Fundamentals of Language Science
The course aims to do the following:
1. Situate language in the intersection of various disciplines to show how an understanding of the nature of human language is arrived at through a cross- disciplinary mode of inquiry and to also show how a study of language drives understanding and inquiry within other disciplines as well.
2. Survey the scientific methods and tools that allow an understanding of a. the general phenomenon of language b. the cross-linguistic variation in human languages and the abstract cognitive capacity for language
1. Allan, K. (Ed.). 2016. The Routledge Handbook of Linguistics. Routledge. 2. Bybee, J. (2). Language Change (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 3. Chomsky, N. 1986. Knowledge of Language, its Nature, Origin and Use, NY: Praeger. 4. Deacon, T. 1997. The Symbolic Species. W.W. Norton &Co., NY. 5. Denham, K., & Lobeck, A. (2013). Linguistics for Everyone: An Introduction. 2nd Edition. Boston, MA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning. 6. Duranti, A. (1997). Linguistic Anthropology (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 7. Griffiths, P., Merrison, J.A. and Bloomer, A. (Eds.). 2010. Language in Use: A Reader. Routledge. 8. Pinker, S. 2007. The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature. New York: Viking.