Seminaria przedmiotowe dla 1. roku stacjonarnych studiów magisterskich 2013/2014 (semestr letni) :: 1MA subject seminars 2013/2014 (summer term)

This seminar will be devoted to the study and discussion of the most important and seminal articles on Canadian history, culture, and literature as well as a few short stories and novels by Canadian authors in order to give students specializing in the field of literary and cultural studies (as well as others interested in the field) a possibility to supplement and broaden their knowledge. A range of topics is going to be taken into consideration and reflected in the selected texts and in-class discussions, among them: feminism, multiculturalism, postmodernism and postcolonialism, and cross-diasporic encounters to name only a few. Critical reading of all assigned texts is obligatory and credits will be given on the basis of students’ active participation and tests results.

 

Selected Bibliography:

Hammill, Faye. 2007. Canadian literature. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Kröller, Eva-Marie. 2004. The Cambridge companion to Canadian literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

New, W.H. 2003. A history of Canadian literature. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press.

Languages differ in the way they categorize non-linguistic reality. This means that speakers of different languages need different mental representations of that external reality to conceptualize the intended message for linguistic processing. While some schools of thought assume that linguistic concepts are inborn and universal, we will explore the opposite, assuming that concepts as mental representations are dynamic and based on the totality of an individual’s physical, social and linguistic experiences. First, we will focus on the Whorfian hypothesis that language influences the way we experience non-linguistic reality, revisiting theoretical arguments in the decades-old dispute and looking into empirical evidence of linguistic and non-linguistic processing in people who speak different languages. Then we will look into research stemming from Slobin’s thinking for speaking hypothesis, which assumes that speakers pay attention to relations that can be expressed by their language. Finally, we will examine the embodied cognition hypothesis, assuming that  linguistic concepts are grounded in sensory and motor experiences of reality. All of these approaches will be exemplified by published research reports from linguistics, psychology and cognitive science. We will look into explanations of these empirical findings and ponder related issues, such as the nature of a concept and conceptual representations in monolingual and bilingual speakers.

The course is going to be fairly interdisciplinary, touching on cognitive science and linguistic theories, psychology, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, cognitive linguistics and bilingualism research, so genuine interest in any of these should be a merit, but the only entry requirement is inquisitiveness. Credit requirements will include reading the assigned readings, participation in class discussions and presentations based on published research reports.
 

The aim of the course is to acquaint students with the main principles and objectives of Content and Language Integrated Learning defined as ‘a dual-focused educational approach in which an additional language is used for the learning and teaching of both content and language’ (Coyle, Hood and March 2010: 10). Topics discussed during the seminar will include: different models of CLIL (subject-led and language-led), defining learning outcomes, evaluating and designing CLIL materials and assessment techniques, language used in CLIL with specific reference to the difference between BICS (Basic Interpersonal Communicative Skills) and CALP (Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency) and subject specific and academic language as well as ways of developing students’ communication and cognitive skills. Participants will be expected to take active part in class discussions, prepare a presentation (sample CLIL activities) and pass a final test.
 

Selected bibliography:

Bentley, Kate. 2010. The TKT course. CLIL module. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Coyle, Do, Philip Hood and David Marsh. 2010. CLIL. Content and language integrated learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Dale, Liz and Rosie Tanner. 2012. CLIL activities. A resource for subject and language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Llinares, Ana, Tom Morton and Rachel Whitaker. 2012. The role of language in CLIL. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mehisto, Peeter, David Marsh and Maria Jesus Frigols. 2008. Uncovering CLIL. Content and language integrated learning in bilingual and multilingual education. Oxford: Macmillan

The seminar focuses on the role of media in modern society, laying particular emphasis on the relationship between the media and their broader sociocultural and historical environment. It discusses selected issues pertaining to media ownership, professionals, representations, and audiences, stressing mutual connections among elements in the social and cultural whole. As a knowledge of history helps to understand the present, significant moments in media history will also be highlighted, especially regarding the development of the media in Britain and the USA. Participants will be expected actively to discuss course topics, give individual presentations, as well as pass a final test.

Ever since the Neogrammarians formulated their claims about the regularity of sound change, evolving sounds have provided a fertile breeding ground for debates, or even controversies. In addition to the question of whether sound change is regular or not, many more sticking points with regard to forces operative in sound change, and explanation thereof, have emerged. Are listeners or speakers initiators of language change? Whose role is fundamental, that of children or that of adults? Are language internal or the so-called external factors more decisive? Is functional load capable of halting sound change? Do languages remain equally complex when they undergo change? How important are individual speakers in shaping histories of languages? Is sound change a form of cultural evolution? These are just some sound-change related battlegrounds that we will visit in this course. After an overview of the general issues, we will stage a series of debates, in which you will pitch your arguments, as well as your argumentative skill, against those of your opponents. In the process, you will gain insight into some of the most exciting debates in linguistics by becoming familiar with some key issues in the area of explanation in historical phonology.

Course assessment will be based on active participation in class discussions (informed by assigned reading), participation in an in-class debate on one of the topics (as a discussant and as a referee), and regular attendance.

Selected bibliography:

Aitchison, Jean. 2001. Language change. Progress or decay? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Joseph, Brian D.; Janda, Richard D. (eds.). 2003. The handbook of historical linguistics. Carlton: Blackwell.

Labov, William. 1994 [2010]. Principles of linguistic change. Vol 1. Internal factors. Oxford: Blackwell.

Luraghi, Silvia; Bubenik, Vit (eds.). 2010. Continuum companion to historical linguistics. London: Continuum.

The course is designed to introduce students to the basic notions of cognitive linguistics and how they are linked to concepts of general cognition. In particular, the following issues will be discussed: the relation between categorization and polysemy of open and closed lexical classes; the embodiment hypothesis and metaphor; perception and cognitive grammar; language universals and language variation; force dynamics and modality. Upon completion of the course the students will know the basic concepts of cognitive linguistics, as well as know the major approaches and the basic research questions of cognitive linguistics. They will also understand the connection between theoretical constructs and empirical research.

Eye tracking is growing in popularity in many research fields e.g. cognitive psychology, medicine, ergonomics, engineering and many more. The main aim of this seminar is to introduce students to eye-tracking as a method of studying language processing. During this course students will learn the basics of human vision and eye tracking research. We will discuss the intricacies of the bilingual mind as revealed by the study of eye movements. Special emphasis will be placed on the use of eye-tracking to study speech recognition and reading. The only prerequisite for this seminar is a keen interest in the topic. The final assessment will be based on regular attendance, reading of assigned texts, active participation in classroom discussions, oral presentations, and an end-of-term test.

Selected reading:
Gompel, Roger PG van (ed.). 2007. Eye Movements: A Window on Mind and Brain. 1st ed. Elsevier Science.
Holmqvist, Kenneth, Marcus Nystrom, Richard Andersson, Richard Dewhurst, Halszka Jarodzka & Joost van de Weijer. 2011. Eye tracking: a comprehensive guide to methods and measures. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Liversedge, Simon P, Iain D Gilchrist & Stefan Everling. 2011. The Oxford handbook of eye movements. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.
Radach, Ralph, Jukka Hyona & Heiner Deubel. 2003. The Mind’s Eye: Cognitive and Applied Aspects of Eye Movement Research. Elsevier.
Rayner, Keith, Alexander Pollatsek, Jane Ashby & Charles Clifton Jr. 2011. Psychology of Reading. Psychology Press.

The seminar is devoted to the discussion of most famous individualities of British art and music in comparison with respective artistic and musical phenomena in continental Europe. The seminar will involve class lectures and writing assignments. The most important personalities discussed during the course will be William Hogarth, William Turner, Henry Moore (art); and Edward Elgar, Richard Addinsell and Benjamin Britten (music). A special emphasis will be put on Polonica in British music - e.g. William Hogarth's impact on Polish art, Elgar's Polonia or Addinsell's Warsaw Concerto - as well as Brittanica in Polish and European art and music, e.g. European operas based on Shakespeare's works or Polish music composed to Shakespeare's sonnets. Students will be given an opportunity to choose and discuss other respective artistic and musical phenomena.

Bibliography:
Norman Davies, Europe, Oxford University Press 1996
Norman Davies, The Isles. A History, Macmillan 1999
Wojciech Lipoński, Narodziny Cywilizacji Wysp Brytyjskich, Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2001
Wojciech Lipoński, Dzieje kultury brytyjskiej, PWN 2003
Wojciech Lipoński, Polska a Brytania, Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM 1978
Peter Rietbergen, Europe. A Cultural History, Routledge 2006
 

Books are inevitably linked with technology. E.L. James’s Fifty shades of Grey became the best selling Kindle book of all time, thus promoting the revolutionary e-book format (although many protested that the phenomenon was less a matter of the readers’ progressiveness than of the fact that they were too embarrassed to be seen with a hard copy of the “mummy porn” in hand). Still, for a number of readers the very thought of substituting the printed book with its e-counterpart is as unthinkable as the revolutionary change from the handwritten book to print must have been for fifteenth-century readers, and as controversial as very likely was the fourth-century switch from the scroll to the codex, i.e. the now-familiar book format. While the enthusiasts of smartphones, tablets and e-readers prophesise the imminent death of the book, this seminar looks back at the beginnings of the codex, with a view to demonstrating that the history of the book has been, essentially, a history of technological revolutions which have their roots in the Middle Ages. We will get to know the actors of the medieval book market and learn the tricks of their trade; we’ll retrace the process of book production sheep by sheep and we’ll translate the manuscript layout into the lingo of HTML users. The purpose of this seminar is to shake the dust off of terms like paleography, codicology and manuscript studies and to demonstrate the adaptability of medieval parchment to modern technology via digital editing. The seminar is directed at students who appreciate books for reasons unrelated to their monetary value as well as those who would like to gain a deeper understanding of medieval texts. Course requirements involve active participation in class discussion, reading homework assignments and a successful completion of an end-of-semester test.
 

Brown, Michelle P. 2007. A guide to western historical scripts: From antiquity to 1600. (2nd edition). London: British Library.

Brown, Michelle P. and Patricia Lovett. 1999. The historical sourcebook for scribes. London: The British Library.

Clemens, Raymond and Timothy Graham. 2007. Introduction to manuscript studies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

De Hamel, Christopher. 1997. A history of illuminated manuscripts. (2nd edition). London: Phaidon Press.

Derolez, Albert. 2012. The palaeography of Gothic manuscript books: From the twelfth  to early sixteenth century.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

The seminar presents the 1950s as a flowering of the traditional canon of American culture, as it had developed over the 19th century. The classes will present a varied selection of fiction and criticism, ranging from experimental and revolutionary acts by William Gaddis, through established and academically appraised authors and critics such as Robert Penn Warren, through mainstream popular authors such as Mary McCarthy, to niche eccentrics such Cordwainer Smith or Patricia Highsmith. There also going to be presentations about comic strips, classical music of the time, cinema, graphic art, and magazine publishing.

The  seminar will be devoted to the discussion of language design, its origin, evolution, and the place it occupies in a human mind. Recent generative studies  (the Minimalist Program,  in particular) have led to the formulation of the narrowly-defined concept of Language Faculty (FL), part of human biology. Such a biolinguistic perspective opens a new, fascinating agenda for the study of language.  Here is just a sample of issues to be raised in the seminar:  Which linguistic elements  enter (a narrowly defined)  FL, and which fall out of its range?  Is  FL organized like other cognitive and organic systems , or is it unique? Is FL specifically human? How did it evolve, and did it evolve at all?  Is there evidence for the structure of FL from neuroscience? How simple and optimal is the design of FL? The list of scholars whose views will be explored includes such names as: Chomsky, Pinker, Jackendoff, Hauser, Fitch,  Moro, Boeckx, Hornstein, Bickerton, Berwick, Everett, Baker, Embick, Phillips, and others.

There are no special prerequisites for the course, and it is recommended to anyone interested in linguistics, psycholinguistics, neurolinguistics, theoretical syntax and the like, though the course is not meant to include formal syntactic analysis as such.  During the course, the talks in class will be inspired by selected readings, and the final assessment will in part be based on the results of the end-term test.

Select bibliography:
Berwick, R.C. 1999. “Language evolution and the minimalist program: the origins of syntax”. W: Hurford, J.R., Studdert-Kennedy, M. and Knight, Ch. (red.). Approaches to the evolution of language. Cambridge: CUP. 320-340.
Berwick, R.C. & Chomsky, N. forthcoming. “The Biolinguistic Program: The Current State of its Evolution and Development”. Biolinguistic Investigations, Di Sciullo & Aguero (eds.), MIT Press.
Bickerton, D. 1999. “Catastrophic evolution: the case for a single step from protolanguage to full human language”. W: Hurford, J.R., Studdert-Kennedy, M. i Knight, Ch. (red.). 341-360.
Boeckx, C. 2007. Lingusitic minimalism. Oxford:  Blackwell
Boeckx, C. 2008. Bare Syntax. Oxford: OUP
Boeckx, C. 2010. Language in Cognition. Uncovering Mental Structures and the Rules Behind Them. Malden, MA. Wiley-Blackwell.
Chomsky, N. 1995. The minimalist program. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Chomsky, N. 2000a. New horizons in the study of language and mind. Cambridge:CUP. Chomsky, N. 2002. On nature and language (edited by Adriana Belletti and Luigi Rizzi). Cambridge: CUP.
Chomsky, N. 2004. “Biolinguistics and the Human Capacity”. Lecture delivered at MTA, Budapest, May 17
Chomsky, N.  2005a. “Three factors in language design”. Linguistic Inquiry 36.1. 1-22.
Chomsky, N. 2008. “Of Minds and language”. Biolinguistics 1.1 9-27.
Chomsky, N. 2011. “Language and Other Cognitive Systems. What Is Special About Language?”. Language Learning and Development, 7: 263–278.
Chomsky, N. 2012. The Science of Language. Interviews with James Gilvray. Cambridge: CUP.
Everett, D. 2007. “Recursion and human thought. Why the Piraha don’t have numbers”. The Reality Club.
Fitch, W. T. 2010. The evolution of language. Cambridge: CUP.
Hornstein, N. 2009. A theory of syntax. Minimal operations and Universal Grammar. Cambridge: CUP
Hauser, M. D., Chomsky N., Fitch, W. T. 2002.  “The faculty of language: What it is,who has it, and how did it     evolve”?. Science 28: 1569–1579.
Jackendoff, R. 1997. The architecture of the language faculty. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press.
Jackendoff, R. 2002. Foundations of Language. Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution. Oxford University Press.
Jackendoff, R. 2012. “What is the human language faculty? Two views”. To appear in Language.
Moro, A. 2008. The boundaries of Babel. The brain and the enigma of impossible  languages.
Pinker, S. 1995. The language instinct. London: Penguin
Pinker, S. and Jackendoff, R. 2005. “The Faculty of Language: What’s special about it?”. Cognition 95(2):201-236.
Phillips, C. 2013. “Some arguments and nonarguments for reductionist accounts of syntactic phenomena”. Language and Cognitive Process. 28, Nos 1-2. 156-187.
Poeppel, D., Embick, D. 2005. "Defining the Relation Between Linguistics and Neuroscience". In Anne Cutler. Twenty-First Century Psycholinguistics: Four Cornerstones. Lawrence Erlbaum.173-89.
Tajsner, P. 2012. “Minimalizm z perspektywy biolingwistyki”. In Stalmaszczyk, P. (ed.). Współczesne językoznawstwo generatywne. Podstawy metodologiczne. Łódź: Primum Verbum. 87-116.

The topic of this seminar is addressed to students who plan to write their master theses on texts as verbal means of signification embedded in social roles of communicating individuals and their culture. Therefore, the point of departure will be a homocentric view of language. Studying people how they communicate in verbal and nonverbal behavior, we will observe which kind of dynamic links unite linguistic communities through verbal discourses and speech events concentrated around the realization of intentions, tasks or purposes of individuals. To support the position of human linguistics it will be necessary to discuss the achievements of anthropology, psychology and sociology as well as biology, philosophy and ethnology against the background of the philosophy of language.

Assessment methods: To receive credits students are expected to take active part seminars; they are obliged to select and to submit individually or in-group a presentation of one or two positions related to the topic of the seminar.

Bibliography:
Burgoon, Michael, Michael Ruffner 1978. Human Communication. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
Lock, Andrew, Charles R. Peters (red.). 1996/1999. Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. Oxford: Clarendon Press – New York: Oxford University Press/Oxford, UK and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Yngve, Victor H. 1996. From Grammar to Science. New Foundations for General Linguistics. Amsterdam – Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Yngve, Victor H., Zdzisław Wąsik (red.). 2004. Exploring Hard-Science Linguistics. London – New York: Continuum.
Wąsik, Elżbieta. 2003. On the idea of an ‘Ecological Grammar’ of verbal discourse from a human-centered perspective. Scripta Neophilologica Posnaniensia V: 263–274.
Wąsik, Elżbieta 2005. “Sociological pragmatics from a hard-science perspective A side-note to the conception of human linguistics.” Scripta Neophilologica Posnaniensia VII: 181–193.

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