College Schools, Departments & Programs

Linguistics

Course Descriptions
  • LING-L 103 Introduction to the Study of Language (3 cr.) A survey of perspectives on language, covering topics such as the relation between the form of words and sentences and their meanings, the sounds of languages and their dialect variations, the use of language in daily life, language in humans and animals, and the relationship between language and thought.
  • LING-L 112 Language and Politics (3 cr.) Explores how language and politics influence each other. The speeches of presidents, vice presidents, congressmen, senators, governors, and action group members will be examined. Course topics include notions of context, political pronouns, parallelism, metaphors, questions and answers, political correctness, censorship, and the politics about languages (language policy issues).
  • LING-L 203 Introduction to Linguistic Analysis (3 cr.) Introduction to basic concepts of linguistic analysis, exemplifying the general principles of structural approaches to the modeling of language. Focus on, and application of, analytical methods applied in phonetics/phonology and morphology/syntax. Credit given for only one of L203 or L303.
  • LING-L 205 Language and Style (3 cr.) A study of variation in language, particularly as it affects the transmission of meaning. Geographic, social, sexual, and situational linguistic variation will be studied. The specialized forms and functions of the languages of politics, advertising, and literature will be examined in detail, as will various strategies for verbal manipulation.
  • LING-L 210 Topics in Language and Society (3 cr.) The study of topics relating to the role of language as a social phenomenon. May be repeated with a different topic for a maximum of 6 credit hours.
  • LING-L 214 Animal Communication (3 cr.) A comparative overview surveying basic aspects of animal communication, including human communication, and covering such issues as the nature of communicative signals, the relative unity versus diversity within communicating groups, and the role of learning versus innateness in communication systems.
  • LING-L 245 Language and Computers (3 cr.) Present-day computer systems work with human language. This course surveys issues relating natural language to computers, covers real-world applications, and provides practical experience with natural language on computers. Topics include text encoding, search technology, machine translation, dialogue systems, computer-aided language learning, and the social context of technology.
  • LING-L 306 Phonetics (3 cr.) Introduction to the nature of speech, and the physiology and process of speech production, and training in IPA transcription of utterances drawn from the languages of the world, including various English dialects. The course includes an emphasis on naturally occurring speech and understanding physical aspects of speech behavior. Some laboratory work is included.
  • LING-L 307 Phonology (3 cr.) R: L306. Basic concepts such as the phoneme and distinctive feature as defined and used within particular theories. The relationship of phonology to phonetics and morphology; exploration of salient aspects of sound structure and some characteristic modes of argumentation; extensive phonological analysis with some practice in writing phonological rules.
  • LING-L 308 Morphology (3 cr.) P: L103, L203, or L307. An introduction to morphology, the study of the internal structure of words. Topics include the concept of the morpheme, the structure of words and processes of word formation, inflection versus derivation, and issues in morphological theory. Students will do morphological analyses on forms drawn from a variety of languages.
  • LING-L 310 Syntax (3 cr.) R: L203. Examination of the basic concepts, assumptions, and argumentation of modern syntactic theory to describe and analyze common syntactic structures in English and other languages. Practice in constructing and evaluating grammars.
  • LING-L 315 Introduction to Sociolinguistics (3 cr.) Examines the relationship between language and society. Issues include the nature of sociolinguistics; the importance of age, sex, socioeconomic status, language ideologies; why people use different dialects/languages in different situations; bilingualism and multilingualism; language choice, language attitudes, language endangerment; the relevance of sociolinguistics to general linguistics theory.
  • LING-L 325 Semantics (3 cr.) R: L203. An introduction to the relationship between linguistic forms and their meanings, use, and interpretation. Students will investigate the domain of linguistic semantics and acquire the "tools" to do semantic analysis and to critically evaluate those of others.
  • LING-L 367 Languages of the World (3 cr.) P: L103 or L203. Survey of the language families of the world, including their chief grammatical characteristics, geographical distribution, and cultural status. Topics include methods and evidence for language grouping, causes for linguistic diversity, characteristics of endangered languages, and causes for their endangerment.
  • LING-L 399 Readings in Linguistics (Honors) (1-6 cr.) P: Consent of departmental honors committee. Honors course. May be repeated twice for a maximum of 12 credit hours.
  • LING-L 415 Corpus Linguistics (3 cr.) P: L203 and L245. Computer technology has revolutionized the ways linguists approach data. Large bodies of text (corpora) can now be searched to uncover complexities in natural data and explore specific linguistic phenomena. Explores the nature of corpora and programs that annotate or automatically produce a concordance, and how such programs are developed and used.
  • LING-L 430 Language Change and Variation (3 cr.) P: L307. R: L310 or L308. An introduction to how languages change over time and how prehistoric languages can be reconstructed by comparing their modern descendants. Major topics include principles of language change; historical reconstruction; language relatedness and language families; variation and the mechanism of language change; contact-induced change; the birth and death of languages.
  • LING-L 431 Field Methods (3 cr.) P: L307. R: L310. Introduction to the procedures involved in the structural description of language, using a native speaker of an unfamiliar language whose speech will be analyzed.
  • LING-L 432 Advanced Field Methods (3 cr.) P: L431. Advanced analysis of the language under study in L431.
  • LING-L 435 Foundational Skills in Computational Linguistics (3 cr.) No previous programming experience required. Introduces basic concepts in programming such as loops or functions with the goal of attaining practical skills for text processing and solving problems in computational linguistics: expression searching, managing text, searching in text, and extracting information from text.
  • LING-L 441 Field Methods in Sociolinguistics (3 cr.) P: LING-L307 and L315. R: L310. A practical introduction to sociolinguistic research, including methods of data collection and quantitative analysis. Experience in all stages of sociolinguistic research, culminating in an original research paper developed from fieldwork. Topics may include social variation among Bloomington natives, regional variation in the Midwest, gender differences among IU students, politeness strategies, and register differences associated with different settings.
  • LING-L 445 The Computer and Natural Language (3 cr.) Present-day computer systems work with human language in many different forms, whether as stored data in the form of text, typed queries to a database or search engine, or speech commands in a voice-driven computer system. We also increasingly expect computers to produce human language, such as user-friendly error messages and synthesized speech. This course surveys a range of linguistic issues and problems in computational linguistics.
  • LING-L 480 Introduction to African Linguistics (3 cr.) P: L203 or linguistics major. Introduction to the linguistic study of African languages; questions of language distribution, typological and genetic classification, comparative reconstruction, and structural aspects of individual languages.
  • LING-L 481 Language in Africa (3 cr.) Study of language as an integral component of the lives of African peoples. Topics include linguistic rituals, such as greetings, condolences, apologies, and leave-taking; speaking the unspeakable, joking and insulting, storytelling, proverbs, and anthroponymy. Issues addressed include women and rhetoric, language education, and the dynamics of language spread.
  • LING-L 485 Topics in Linguistics (3 cr.) P: Varies according to topic. Studies in special topics not ordinarily covered in departmental courses.
  • LING-L 490 Linguistic Structures (3 cr.) P: Consent of instructor. The linguistic analysis of particular aspects of the structure of one language or a group of closely related languages.
  • LING-X 490 Readings in Linguistics (1-4 cr.) R: 12 credit hours of linguistics, or L103 and advanced work in a foreign language. Directed reading in various fields of linguistics. May not duplicate a regularly offered course. May be repeated up to a maximum of 12 credit hours in X490 and L408.
  • LING-L 499 Honors Project (1-6 cr.) P: Approval of the departmental honors committee. Honors course. May be repeated twice for a maximum of 12 credit hours.