phonology II (3) Students in this course will examine the shift from rule-based to constraint-based theories of phonology with an emphasis on analyzing the shortcomings and paradoxes inherent in earlier approaches. At issue will be the search for a better understanding of how the phonological component continually interacts with phonetics and morphology in order to create optimal outputs. Students will analyze particular problems through reading various journal articles treating the same topic from different approaches. They will then evaluate the various approaches systematically. The goal of this course is to prepare students to do close readings of advanced research.
This course is designed to familiarize students interested in linguistic diversity and human-machine interaction with fundamental theories and approaches in linguistics and language science. This course presents key topics in linguistics, with emphasis on research techniques and interfaces with other scientific disciplines (e.g. engineering, information technology, computer science). The primary focus is on linguistic diversity across the life span, including within-language regional and social variation, bilingualism, and language disorders. The course targets practical applications such as natural language processing, machine learning, automatic speech recognition, speech synthesis, voice identification, corpus analysis, and machine translation.
LING 519Current Statistical Practice in Language Science3
Our primary goal in this course is to explore how to analyze and interpret quantitative data in language science. Part of this goal will be to gain familiarity and proficiency with a range of quantitative techniques common in language science. Reflecting trends in the field, linear and logistic mixed effects regression will be a major focus in addition to more well-known (e.g. ANOVA, multiple regression, chi-square) techniques. We will also spend some time exploring other methods such as multidimensional scaling, generalized additive modeling, and conditional inference trees, as well as more specialized techniques (e.g. drift-diffusion modeling). A more important goal is to learn to think critically about quantitative data and how we can learn from it. This includes a critical view of quantitative research in general, questions of measurement, the many decisions involved in analytic strategy, model structure and interpretation, and the ability to extend students' knowledge to new techniques independently.
Consideration of theoretical and research issues relevant to psychological aspects of language sounds, syntax and semantics, and other cognitive support. LING (PSY) 520 Seminar in Psycholinguistics (3 per semester/maximum of 9) In this seminar, psycholinguistic approaches to bilingualism will be examined. Bilingualism is of interest for a number of reasons. First, despite the prevalence of monolinguals in the United States, most people of the world are bilingual. To have a genuinely universal account of human cognition will therefore require a detailed understanding of the relations between language and thought in individuals who speak and understand more than one language. It will be essential that research on basic cognitive functions in bilinguals examines both the course and the consequence of second language acquisition. Second, bilingualism provides a unique vantage point from which the relations between thought and language may be viewed. Historically, this issue was the focus of the debate over the Whorfian hypothesis (i.e., does language determine thought?). In contemporary psychology, it has emerged as a central issue in the debate over modularity. Understanding the form of language and memory representation in the bilingual may provide an important set of constraints in modeling the fundamental categories of the mind. Finally, bilingualism can provide a research tool for examining cognitive functions that are sometimes impenetrable within an individuals first language. The examination of the mapping of form to meaning in Constructing syntactically well-formed sentences in two languages with contrasting syntax, or in understanding the meaning of words that have similar form but differ in meaning in two languages, provides a tool for developing converging sources of evidence to test theories of language comprehension and memory. Topics to be covered include second language acquisition in children and adults, language comprehension and memory in second language, code switching and language mixing, the consequences of bilingualism, and the neuropsychology of bilingualism.
Formal courses given on a topical or special interest subject which may be offered infrequently; several different topics may be taught in one year or term.
LING 823Proseminar in Professional Issues in Language and Human Technology3
This 3 credit course is designed to prepare students from disciplines in the language sciences and technological sciences for careers founded on principles of transdisciplinary research and collaboration. Application of these principles focuses on the integration of linguistic diversity in the design of human-centered technology. The course takes a holistic approach, recognizing that personal and professional development are intertwined. Students will engage with multimedia sources as well as more traditional academic writings. Guest speakers from within and outside Penn State will provide students with varied perspectives and expertise. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to create a plan for engagement in transdisciplinary team science; compare career paths in different academic and non-academic institutions; describe steps in preparation for the job search process and create materials; compose science communication for a variety of audiences; plan how to benefit from mentoring and how to be a good mentor; evaluate professional ethics in a broad range of settings; apply principles of intellectual property and entrepreneurship to a business proposal; discuss how to maintain mental health, manage stress, and maintain work-life balance; and interpret and apply principles of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility with an emphasis on linguistic diversity.
LING 824Transdisciplinary Team Science in Linguistic Diversity and Human Technology Interaction3
This course is designed to train students to successfully function in transdisciplinary teams that design and implement research, integrating various scientific perspectives and societal actors. Using a transdisciplinary team science approach and drawing on insights from the science of team science, students from different graduate programs will be trained to think beyond disciplinary boundaries and co-create knowledge that emerges from interactions between different academic disciplines to find solutions to complex real-life problems, with a specific focus on the integration of linguistic diversity in the design of human-centered technology.
