Spanish, Portuguese and the Nature of Language
Undergraduate course, University of California, Los Angeles, Spanish and Portuguese Department, 2020
You can find the syllabus for this course here What is the internal structure of language? Can we classify the sounds of the world’s languages? Do all languages obey the same syntactic principles? What are some beliefs that speakers share during a conversation? In this course we will answer questions related to the nature of language and the main theories in linguistics. In the course we will define the properties of Human Language, identify its differences with animal communication and engage with the concept of mental grammar and linguistic knowledge. You will be introduced to the basic tools to analyze language and we will explore linguistic phenomena in morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, phonetics, and phonology. This is a 6-week hybrid course that has a synchronous and an asynchronous component. You will be introduced to the content with video lectures and we will meet once a week in a synchronous session to discuss the content and practice in collaborative assignments. This course is designed for undergraduate students with no previous knowledge in linguistics.