2015/2016

2015/2016

DM270

L-LIN/01 (GLOTTOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS)

DEPARTMENT OF HUMANITIES

THEORETICAL AND APPLIED LINGUISTICS; LINGUISTICS AND MODERN LANGUAGES

PERCORSO COMUNE

1°

1st semester (21/09/2015 - 23/12/2015)

6

36 lesson hours

ITALIAN

ORAL TEST

MAURI CATERINA - 6 ECTS

A good knowledge of English and of the basic notions of general linguistics are required

The course aims to provide students with the ability to recognize, describe and analyze linguistic data from a number of different perspectives, through the most important instruments of analysis (corpora, lexicons, concordance tools, typological databases, etc.).
At the end of the course, students will be able to build and analyze a data sample designed for specific scientific purposes, and, given a specific research goal, they will have the ability to select the most suitable instruments of analysis and linguistic resources.

The course will be organized in three parts:
1) "Linguistic datum": identification, description, analysis. Creation and use of corpora.
In the first part of the course we will discuss the notion of "linguistic datum", discussing the main theoretical issues connected to the description, analysis and explanation of linguistic data. After a general introduction on qualitative and quantitative approaches, we will present the basic notions necessary in the design and use of corpora, describing the main techniques of data elicitation, the foundations of Corpus Linguistics, the most important types of corpora and their central role for a number of different areas in linguistic research (studies in semantics and pragmatics, analyses of morphosyntactic phenomena, sociolinguistic analyses).
2) Corpora, lexicons and databases: typology and description of the main linguistic risources.
In the second part of the course we will discuss the main linguistic resources available for different research areas: linguistic resources for typology, historical and contrastive linguistics, second language acquistion. We will illustrate the potential application of concordacing tools, lexicons, databases and corpora in the analysis of linguistic data. We will also discuss how to use the Web as corpus, highlighting the limits but also the potentialities of a data sample so heterogeneous and constantly changing. Finally, we will address the main problems connected to the creation and use of databases and the basics of XML will be provided.
3) Laboratory: applied analysis of linguistic data
The final part of the course consists of empirical applications of the instruments described in the first two parts. As in a laboratory, students (individually or in small groups) decide a small project with the professor, on which they will also write a report and that constitutes a significant part of the final exam. The project can consist of:
- analysis of a given phenomenon within a corpus
- analysis of a given phenomenon trough one or more instruments learned during the course
- design of a small corpus
- comparison and review of different linguistic resources.

Lectures and laboratory.
The last part of the course consists of the empirical application of the instruments described in lectures.

ttending students
Students are stronlgy recommended to attend the course, both because of its laboratorial nature and because there is no textbook that treats in a systematic way the notions and instruments that will be discussed in the course.
Teaching materials will be made available weekly online.
Below you can find a provisional list of texts that will be referred to during the course. At the end of each lecture, the professor will explicitly indicate the chapters and/or sections where students will be able to find the issues discussed in class.
1) Evans, N. and A. Dench. "Introduction: Catching language". In Evans, N., A. Dench & F. Ameka (eds.), Catching Language: The Art and Craft of Grammar Writing, 1-39. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2006.
2) Dryer, Matthew S. "Descriptive theories, explanatory theories and Basic Linguistic Theory". In Evans, N., A. Dench & F. Ameka (eds.), Catching Language: The Art and Craft of Grammar Writing, 207-234. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2006.
3) Ide, Nancy. "Preparation and Analysis of Linguistic Corpora". In Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth (eds.), A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell. 2004.
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/
4) Bradley, John "Text tools". In Susan Schreibman, Ray Siemens, John Unsworth (eds.), A Companion to Digital Humanities. Oxford: Blackwell. 2004.
http://www.digitalhumanities.org/companion/
5) Steven Bird, Gary Simons, “Seven dimensions of portability for language documentation and description”, Language 79 (3), 2003, pp. 557-582.
6) McEnery?, Anthony, Richard Xiao and Yukio Tono. Corpus-Based Language Studies: An advanced resource book. London: Routledge, 2006.
7) Everaert, M., S. Musgrave, and A. Dimitriadis (eds). The Use of Databases in Cross-Linguistic Studies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 2009.
8) A. Kilgarriff and G. Grefenstette. Introduction to the Special Issue on the Web as Corpus. Computational Linguistics 29 (2003).
9) B. Turchetta. 2000. La ricerca di campo in linguistica: metodi e tecniche d'indagine. Roma: Carocci, 2000. (consultabile in biblioteca). Soprattutto Cap. 2-3.
10) Lüdeling, Anke; Evert, Stefan; Baroni, Marco. 2006. Using web data for linguistic purposes. In 'Language and Computers, Corpus Linguistics and the Web'. Edited by Marianne Hundt, Nadja Nesselhauf and Carolin Biewer , pp. 7-24(18). Rodopi Publisher.
Non-attending students
Non-attending students should write an e-mail to the professor in advance, in order to decide the texts study for the exam.

Attending students
The final exam for attending students consists of an oral exam, in which the student will be asked to discuss the report and the practical activity carried out in the laboratory. This discussion will be a starting point for further questions on the rest of the program.
Non-Attending students
Non-attending students should write an e-mail to the professor in advance, in order to decide the texts study for the exam.

Attending students
The final exam for attending students consists of an oral exam, in which the student will be asked to discuss the report and the practical activity carried out in the laboratory. This discussion will be a starting point for further questions on the rest of the program.
Non-Attending students
Non-attending students should write an e-mail to the professor in advance, in order to decide the texts study for the exam.