WA - 3BA ELTIT (2021/22)

15-PLF-EL-11

The course is meant to provide the basis for doing empirical research in linguistics. It will be devoted to juxtaposing the qualitative and quantitative approaches to language-related research with a focus on social context phenomena. Practical aims:
- to develop the ability to design data collection procedures for qualitative analysis
- to develop the ability to present a project and critically evaluate own and others’ views in a debate
- to develop the ability to critically evaluate the quantitative/qualitative analysis selected as adequate to the research questions posed.

Course Objectives:  

• To develop understanding of the relationship between reading, eye movements and cognitive processing,
• To examine experimental paradigms used in reading research and to interpret the types of results this paradigms have uncovered. 

Student Learning Objectives:   
At the end of course, students should be able to:  

• Briefly describe how vision is executed,
• List major eye parts, types of eye movements and eye-tracking measures,
• Describe a selection of paradigms used to experimentally test hypothesis testable during reading,
• List major findings from eye-tracking research on visual and auditory language processing.

In this course we will examine the relation between language and mind by considering evidence on language and cognition. Topics to be covered include: word acquisition, storage, and retrieval; mechanisms underlying sentence comprehension and production; the ‘anatomy’ of conversation and discourse abilities; finally, the  behavioural and neurophysiological mechanisms underlying reading and writing abilities. The purpose of this course is to provide a survey of current scholarship on the relation of language and cognition in the domain of word, sentence, and discourse processing, including a review of recent developments in the literature. The necessary background is covered in introductory courses in Linguistics and Linguistic Theory: Psycholinguistics 1.