Centre for Language & Communication Studies (CLCS)

(LI 1006 The Applied Linguistics of English Language Teaching I)

Michaelmas Term

Description

Specific themes addressed in the module include exploring different approaches to language curriculum design ranging from grammar-translation, the audiolingual method and the communicative approach; the move from a focus on teaching to a focus on learning; the curriculum planning cycle; portfolio learning; the contribution of the Common European Framework of Reference to the specification, content and assessment of language curricula. The module uses regular group-work to explore the application of these themes with reference to specific target learner groups. Week by week, key topics are introduced with reference to course readings. Topics are explored by the student groups as they gradually develop their expertise in curriculum design. Students are expected to relate their growing understanding to the proficiency levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Identify and analyse communicative approaches to language learning and teaching;
• Describe and evaluate different types of language teaching syllabuses and the theory and practice of learner-centred curriculum design
• Relate the concerns of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio to foreign language pedagogy.

(LI 233A Language Learning )

Michaelmas Term

Description

Topics covered include theories of language learning, research findings in relation to successful and unsuccessful learners, the role of the mother tongue.

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Relate the nature-nurture debate to language acquisition research
• Identify the central issues on which language acquisition research has focused
• Summarize the principal findings which have emerged from language acquisition research
• Show the relevance of the findings of language acquisition research - in particular second language acquisition research - to second language teaching
• Apply the findings of language acquisition research to the student's own experience as an observer of language acquisition and to his/her own experience as a language learner.

(LI 237A Aspects of Written Language)

Michaelmas Term

Description

This module examines the phenomenon of written language from a range of perspectives. It begins by exploring the beginnings and historical development of writing, in the process considering the ways in which different writing systems (e.g., logographic scripts, syllabaries, and alphabets) represent different aspects of language. Further points of discussion are the debate around the social and individual consequences of literacy; the orthography of English; the mental processes involved in reading; written texts as coherent communicative acts; differences between the language of speech and the language of writing; and the relationship between written language and communication technologies.

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Explain the key steps in the historical emergence of writing
• Explain, with examples, how each of the major writing systems represents language structure
• Discuss the social, cognitive and linguistic significance of writing itself and of the printing press
• Analyse written texts for structures and devices of cohesion and coherence
• Explain the role of reader knowledge in interpreting written text
• Explain the linguistic differences between spoken and written language
• Discuss the nature of written language as used in several communication technologies.

(LI 7856 Describing Grammar )

Michaelmas Term

Description

The course topics include the basic features of sentence structure: syntactic categories, constituency, dependency, agreement, the subordination and co-ordination of sentences. The course also covers relationships within sentences (word order, grammatical relations and case systems) and valency processes (for example, passives, causatives and applicatives). A major theme is the relationships between syntactic and lexical rules. The course includes exercises in the syntactic description of English and other languages.

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Demonstrate a knowledge of the basic features of sentence structure: syntactic categories, constituency, and dependency
• Apply the tools of a functional and lexicalist view of grammar to the description of simple sentences in English and one or more other languages
• Explain how cross-linguistic syntactic variation may be described
• Analyse how syntactic rules and processes interface with other levels of linguistic knowledge, in particular with the semantics of verbal argument structure.

(LI 7860 Technology, Language and Communication )

Michaelmas Term

Description

Specific themes addressed in the module include:

• The historical development of writing; the properties of writing systems
• The effects of literacy on our perception of language
• The historical and cultural significance of the printing press
• Audio and video technologies
• Computer-mediated communication
• Mobile-phone text messaging
• Digital literacies

On successful completion of the module, a student should be able to:

• Explain the key steps in the historical emergence of writing
• Explain, with examples, how each of the major writing systems represents language structure
• Discuss the social, cognitive and linguistic significance of writing itself and of the printing press
• Explain the linguistic differences between spoken and written language
• Discuss the nature of written language as used in several communication technologies
• Analyse the linguistic and discourse structure of linguistic interaction in a number of different communication technologies

(LI 7861 Language Variation and Change )

Michaelmas Term

Description

Specific themes addressed in the module include:

• Linguistic structure and language variation
• Dialectology: models of language change and variation
• Real- and apparent-time indications of change
• Speaker variables: age, gender, social class, ethnicity
• Social networks and communities of practice
• Standardization as a social process
• Dialect convergence and divergence
• Language contact and language change

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Understand the relationships between linguistic theory and language variation
• Identify socially-significant variables within languages and to examine these in the light of hypotheses on historical change
• Critically discuss language standardization as a social process
• Critically discuss processes of language contact, creolisation, diffusion, and death

(LI 7865 History and Globalization of English )

Michaelmas Term

Description

Specific themes addressed in the module include:

• The ancestries of English from early times to the present
• Periods of English: what are 'Old', 'Middle', and 'Modern' English?
• Development and variation in English phonology and spelling
• The lexicon, word-formation, and lexical expansion in English
• The development of English morphology and syntax
• Regional variation in English dialects
• Is there - or was there ever - a Standard English?
• The spread of English: Scotland and Ireland
• The growth of national Englishes: social and linguistic aspects
• English and other languages: outcomes of language contact
• Beyond colonization: English as a global language

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Outline major stages in the history of the English language
• Compare and contrast varieties of English as a world language
• Analyse models for the diffusion of English and the development of national varieties of English in the context of globalisation
• Develop an appreciation of variation within the English language as a whole
• Apply a critical perspective on the use of English as a mother tongue, language for special purposes, official language, lingua franca, or other code of communication

(LI 7872 Formal Foundations of Linguistic Theories )

Michaelmas Term

Description

• Sets, characteristic functions, operators, relations
• Languages as sets of sentences
• Propositional logic: syntax, semantics & valid inference
• Deductive inference and human reasoning
• Predicate logic: syntax, semantics & valid inference
• First order logic (FOL): syntax & semantics & valid inference
• Translating natural language utterances into FOL
• Axiomatizing theories in Prolog (Horn Logic).

On successful completion of the module students should be able to:

• Define the basic constructs in discrete mathematics: sets (finite, infinite and impossible), algebraic operations on sets (intersection, union, complement, difference), characteristic functions, relations (e.g. reflexivity, transitivity, symmetry), partial orders, total orders, equivalence classes; properties of trees; propositional logic, predicate logic, first order logic, Horn logic (syntax, semantics, limits and valid inference in each case).
• Demonstrate the relevance to syntax of human languages in idealizing natural languages as infinite sets of grammatical sentences;
• Demonstrate the relevance to syntax of human languages in providing finite recursive definitions for infinite logical languages;
• Demonstrate the relevance to semantics of human languages in providing a compositional denotational semantics (with a syntax-semantics interface) to infinite logical languages;
• Explain how natural language semantics may be represented indirectly using formal logical languages and their model-theoretic semantics;
• Specify clear theories of grammar as axioms in a deductive framework capable of testing theoretical predictions;
• Transfer abstract competence to practical

(LI 7874 Speech Production, Hearing and Perception )

Michaelmas Term

Description

Specific themes addressed within the module include:

• Acoustic theory of speech production
• Resonance
• Hearing and the auditory system
• Synthesis and its applications in speech perception
• Perception of stops: locus theory
• Categorical perception
• Analysis and synthesis of the voice source
• Perception of voice quality

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Explain the process of speech communication
• Describe the acoustic theory of speech production and have knowledge of the acoustic properties of speech sounds
• Assess some of the competing theories concerning the perception of speech
• Conduct speech production or perception experiments
• Interpret, present and write up experimental data

(LI 7878 Describing English Grammar )

Michaelmas Term

Description

Students are encouraged to make use of data from their own experience as teachers or learners of English.

Specific themes addressed in the module include:

• Grammar: description and prescription
• Words: characteristics and classification
• Clauses: simple, embedded, finite and non-finite
• Tense, voice, and aspect
• Adjectives, adverbs, adverbials: pre- and post-modification
• Contrasting English syntax with other languages
• Text type and register: corpus versus competence
• Discourse markers in speech and writing
• Variation and standardization in world and national Englishes

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Analyse the syntax of English sentences using insights from linguistic theory
• Compare and contrast major grammatical variations in English as a world language
• Assess the role of register and text type in conditioning grammatical choices
• Evaluate critically the position of grammatical standardization in English
• Be familiar with the use of electronic corpora in studying English grammar
• Evaluate the relationships between grammar in learner English and available English-language models

(LI 7883 Multilingualism )

Michaelmas Term

The course will involve a site visit to a local example of multilingualism in practice. After this visit, students will write and submit a reaction paper (1000-1500 words) which is weighted at 40% towards the mark for the module. At the end of the course each student will submit a research paper (2000-2500 words) weighted at 60% of the final mark.

Description

Specific aspects addressed in the module include:

• General issues and concepts in individual and societal multilingualism
• Multilingual language acquisition, the role of prior native and non-native language knowledge in the language acquisition process, multilingualism and cognitive development, crosslinguistic influence
• Multilingual education programmes, tools to encourage multilingual language use and learning, and evaluation/assessment
• Language policy and language education policy in multilingual contexts

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Analyse general issues and concepts in research on individual and societal multilingualism
• Critically evaluate theory and research relevant to multilingual practices and policies.
• Assess research on acquisitional and cognitive aspects of multilingual language acquisition
• Examine the impact of official language policies on multilingualism
• Critically assess the role of different types of educational systems and policies in affording opportunities for multilingual language learning and use
• Conduct research on multilingualism in the individual and society

(LI 1007 The Applied Linguistics of English Language Teaching II)

Hilary Term

Description

Specific themes addressed in the module include how to approach the teaching of grammar in the language classroom; the selection and use of authentic materials at various proficiency levels; the ways that media technologies can contribute to language learning; types of language test and their purpose; the testing cycle; the design of test items and test tasks. The module uses regular group-work to explore the application of these themes with reference to specific target learner groups. Week by week, key topics are introduced with reference to course readings. Topics are explored by the student groups as they gradually develop their expertise in curriculum design. Students are expected to relate their growing understanding to the proficiency levels of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR).

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Identify and evaluate approaches to learning/teaching grammar in language learning, pedagogical materials and use of authentic texts
• Understand models of language tests, issues in test administration and scoring, and the social dimension of language testing
• Relate the concerns of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages and the European Language Portfolio to foreign language pedagogy.
• Apply this understanding to the design of appropriate language test items and their scoring.

(LI 231A Aspects of Vocabulary )

Hilary Term

Description

The topics to be explored in this connection will include: lexis and syntax, lexis and morphology, lexical partnerships, lexis and meaning, lexis and phonology, lexis and orthography, lexical variation, lexical change, lexical acquisition and lexical processing.

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Characterize the nature of the word and to explain why its definition is problematic
• Demonstrate the interaction between lexis and grammar
• Define and illustrate the syntagmatic semantic phenomenon of collocation and the principal paradigmatic meaning relations operative at a lexical level
• Characterize and illustrate the lexical dimensions of phonology and orthography
• Characterize and illustrate the lexical dimensions of language variation and language change
• Characterize and illustrate major features of lexical acquisition.

(LI 234A Sociolinguistics )

Hilary Term

Description

Topics include regional and social variation in language, social factors in language change, bilingualism and language planning, language and culture, and language disadvantage and rights.

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Recognise the social significance of policy and conflict with regard to minority languages, language rights, and language planning
• Describe socially-significant variation in the use of language within specific language communities
• Identify socially-significant variables within languages and to examine these in the light of hypotheses on historical change
• Critically discuss language standardization as a social process
• Critically review relationships between language and other aspects of culture and cognition
• Conduct library or field research on language in its social context.

(LI 7843 Linguistic Typology)

Hilary Term

Description

The module topics include the genetic classification of languages, phonological inventories, word order, word classes, case marking, classication systems, ergativity, complex predication, and spatial language and lexicalization. The module also covers methodology and sampling. An important element is weekly exercises in the typological decription of languages unfamiliar to the students.

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Describe in detail the basic theoretical framework for the systematic analysis of language diversity
• Apply the tools of typological analysis to genetically unrelated languages
• Explain how competing claims about cross-linguistic structural properties may be evaluated
• Analyse how typological analysis relates to historical linguistics, areal linguistics and language contact.

(LI 7857 Language Acquisition )

Hilary Term

Description

The module topics include the genetic classification of languages, phonological inventories, word order, word classes, case marking, classication systems, ergativity, complex predication, and spatial language and lexicalization. The module also covers methodology and sampling. An important element is weekly exercises in the typological decription of languages unfamiliar to the students.

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• Describe in detail the basic theoretical framework for the systematic analysis of language diversity
• Apply the tools of typological analysis to genetically unrelated languages
• Explain how competing claims about cross-linguistic structural properties may be evaluated
• Analyse how typological analysis relates to historical linguistics, areal linguistics and language contact.

(LI 7862 Linguistic Pragmatics )

Hilary Term

Description

Specific topics included in this module include:

• Grice and conversational maxims
• the principle of Relevance
• conceptual and procedural meaning
• the under-specification of meaning and processes of contextual enrichment
• lexical pragmatics
• coherence relations in discourse
• metaphor, irony and humour
• the functions of discourse connectives

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• demonstrate a theoretically informed awareness of the importance of inference and context to linguistic communication
• demonstrate an understanding of attempts to classify communication types
• explain Relevance Theory
• apply Relevance Theoretical analyses to conversational data

(LI 7864 Corpus Linguistics )

Hilary Term

Description

The module will cover:

• corpus design, and collection and preparation of corpus materials
• various levels of linguistic annotation, e.g. part-of-speech, phrase structure, phonetic, prosodic, gesture, etc.
• manual and automatic methods of annotation, and the evaluation of annotations
• practical work on various corpora using various corpus query tools

On successful completion of the module, students should be able to:

• Identify the benefits and limitations of using corpora in various linguistic domains.
• Use various types of corpora and corpus query tools
• Analyse requirements in order to formulate a corpus creation plan
• Examine the current annotation standards and tools and select/develop appropriate standards and annotation tools for a particular annotation task

(LI 7869 Describing Meaning )

Hilary Term

Description

Specific topics included in this module include:

• theories of reference
• lexical relations and the dictionary
• the logical structure of language
• verbal argument structure
• event structure
• information structure
• metaphor and metonymy

On successful completion of this module, students should be able to:

• Apply the arguments for distinguishing the fields of semantics and pragmatics
• Describe the basic aspects of lexical semantics, including the status of lexemes and major lexical relations in English and one or more other languages
• Describe, analyse and apply formal approaches to semantics
• Assess the relationship between context and meaning
• Describe some cognitive accounts of figurative uses of language

Hilary Term

The course result will be based partly (90%) on the evaluation of a 3 to 4,000 word essay connected to the theme addressed within the course, the literature addressed specifically in the seminar, and secondary literature on the topic, synthesizing the material addressed. The other part of the evaluation will be determined by submission of short summaries of each of the works read and discussed during the module (10%).

Description

Many semantic categories have graded structure; for example, in terms of membership, a piano is less clearly a piece of furniture than a desk is. In contrast, the primitive categories of syntactic theories are generally discussed as if the membership criteria offer clear binary distinctions. Linguistic categories will be examined with respect to their underlying structure. The relationships among graded categories, degrees of grammaticality and linguistic innovation will be explored. The analysis will be conducted with respect to the background linguistic frameworks like Head-driven Phrase Structure Grammar and Lexical Functional Grammar, with reference to the Minimalist paradigm, and will be informed by recent work in cognitive science and corpus linguistics.

Specific topics addressed in the module include:

• Atomic categories in linguistic theories
• gradience in cognition
• gradience in linguistic categories
• argument structure and the syntax/semantics interface
• ‘quirky case’
• degrees of grammaticality and eliciting grammaticality judgements
• linguistic innovation vs. error
• corpus-driven and computational methods of detecting category change

On successful completion of this module students should be able to:

• critically discuss recent literature in advanced syntactic theory
• discriminate contrasting features of presentation of novel research about syntax used within psycholinguistics, theoretical syntax, or computational approaches to syntactic theory
• critically evaluate the concepts and theories addressed in the module
• develop arguments in linguistic theory in line with standard practice in the field

(LI 7873 Computational Theories of Grammar and Meaning )

Hilary Term

A fragment grammar will be evaluated with respect to its coverage of a test suite of sentences. Training test suites will be provided covering the essential constructs, and success of the suite will be measure by its coverage of an suite of unseen constructions drawn on the same terminal vocabulary. Discursive text provided with the grammar will address ways in which the test suite could be reasonably be expanded, and evaluate the adequacy of the grammar in covering the test suite with respect to the criteria developed throughout the course.

Description

• Basics of definite clause grammars applied to recognizing natural language
• DCGs with parsing and semantic construction
• DCGs and complement subcategorization frames
• Formal language theory and the complexity of natural language syntax
• Unbounded dependency constructions
• Parsing, interpreting and answering questions
• Formal language theory

On successful completion of the module students should be able to:

• Operate as grammar developers capable of working within syntactic description or formal semantic analysis;
• distinguish the relationship between the Chomsky hierarchy of expressivity of formal languages, grammars that generate those languages, and the formal expressivity of natural language syntax;
• analyse the human language processing ramifications of formal language theory;
• transfer formal language theory to the representation of natural language morphology.

(LI 7877 The Pedagogical Grammar of English )

Hilary Term

Students write an assignment of 4,000 words exploring one aspect of the theory of grammar pedagogy, underpinned by an understanding of language acquisition. The essay should draw on one or more topics in English grammar by way of illustration and propose a systematic approach to its teaching in a stated context.

Description

Specific themes addressed in the module include:

• the nature of grammatical rules
• declarative and procedural knowledge
• the roles of conscious and unconscious grammatical knowledge in learning a second or foreign language
• the relationship between grammar and lexis

On successful completion of the module, students will be able to

• critically discuss a range of conceptions of “grammar” in relation to the enterprise of language learning and teaching
• critically discuss a range of factors affecting the acquisition of L2 grammar
• compare and evaluate a range of approaches to the teaching of grammar
• summarise and critically engage with the current research literature on the acquisition and pedagogy of L2 grammar
• evaluate the challenges posed by specific features of English grammar for the learner of English
• apply the theoretical insights gained to the teaching of English grammar
• evaluate pedagogical tasks and materials for English teaching