The theme of the seminar is borrowed from the title of the book which my colleagues have kindly dedicated to me. The book is an overview of many areas of research with one common denominator – sounds. It is divided into three major parts, devoted to diachrony, theory and empirical studies. From my perspective, another common denominator is a rather amicable approach of the authors to natural, phonetically based explanations as well as their interest in language acquisition.
In order to enable the students to read and enjoy selected articles from the book, I will first introduce them shortly to the theory of Natural Phonology. Natural Phonology belongs to the unorthodox approaches to phonology and acquisition. Its focus is on the speaker and language use as well as on the extralinguistic conditions that shape the usage and acquisition of language. It aims at providing a big picture view on language, informed by disciplines outside of linguistics.
Later in the course, the participants will be asked to read and present in class the selected papers from the cited book.
- Nauczyciel: Katarzyna Dziubalska-Kołaczyk