This site is an archive. See the current website at www.extension.harvard.edu.

Courses

Related Course

  • ANTH E-179 Historical Linguistics, Ancient Inscriptions, and Archaeology

This page contains content from the 2008–09 academic year. For current information, visit the Harvard Extension School website at www.extension.harvard.edu.

Linguistics

LING E-115 Introduction to Syntax (13201) (Website) (Printable version)
Andrew I. Nevins, PhD, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University.
Course tuition: noncredit and undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Fall term: Wednesdays beginning Sept. 17, 5:30-7:30 pm, 1 Story Street, Room 302.
Online and on-campus options. See Distance Education. Lecture 1 video.

In this course, we think about syntax of human languages from a scientific point of view. We start by discussing the arguments for assuming that a sentence is more than just one word after the other; this then takes us to the notion of structure. To detect the underlying structure of a given utterance, we learn how to apply several diagnostics, such as constituency tests, anaphoric relations, displacement phenomena, and deletion. The study is carried out from a cross-linguistic perspective, trying to determine the extent to which these diagnostics can be considered universal or language specific. Examples are drawn from novels and popular media and include comparison of English with other languages, including Romance, Germanic, and East Asian, as well as less familiar languages. (4 credits)

LING E-128 African-American English: How African and How American? (22939) (Website) (Printable version)
Andrew I. Nevins, PhD, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University. Cilene Rodrigues, PhD, Adjunct Professor, Emmanuel College, Associate Researcher in Linguistics, University of Brasilia, Brazil.
Course tuition: noncredit $450, undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Spring term: Tuesdays beginning Jan. 27, 5:30-7:30 pm, Boylston Hall, Room 105.

This course offers an overview of the major grammatical and sociolinguistic issues related to African American English (AAE). We start by studying the socio-historical aspects of the forced immigration of Africans to North America and the English spoken by the slaves before the Civil War. We then turn to a comparative study between AAE and other English-based languages such as Gullah, Tok-Pisin, Jamaican, and Barbadian, to verify points of divergence and convergence among these linguistic systems. We focus on the following issues: the socio-historical and cultural factors that promoted the development of African diaspora Englishes; the grammatical/structural aspects of AAE; and the influence of the superstrate language (English) and the substrate (African languages) in the formation of AAE and other English-based grammatical systems. Students examine the sociolinguistic consequences of slavery in North America. Students learn more about the internal structural makeup of AAE, and the function of today's AAE as a symbol of identity and cohesion among African Americans. (4 credits)

LING E-130 Language Policy (22977) (Website) (Printable version)
Dianne E. Jonas, PhD, Lecturer on Linguistics, Harvard University.
Course tuition: noncredit $450, undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Spring term: Tuesdays beginning Jan. 27, 7:35-9:35 pm, Sever Hall, Room 106.

This course is concerned with policy, planning, and status issues and their effect on languages in multicultural societies. The discussion focuses on issues in language rights, language control, and language choice. Other relevant topics include language maintenance, language shift and loss, language preference, and language prestige. The interaction with language policy of political and economic factors forms part of the discussion. (4 credits)

LING E-150 Language, Mind, and Brain (12903) (Syllabus) (Printable version)
Cedric Boeckx, PhD, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University.
Course tuition: noncredit $450, undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Fall term: Tuesdays beginning Sept. 16, 7:35-9:35 pm, Harvard Hall, Room 102.

This course is meant as an exploration of the biology of language, and can serve as an introduction to modern cognitive science. We investigate the nature of human language and its importance for the study of the mind and the brain. We discuss issues of language design (as a biological system) and language evolution, the relationship between language and other cognitive capacities (memory, vision, music, and mathematics). (4 credits)

LING E-160 Linguistic Unity and Diversity (22733) (Syllabus) (Printable version)
Cedric Boeckx, PhD, Associate Professor of Linguistics, Harvard University.
Seminar. Course tuition: undergraduate credit $950, graduate credit $1,725. Limited enrollment.
Spring term: Mondays beginning Jan. 26, 7:35-9:35 pm, Boylston Hall, Room 303.

This seminar focuses on the nature of linguistic variation. What is the difference between a language and a dialect? Are all languages fundamentally the same, or are they fundamentally different? What happens when languages change? How are the obvious superficial differences to be captured? How are they encoded in the mind/brain? The basic line of approach we pursue shows that the science of linguistics is on the verge of a major breakthrough, as it promises to show that the extraordinary variety we find across the world reduces to a few systematic rules. (4 credits)

LING E-190 Introduction to Bilingual Development (13200) (Website) (Printable version)
María Luisa Parra, PhD, Lecturer in Spanish, Boston University.
Course tuition: noncredit $450, undergraduate credit $800, graduate credit $1,725.
Fall term: Wednesdays beginning Sept. 17, 7:35-9:35 pm, Boylston Hall, Room 104. Optional sections to be arranged.

This course is an introduction to one of the most important social and cultural issues of our times: bilingualism. It combines a psychological, sociolinguistic, and educational perspective in an attempt to understand the advantages and the challenges of being bilingual in the US. Many teachers, parents, and pediatricians struggle when they have to decide which language is best when talking to an immigrant child. They want the child to learn English as the path to integration into US society. But what happens to the home language? What happens to the parent-child relationship if the child does not want to speak the family language anymore? What are the academic and emotional consequences of promoting or not promoting the linguistic bond between parents and children? Working from a multidisciplinary perspective, the course focuses on texts that emphasize the variety of factors that can affect the bilingual development of the child. (4 credits)