LING3004 Senior seminar Prof. Youngah Do Capstone Course. Sem 1, 6 credits Course Description This capstone course is available by invitation to students with outstanding records and/or those considering postgraduate study and research. Participants will read and present primary research literature and debate issues in the field. Prerequisite: LING1000. Note: For General Linguistics majors only. Assessment: 100% coursework.
LING2075 Issues in language documentation Dr. Joseph Perry Advanced course. Sem 1, 6 credits Course Description This course will introduce various practical, philosophical and ethical issues involved in language documentation. Topics to be covered include: the goals of language documentation and revitalisation, ethical and practical issues of working with speakers, the social responsibilities of linguists in the field, methods for recording and annotating audiovisual data, working with specialist software aimed at field linguists (including, but not limited to, FLEx and ELAN), and metadata/archiving standards for documentary materials. Some basic background in morphology, syntax and phonetics is desirable. Pre-requisite: LING1000 and LING2004 [...]
LING2074 Introduction to second language research Dr. Yoonsang Song Advanced course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description This course provides a general introduction to research in second language acquisition (SLA). The goal is to introduce students to important findings from SLA research and a range of contemporary approaches to SLA research. This course involves an independent research project and an in-class lecture component. Pre-requisite: LING1000, LING2004 and LING2050 Assessment: 100% coursework
LING2073 Advanced topics in syntax Prof. Joseph Perry Advanced course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description In this course, students will learn techniques and strategies for understanding, modeling and explaining syntactic phenomena. Students will be exposed to theoretical models and develop their skills in analysis and argumentation. These skills are necessary for the development of linguistic theory and ultimately to our knowledge of the world's languages. The course consists primarily of lectures and tutorials, with assignments to solidify the students' understanding of the material and a report of an original piece of research. Pre-requisite: LING1000, LING2032 and LING2050 Assessment: 100% coursework
LING3003 Linguistics Field Trip TBA Capstone Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description This is a required course for students majoring in General Linguistics. The field trip is technically designated as a final year course but may be taken in the third or fourth year. The aim of the course is to provide an opportunity for students of linguistics to have first-hand experience with languages as they are spoken and used in particular settings, and to carry out an empirical investigation on some aspect of a language ‘on-site’ (e.g. structural, cognitive, socio-cultural, or technological aspects of a language). The field trip is [...]
LING2060 Languages of China Dr. Marcelo Sevilla Advanced Course, Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description This course surveys languages spoken in China (including Taiwan). These languages belong to various families such as the Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic and Austronesian etc. The emphasis of the course will rest on the structure of selected languages from these families rather than the historical relationship between them. The course involves practical work and provides useful background for other courses in linguistics. Pre-requisite LING1000 Assessment 100% coursework
LING3007 Seminar in Psycholinguistics Dr. Heeju Hwang Capstone Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description The goal of this course is to introduce to students key topics in the field of psycholinguistics in greater depth and provide them with hands-on research experience. Pre-requisite LING1000, LING2034 and LING2048 Assessment 100% coursework Note: For General Linguistics majors only.
LING2069 Origins of Language Professor. Christophe Coupe Advanced Course. Sem2, 6 credits Course Description How and why how human beings acquired language in prehistory is fundamental to an understanding of who we are today. This course adopts a broad perspective on language and approaches it as one communication system among others, which emerged in our ancestors under specific conditions, and for specific purpose(s). In the course, concepts and methods pertaining to various scientific fields beyond linguistics will be investigated, including paleo-anthropology, archaeology, ethology and comparative psychology. Students will first reflect on animal and human communication contrastively, as well as on attempts [...]
LING2067 Natural Language Processing Prof. Christophe Coupé Advanced Course. Sem 1, 6 credits Course Description Natural Language Processing (NLP) addresses how machines analyze, produce and understand natural language. The field lies at the crossroads of linguistics and computer science and encompasses a wide range of techniques including automatic speech recognition, text mining, machine translation, and speech synthesis. The goal of this course is to provide a thorough introduction to basic methods and issues of NLP, with a specific focus on text mining. No previous experience in programming is required for this course. The acquisition of basic programming skills is an expected [...]
LING2060 Languages of China Dr. Marcelo Sevilla Advanced Course. Sem 1, 6 credit Course Description This course surveys languages spoken in China (including Taiwan). These languages belong to various families such as the Sinitic, Tibeto-Burman, Tai-Kadai, Hmong-Mien, Mongolic, Turkic, Tungusic and Austronesian etc. The emphasis of the course will rest on the structure of selected languages from these families rather than the historical relationship between them. The course involves practical work and provides useful background for other courses in linguistics. Pre-requisite LING1000 Assessment 100% coursework
LING2055 Reading Development and Reading Disorders Dr. Wai Ting Siok Advanced Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description This course aims to provide a deep understanding of reading development and reading disorders in different written languages. Through attending the course, students should be able to understand how different cognitive processes contribute to the development of skilled word reading and text comprehension and what possible problems children may encounter during the course of reading development. Effective treatment and instruction approaches will also be discussed. Pre-requisite: LING1000 Assessment: 100% coursework
LING2036 Child Language Dr. Wai Ting Siok Advanced Course. Sem 1, 6 credits Course Description The focus of this course is on how children acquire a first language, including a consideration of the stages of language development, the biological basis of language acquisition, language disorders and cross-linguistic differences in language acquisition. Pre-requisite: LING1000 Assessment: 100% coursework
LING2013 Language Typology: The Study of Linguistic Diversity Dr. Joe Perry Advanced Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description Typology investigates the structural diversity of the world’s languages. Topics covered include: notions of language type with particular reference to morphology case marking, and word order; areal distribution of features; universals of language and their explanation. Pre-requisite: LING1000 and LING2009 Assessment: 100% coursework
LING2012 Experimental Phonetics Dr. Jonathan Havenhill Advanced Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description The course covers the theoretical and instrumental study of the acoustic properties of speech sounds; classificatory criteria; speech analysis and synthesis; experimental techniques; and laboratory work. Pre-requisite LING1000 and LING2004 Assessment 100% coursework
LING3006 Laboratory Linguistics Prof. Jonathan Havenhill Capstone Course. Sem 1, 6 credits Course Description In the past decade, the field of linguistics has increasingly looked to experimental results to confirm and extend its understanding of language patterns. In this course, we will (a) examine some of the issues involved in deriving experimentally testable predictions from a theory, (b) designing and running an experiment, and (c) interpreting the results. This course involves two main activities; first, students will read and present most recent articles on laboratory linguistics and participate in group discussion. Second, students will actually get involved in experimentation to gain practical [...]
LING2040 Languages in Contact Dr. Hanbo Liao Advanced Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description This course is an introduction to the linguistic and social dimensions of language contact and change. Topics include multilingualism, lexical and grammatical borrowing, code-switching, language shift and the emergence of new languages, among them the creole languages of Asia, the Americas and Africa, particularly with a focus on the Sinosphere and East-Southeast Asia. Presentations, film viewings, in-class discussions and online and offline exercises during lectures and tutorials will provide the opportunity to apply and learn concrete techniques of linguistic analysis. The course is especially relevant to [...]
LING3005 Advanced Topics in Reading, Language and Cognition Dr. Wai Ting Siok Capstone Course. Sem 2, 6 credits Course Description This course is a continuation of the course “Reading Acquisition and Developmental Dyslexia”. It aims to provide an in-depth understanding of key issues and up-to-date research topics in reading and language. Specific focus will be on the cognitive and neural processes in word reading and reading comprehension, and the development of these processes. Topics such as models and theories of fluent reading and reading development, biliteracy development, biological bases of reading, types of reading disorders (e.g., developmental and acquired dyslexia), teaching [...]
