2017/2018

2017/2018

DM270

L-LIN/01 (GLOTTOLOGY AND LINGUISTICS)

DEPARTMENT OF BRAIN AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE THERAPY

PERCORSO COMUNE

1°

(05/03/2018 - 31/05/2018)

4

32 lesson hours

Italian

ORAL TEST

MANZELLI GIANGUIDO (titolare) - 4 ECTS

The main requirement is a previous non elementary knowledge regarding the brain areas (Broca, Wernicke etc.) linked to speech production, the vocal tract (larynx, vocal folds, pharynx, oral subcavity, nasal subcavity) and the main speech-language pathologies (aphasia, SLI, dyslexia and stuttering).

The course aims at a good competence in some aspects of linguistics and in particular in the field of articulatory phonetics. A specific skill in using IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) must be achieved by every student.

The course will take into account some general aspects dealt with in linguistics such as the specific nature of the human language (Ferdinand de Saussure), the innatism hypothesis (universal innate grammar, Noam Chomsky), the double articulation (duality of patterning) in morphemes and phonemes (André Martinet), the functions of language (expressive or emotive, conative, referential, poetic, metalingual, phatic, Roman Jakobson), the distinction between phonetics (articulatory, acoustic, auditory) and phonology, i.e. redundancy (non pertinence) vs. pertinence, aka distinctiveness, detectable by the minimal pair test (pinpointing Italian phonemes), the contrast among conditioned variants (allophones) as in the case of Italian nasal speech sounds. As for the basic subject of the course, i.e. aticulatory phonetics, consonantal speech sounds are defined on the basis of three parameters, manner of articulation (stops, fricatives, affricates, nasals, vibrants, laterals, approximants), place of articulation (from bilabial to glottal), phonation type (vocal chords behaviour, in particular voice vs. voicelessness), vocalic speech sounds (mapped on the Daniel Jones’s vowel trapezium, see IPA schema), defined by three parameters, i.e. front-back axis (front, central and back vowels), vertical axis (low, mid-low, mid, mid-high, high vowels) and lip rounding (rounded vs. unrounded vowels). As far as suprasegmental phonetics is concerned fundamental themes are represented by the syllable structure (drawn as a tree diagram displaying onset, nucleus and coda), the distinction between open and closed syllable, necessary in order to cope with the issue of vowel length in Italian along with the concept of stress (intensive accent) vs. pitch (tonal accent), i.e the lengthenig of Italian vowels in stressed open penultimate syllables. Eventually, a last issue to be taken into account is intonation, the variation of spoken pitch used to distinguish statements (falling intonation) and questions (rising intonation) in most languages, Italian included.

Lectures. During lectures photocopies concerning subjects under scrutiny will be provided by the teacher.

For general issues of linguistics it is recommended:
Graffi, Giorgio & Scalise, Sergio (2013), Le lingue e il linguaggio.
Introduzione alla linguistica, Bologna, il Mulino, 337 pp.
or in the alternative:
Berruto, Gaetano & Cerruti, Massimo (2011), La linguistica. Un corso introduttivo, Torino UTET Università, 350 pp.
As for phonetics the following text is compulsory:
Albano Leoni, Federico & Maturi, Pietro (2002), Manuale di fonetica, Roma, Carocci editore, 172 pp. In particular: chapter 1 (Introduction), chapter 2 (Articulatory phonetics and phonetic transcription), and, optionally, chapter 4 (Auditory phonetics and speech perception).

In the oral examination the student must demonstrate to have thoroughly assimilated the contents of the course and to be able to provide a phonetic transcription of Italian words in IPA.