The topic of the seminar is pragmatics. Pragmatics is the study of language use in different social contexts, and it raises many important questions about language use in different cultures, such as "How can I speak appropriately in a new language?", "How can I be polite (or impolite) when interacting with other speakers?", among many others. Speakers have a variety of ways of communicating their ideas in social interaction. Among many expressions and structures at their disposal, speakers choose particular ones based on the identity they want to project, the identity of their interlocutor(s), and the situation in which the interaction is taking place. Quite often, speakers also convey meaning in indirect ways. In this seminar, we will examine five broad domains: (1) pragmatic constructs and foundational theories, (2) common research methodologies and methods, (3) cross-cultural pragmatics, (4) pragmatics and technology, and (5) pragmatics in specific discourse domains (e.g., legal and medical discourse). Through critical examination of the literature in these three areas, we will refine your understanding of the role of pragmatics in (applied) linguistics research, and some of the common methods of data collection and analysis in this field.

The main goal of Introduction to Translation Studies is to introduce students to the interdisciplinary field of translation studies, the scholarly discipline that focuses on translation and interpreting research. A secondary goal is to guide participants in the design of their own research projects in an area of translation studies. The course consists of a survey component that reviews the main areas of translation studies and various issues in translation and applied linguistics, and of a more practical section that applies the concepts reviewed to the design of research projects and/or curriculum. Although there is a clear focus on those areas of translation studies relevant to applied linguistics and language acquisition, topics in literary and cultural studies will be reviewed (e.g. cultural studies, polysystems theories, etc.). Introduction to Translation Studies is aimed at students of linguistics, SLAT, literature, cultural studies, and related fields.

This course provides practical instruction in the methods used in sociolinguistic research and the theoretical background associated with specific approaches. Some of the topics include methods of sampling populations, participant-observation techniques, questionnaire design, sociolinguistics interviews, data transcription, quantification, and record-keeping strategies.

This course is an introduction to the study of Hispanic sociolinguistics from a variationist perspective. Main theoretical and methodological issues will be discussed based on examples drawn from studies of variation in Spanish. Our main focus will be on the role of Spanish in its social context as the basis for understanding issues central to observation, description, and explanation of linguistic variation and change across time. This approach allows for a close examination of the straight correlations between linguistic variation (phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical) and external constraints (pragmatic, social, and stylistic). Readings, exercises, and discussions will center on methods of data collection (e.g. sociolinguistic interview), variable rule analysis, and interpretation of quantitative and qualitative data.

This course presents an overview of sociolinguistic issues pertaining to the contact between languages in general and the contact between Spanish with other languages in particular. We will discuss basic concepts that emerge in this field of inquiry, such as diglossia, language maintenance, attrition, shift, convergence, code-switching, and borrowing, and apply these concepts to our discussion of contexts that involve Spanish. We will read about speech communities where Spanish is the majority language (in the Iberian Peninsula and Latin America) and the minority language (in the United States). We will compare these situations and discuss how linguistic and extra-linguistic factors influence the output of contact, from both qualitative and quantitative viewpoints.

Semester Topic: Second Language Speech Processing—A guide to conducting experimental research

Based on a recent textbook with the same title, this course is a hands-on roadmap for conducting rigorous experimental research on second language speech processing, bilingual phonological processing, and spoken word recognition.

The course will review various published articles (models), define key theoretical concepts and research themes, and offer a detailed step-by-step guide to designing empirical processing research in the areas of phonetic and phonological knowledge. Along with the textbook, the course covers the following: setting up an efficient workflow to enhance reproducibility of findings; determining a methodology; selecting experimental controls and designing stimuli; collecting data using an array of methodological tools; addressing common challenges; preparing and analyzing data; preregistering the study; and sharing data transparently in accordance with Open Science practices. The course covers both lab-based and online research, and it introduces students to various basic tools: Praat (digital signal processing), Audacity (audio recordings), Gorilla and PsychoPy (experiment administration and design, lab-based and online), Excel (data management), and Jamovi (data analysis and statistics).

This course should be relevant for students interested in phonetics, laboratory phonology, second language pronunciation, and second language acquisition.

This course serves as an introduction to the instrumental and experimental study of the sounds of Spanish, and it focuses on articulatory, acoustic, and perceptual phonetics. At the end of this course, students will be able to read and understand the primary literature on Spanish experimental phonetics as well as to conduct basic, descriptive research in this field.

The purpose of this course is to offer a overview of the research related to the interaction between syntax, informational content, and prosodic phonology that accounts for the differences in Spanish word order.

This course will focus on how generative grammar frameworks have modeled the (morpho)syntactic representations of speakers–in particular, those of second-language speakers. To this end, our course will examine second language acquisition within the framework of current generative grammar (Generative Second Language Acquisition Research). Within generative linguistics, certain principles of language are assumed to be innately present in the first language of the learner (L1), helping to account for the fact that children and L2 learners have been shown to acquire complex and subtle aspects of language even though these are rarely found in the input (the so-called “Poverty of the Stimulus” situation). This innate structure is known as ‘Universal Grammar” (UG). UG has been assumed to contain fixed principles, as well as parameters which allow for variation across languages. Input data from the first language interacts with these innate principles, helping children learn their L1 and children (and adults) to learn languages beyond the first.

Research on UG in SLA has focused on a number broad topics, including a) whether principles and parameters do constrain L2 acquisition, b) whether the assembly and reassembly of features plays an important role in explaining the syntactic representation of learners, c) the nature of the so-called ‘Logical problem’ of L1 and L2 acquisition, d) the acquisition and development of functional categories; e) the nature of the initial state of L2 acquisition, f) the nature of ultimate attainment and the existence of critical/sensitive periods, g) acquisition at linguistic and cognitive interfaces, and h) the role of the acquisition of the lexicon, among many others.

Although we will use Romance Languages (primarily Spanish) as our main departure point, the general theoretical approach and the theories and hypotheses we will study can be applied to the acquisition of any language.

This course will be a combination of lecture, discussion, assignments and original research papers. You will also participate in a workshop that you will lead where you will present a research project and learn how to incorporate feedback to strengthen your experimental design. Assessment will be based on class participation, paper summaries (and lit reviews), presentations, homework, and a research paper proposing an original study (or a conceptual replication).

This course involves an examination of the methods and argumentation used in syntactic analysis, both from a general point of view and from the perspective of generative grammar. Emphasis is placed on analyzing language data, on constructing and evaluating syntactic argumentation, and on understanding the Principles & Parameters approach to the study of sentence structure. Secondarily, this course is also an introduction to scientific theorizing: what it means to construct a scientific theory, how to test a scientific theory, how to choose among competing theories. Linguistic data will be drawn from Spanish.