2BA/3BA Proseminars (winter term 2016/2017) :: Proseminaria 2BA/3BA (semestr zimowy 2016/2017)

This proseminar deals with the basics of lexical semantics, that is, the branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words. After defining our object of study – the word – we are going to look for answers to the title question: how is it that words ‘carry’ meaning and where do  language users find it? Is word meaning located in the part of the outside world to which a given word points; is it hidden in the network of relations between a given word and other words; does it ‘live’ in the speaker’s/hearer’s mind? Perhaps the answer is all or none of the above? Apart from examining various theories of word meaning, we are also going to look at how lexical relations come into being and what function(s) they serve, and, to some extent, at how they are represented in dictionaries. It may thus be a good idea to take this course if you also intend to participate in a proseminar on lexicography. Needless to say, you are welcome to attend this proseminar irrespective of what other courses you choose.
    Credits will be given on the basis of class attendance, taking part in discussion of the assigned readings, and several written homework assignments.

This seminar will be devoted to studying the representation of natural and city landscapes, often depicted in travelogue forms, in selected works of American non-narrative experimental film. Largely influenced by the 1920s European avant-garde movements in visual arts and cinema, much U.S. post-war experimental film culture deliberately opposed the majority of mainstream, fast-paced and commercial Hollywood productions and provided a highly immersive cinematic experience through the use of nonstandard imagery, mise-en-scene and editing. Although many post-1960s American avant-garde projects focus on depicting realistic settings in the manner of Bazinian realism, they are also likely to present an exaggerated and deliberately distorted perception of reality while documenting an intriguing psychogeography of natural scenery and realities of urban life. In line with these tendencies, we will analyze selected works of both highly celebrated and less known experimental filmmakers, such as Ralph Steiner, Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, Peter Hutton, Bruce Baillie, James Benning, Stan Brakhage, Larry Gottheim, Godfrey Reggio, Bill Morrison, Jon Behrens and others.  In particular, we will discuss the ways in which the given pictures tend to celebrate and/or challenge the concept of the American landscape by incorporating conventions traditionally associated with the Hudson River School and luminist painting, early cinematography and contemporary film aesthetics, including the city symphony, phantom rides, structural film, road movie as well as pure, observational, slow or sublime cinema, etc. Finally, we will examine how the analyzed imagery may offer a creative comment on some major trends in 20th and 21st century U.S. and global culture.

Credit requirements will include active in-class participation based on the assigned readings and videos, completing a group project as well as passing an end-of-term multiple choice test on the course content.

Selected references:
Harper, Graeme and Jonathan Rayner (eds.). 2010. Cinema and landscape. Bristol: Intellect.
Lefebvre, Martin (ed. ). 2006. Landscape and film. London: Routledge.
MacDonald, Scott. 1993. Avant-garde film: Motion studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
MacDonald, Scott. 2001. The garden in the machine: A field guide to independent films about place. Berkeley: University of California Press.
MacDonald, Scott. 2014. Avant-doc: Intersections of documentary and avant-garde cinema. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
O'Pray, Michael. 2003. Avant-garde film: Forms, themes and passions. New York: Wallflower Press.
Ruoff, Jeffrey (ed.). 2006. Virtual voyages: Cinema and travel. Durham: Duke University Press.
Sitney, Paul. 2002. Visionary film: The American avant-garde, 1943-2000. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Although the Indigenous People of North America come from diverse cultural backgrounds, we tend to think of them as a unified ethnic and cultural group. Moreover, Native Americans themselves embrace an inter-tribal identity in addition to their tribal affiliations (as well as a sense of belonging to the American nation). This is, however, a relatively recent development. The aim of this seminar is to analyze the processes that have led to the creation of modern pan-Indianism in the United States. We will analyze the federal policy of assimilation at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries whose goal was to assimilate tribal members into American society by means of, among others, education in boarding schools. We will examine how, paradoxically, the boarding school experience had led to the blending of Native cultures and identities as well as the rise of American Indian unity. We will also look at the changes in federal policy towards American Indians in the twentieth century, which have influenced both the socio-political status of Native Americans, and the ways in which they have negotiated their cultures and identities; the most important pan-Indian organizations and their changing aims and perspectives; the Native American Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s; and the resulting period of self-determination.
For a successful completion of the course, students are required to read the assigned materials, actively participate in class, and give a final presentation.

Selected bibliography:
Archuleta, Brenda J. Child and K. Tsianina Lomawaima (eds). 2000. Away from home: American Indian boarding school experiences. Phoenix, Arizona: The Heard Museum
Deloria, Vine, Jr. and Clifford M. Lytle. 1983. American Indians, American justice. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Hertzberg, Hazel W. 1971. The search for an American Indian identity: Modern pan-Indian movements. USA: Syracuse University Press.
Smith Paul, Chaat and Warrior, Allen Robert. 1996. Like a hurricane: The Indian movement from Alcatraz to Wounded Knee. New York: The New York Press.

The aim of the seminar is to make participants more familiar with dictionaries of the English language.  Students of English can be assumed to be regular dictionary users, but in this seminar we will look at dictionaries from a different perspective. Various types of dictionaries will be discussed, and their advantages and disadvantages will be highlighted. The meetings will make participants aware of the wide range of dictionaries, which they might not have come across yet, let alone used. We will see how tradition and lexicographic conventions on the one hand, and the development of new technologies, linguistic theories and research into dictionary use – on the other, have affected dictionaries and the process of dictionary making. We will explore new functionalities that the electronic medium offers (e.g., search options, data presentation or mixing dictionary content with other (non)linguistic data). Dictionary users will be presented in a dual role: as content recipients and content providers, and the value of user-generated content will be analyzed. To appreciate the significance of innovation in dictionaries, selected novel features will be contrasted with dictionary-making conventions. The challenges that Internet technologies pose to dictionary compilers will also be discussed. Anybody who already consults dictionaries or would like to start doing it (with more background knowledge) is more than welcome.

As media have become central to the modern world, the profession of journalism and the figure of the journalist have caught the attention of filmmakers. Journalism and journalists feature prominently in British and American cinema. In its first part this seminar introduces the profession of journalism, stressing journalism’s ethics. Then, in its main part, it discusses the varied and changing face of journalism, as it has been presented in selected British and American films. The films discussed will include classics such as Citizen Kane, as well as less known productions. Towards the end of the seminar the students will present their own interpretations of the image of journalism and journalist in films. For this purpose they will work on films not discussed in earlier in class and will use the theoretical knowledge and conceptual frameworks acquired during the course. Assessment will be based on continuous evaluation, student presentations, and a final test.

Bibliography:
Ehrlich, Matthew C. 2006. Journalism in the movies. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Harcup, Tony. 2015. Journalism: Principles and practice. (3rd edition.) Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
McNair, Brian. 2009. Journalists in film: Heroes and villains. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Does American English use glottal stops? Is there T-voicing in accents of British English? How often are sounds in /sts/ sequences actually deleted? Who speaks faster: women or men? Are the last vowels of <roses> and <Rosa’s> the same or different? Instead of having to rely on faith in authority, you can find answers to questions like these by using empirical data, and in this proseminar you will do just that. You will work with a corpus of a variety of English that you chose from a number of options given, and you will use it to address an issue from the area of phonetics and phonology of your choice. After a brief introduction to corpus linguistics and corpus phonology, we’ll move on to a hands-on exploration of empirical data. You will learn how to use phonological corpora as a tool for gaining empirical data. By participating in the creation of time-aligned annotations, you will gain insight into how phonological corpora are made, and so you will be in a better position to assess what they can be effectively used for. All this will lead towards you answering a phonetic or phonological question of your choice. In addition, through exposure to recordings of spontaneous speech, you will become more intimately familiar with the sounds of the variety of English you decide to work on. Assessment will be based on a) active discussion of set readings b) preparation of annotations c) active participation d) an oral presentation of the results of a guided empirical mini-study.

Selected references:
Boersma, Paul & Weenink, David. 2016. Praat: doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.17, retrieved 21 April 2016 from http://www.praat.org/
Durand, Jacques; Gut, Ulrike & Gjert Kristoffersen (eds.). 2014. The Oxford handbook of corpus phonology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Eychenne, J. & R. Paternostro. (in press). “Analyzing transcribed speech with Dolmen”. In Detey, S.; Durand, J. ; Laks, B. & C. Lyche (eds.). Varieties of Spoken French. Oxford: Oxford University Press, D35-D52.
McEnery, Tony; Xiao, Richard & Yukio Tono. 2006. Corpus-based language studies. An advanced resource book. New York: Routledge.
Plag, Ingo; Homann, Julia & Gero Kunter. (forthcoming). Homophony and morphology: The acoustics of word-final S in English. Journal of Linguistics.

This course will provide an introduction to the study of similarities and differences among the world’s languages. The main questions that will be asked include: “What are the features that languages share?” and “How can we explain similarities among languages?”. We will examine in turn cross-linguistic generalizations concerning the main components of linguistic structure, i.e., lexicon (e.g. words for body parts and colour terms), phonology (e.g. types of sounds and ordering of sounds), morphology (e.g. types of morphemes and morphological categories) and syntax (e.g. ordering of words, agreement). In addition, we will discuss generalizations that have been proposed regarding language change, as in grammaticalization. Based on the idea that “The only useful generalizations about language are inductive generalizations.” (Bloomfield 1933: 20), throughout the course we will analyse examples from a variety of languages without adopting any theoretical framework. Therefore, drawing on a basic knowledge of linguistic terminology, the course can serve as a starting point for future explorations of such issues as the role of social and cultural factors in the development/loss of linguistic complexity or the extent to which patterns in language are universal or culture-specific.

References:
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
Moravcsik, Edith. 2013. Introducing language typology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (course book)

Grades:
Your final grade will be based on the following: a) a 20-minute presentation and b) participation based on regular attendance and participation in discussion. Course assessment (‘zaliczenie’): presentation (90%) and course participation (10%).

Speakers of different languages and dialects have been in contact since long before recorded history, and multilingualism and interaction with other speech varieties are everyday occurrences in today’s world. Yet only recently have scholars begun to understand the complex influences which languages can exert upon one another, and the different internal and external factors which determine the outcomes of contact. Even now, language contact as a field of study remains somewhat outside the mainstream of linguistics, a sort of hanger-on to sociolinguistics or Second Language Acquisition (SLA), overshadowed in respect and reputation by theoretical linguistics, acquisition, and cognitive science, and constantly plagued by all sorts of widely held sociopolitical myths about language and genetics, linguistic purity, foreign “accents”, etc.

This course surveys the current state of knowledge in the field: SLA and language contact; internal vs. external factors in linguistic outcomes of contact; borrowing and shift and their effects; problematic cases, including so-called “mixed languages”; convergence areas (Sprachbünde); and the most extreme examples of language contact, namely pidgins and creoles: their evolution, typical features, typology, and sociolinguistic aspects. Examples will be drawn from English, Polish, and other European languages where possible, but we will also examine cases of language contact around the world, including Asia, Africa, and the Americas.

Textbooks and references:
Thomason, Sarah Grey. 2001. Language Contact: An Introduction. Washington, DC: Georgetown U. Press.
Winford, Donald. 2003. An Introduction to Contact Linguistics. (Language in Society, Vol. 33.) Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Matras, Yaron. 2009. Language Contact. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.

The expressive side of the English language has rarely been treated with the seriousness it deserves, and this proseminar aims to remedy the situation at least to some extent. Generally speaking, it will be devoted to various ways of offending other people's sensibilities as they have developed in English over the last millenium and a half. However, it will also serve as a platform for discussing the social functions of swearing, touching upon such concepts as vulgarity, indecency, censorship, xenophobia, and misoginy.

Workload warning:
The proseminar is reading-heavy; students will be expected to read, interact with, and interpret texts from various periods of English history, both in class and at home. Credit requirements will include in-class participation and 2-3 research papers distributed throughout the semester.

Trigger warning:
The proseminar is about foul and blasphemous language in its various shapes and guises; consequently, participants should be prepared to be heavily exposed to such.

Reading list (selected):
Kate Burridge (2005). Weeds in the garden of words. Cambridge University Press.
Geoffrey Hughes (1998). Swearing. Penguin.
Geoffrey Hughes (2006). An encyclopaedia of swearing. Sharpe.
Tony McEnery (2006). Swearing in English. Routledge.
Melissa Mohr (2013). Holy sh*t. A brief history of swearing. Oxford University Press.
Ruth Wajnryb (2005). Expletive deleted. Free Press.

The aim of this seminar is to make participants familiar with the interdisciplinary field of Drama, Theatre and Performance studies. The drama strand of the course will be devoted to the study of chosen British and Irish plays in their social and historical contexts. The theatre studies strand will introduce the most important theories of theatre as well as demonstrate the ways a theatrical event can be studied, examining the three fundamental elements of it: performer, spectator and space. The performance studies strand will include a broader look outside the theatre and point to the performative aspects of social life (the performance of culture). Theories of cultural performance will be presented and the application of social science methodologies to a wide range of human activities, including the theatrical performance, will be studied.
Credits will be given on the basis of a) attendance b) active class participation based on assigned readings, c) preparing a minimum of one oral presentation on a given subject.

Textbooks and references:
Balme, Christopher B. 2008. The Cambridge Introduction to Theatre Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Carlson, Marvin. 2004. Performance: A Critical Introduction. New York: Routledge.
Erika Fischer-Lichte. 2014. The Routledge Introduction to Theatre and Performance Studies. London: Routledge.
Kotte, Andreas. 2010. Studying Theatre. Phenomena, Structures and Functions. Wien: LIT Verlag.
Mangan, Michael. 2013. The Drama, Theatre & Performance Companion. London: Macmillan.
Schechner, Richard. 2013. Performance Studies: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Od wielu lat psycholingwiści starają się odkrywać zagadki ludzkiego umysłu w kontekście języka. W trakcie tego proseminarium przyjrzymy się wynikom ich badań ukazujących naturę procesów zachodzących w ludzkim umyśle w czasie mówienia, pisania czy rozumienia mowy. Omówimy takie tematy jak pamięć, leksykon mentalny, procesy związane z produkcją i rozumieniem języka na poziomie słowa, zdania, tekstu. Poświęcimy też trochę czasu na omówienie kwestii dotyczących dwujęzyczności i wielojęzyczności. Dyskusje w ramach zajęć będą oparte na tekstach źródłowych wzbogaconych ćwiczeniami praktycznymi i materiałami video. Ocena z kursu będzie obejmować przygotowanie do zajęć, udział w dyskusjach oraz test semestralny.

Bibliografia:
Aitchison, Jean. 2002. Words in the Mind: An Introduction to the Mental Lexicon. (3rd Edition.) Wiley-Blackwell.
Aitchison, Jean. 2011. The articulate mammal: an introduction to psycholinguistics. London; New York: Routledge.
De Angelis, Gessica. 2007. Third or additional language acquisition. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Gleason, Jean Berko and Nan Bernstein Ratner (eds.). 2005. Psycholingwistyka. Gdansk: Gdanskie Wydaw. Psychologiczne.
Kurcz, Ida and Hanna Okuniewska. 2011. Język jako przedmiot badań psychologicznych: psycholingwistyka ogólna i neurolingwistyka. Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Szkoły Wyższej Psychologii Społecznej “Academica.”
Reisberg, Daniel. 2013. Cognition: exploring the science of the mind. New York: W.W. Norton & Co.

The aim of this seminar is to discuss a selection of recent American novels. Of our concern are the current developments of the fictional narrative as adapted by both men and women authors. The focus will be on key issues, themes, and concerns that have shaped the American reality and imagination throughout the last 25 years (the great majority of novels selected for this course were published in the 21st century). The forms and functions of the past, the notions and complexities of identity construction, as well as questions of belonging and connectivity will set the foundation for further analysis of the novels.

During the classes we will both devote attention to the singular novels excavating the intricacies of their narratives and we will also spend some time analyzing the chosen novels in each other’s context and in reference to one another. The students who enroll in the course are required to read the texts and engage in an active discussion in class. Also, every participant is required to prepare one presentation related to the course material (on a given topic).

Selected bibliography:
Bendixen, Alfred (ed.). 2012. A Companion to the American Novel. Wiley-Blackwell.
Dix, Andre, Brian Jarvis, Paul Jenner. 2011. The Contemporary American Novel in Context. Continuum.
O’Donnell, Patrick. 2010. The American Novel Now. Reading Contempoary American Fiction since 1980. Wiley-Blackwell.
Phelan, James (ed.). 2013. Reading the American Novel 1920–2010. Wiley-Blackwell.

Have you ever considered which word is easier to pronounce in English: scam or pram? Why is the frequency of words starting with /pʃ/ so high in Polish? How come that Berber has whole utterances composed of up to 32 consonants? In this seminar, we will try to answer these ever-nurturing questions and gain some insights into the principles that govern the phonological structure of words in English and other languages.
    One of the central questions addressed by contemporary phonological theories is concerned with the way in which segments combine to form larger linguistic units. The most basic combination of sounds found cross-linguistically is that of consonant + vowel (CV), which is attested in words in Hawaiian or Japanese, and a child's early words, e.g. mama, loly. Phonotactics is a branch of phonology dealing with language-specific restrictions on segment combinations, in particular on strings of consonants in words and syllables. Since sequences of consonants are generally avoided cross-linguistically, languages which allow CC(C)(C) present researchers with a particular challenge. Also, the structure of such clusters varies cross-linguistically. For instance, phonotactic constraints of many languages permit /t/+/r/, as in English try, German Traube 'grape', Italian treno 'train', but forbid the reverse sequence, whereby /t/ is preceded by /r/. Such a sequence is possible in few languages, including Polish rtęć 'mercury' and Russian rta 'mouth'. The goal of this course is to discuss phonotactic constraints in English and other languages from various perspectives. We will look into both theoretical approaches describing the phonotactics of words and syllables, and empirical studies on the acquisition, perception, and production of consonant clusters.
    For a successful completion of the course, students will be required to complete the reading assignment on time, actively contribute to in-class discussion, and do research into phonotactics of a selected language.

Male and female is a basic physical distinction that has important ramifications for individuals’ life experiences. Related to this distinction, but more complex than these two categories, is the concept of gender, which refers to an individual’s sense of identity as male, female, or something else (e.g., transgender) and the social expectations and behaviors related to their being in such categories. The first half of this class will explore how patterns of speaking perpetuate and create our experience of gender; what we mean by 'femininity' and 'masculinity' in discourse/interaction and how they are constructed and communicated in an everyday conversation as well as gendered speech in the public domain. Then it will turn to looking at how gender impacts individuals’ conception of themselves and others as well as how it impacts individuals’ experiences in the family, the workplace and in a variety of cultural contexts, ranging from the current day in the U.S.A. and Poland to the 20th century in India and Saudi Arabia. We will examine a variety of views working toward an understanding of the relationships between gender, society and language.

This course requires consistent reading of the assigned texts, active class participation as well as designing and conducting an individual mini-research project.

Selected bibliography:
Eckert, Penelope and Sally McConnell-Ginet. 2013. Language and gender (2nd edition). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Ehrlich, Susan, Miriam Meyerhoff and Janet Holmes (eds.). 2014. The handbook of language, gender, and sexuality (2nd edition). Wiley Blackwell.
Lips, Hilary M. 2014. Gender. The basics. London and New York: Routledge.
Litosseliti, Lia and Jane Sunderland (eds.). 2002. Gender identity and discourse analysis. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.

Renaissance English is generally associated with Elizabethan literature and treated as a period when little changed in the grammar. In this course you will learn that the language spoken in England between 1500 and 1700, traditionally referred to as Early Modern English, underwent dynamic change in certain areas of structure, often motivated by changes in society and stylistic considerations. We will discuss several intriguing morphological and syntactic developments in Renaissance English, focusing mainly on the emergence of the modern second person pronoun and relative pronoun paradigms, as well as the changes in verbal inflection and the developments within the class of auxiliary verbs, including DO and the modals. Having considered some theoretical aspects of the morphosyntactic developments covered by the course, for instance those concerning the interrelation between the modifications of grammar and sociolinguistic as well as stylistic issues, we shall examine the traces of variation and change in textual evidence, including diverse genres, such as drama, biblical passages, depositions, memoirs, personal correspondence, and manuals of good manners for children.
The final course mark will be based on the evaluation of a few home assignments, one oral presentation as well as on the active participation in class discussions (based on assigned readings) and attendance.

Reading list (selected):
Barber, Charles. 1997. Early Modern English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Cusack, Bridget. 1998. Everyday English: 1500-1700: A reader. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Mugglestone, Lynda (ed.). [2006] 2012. The Oxford history of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

For most students at WA, Hawthorne is known as the author of The Scarlet Letter, but his reputation also rests on his excellent short fiction. The seminar will discuss selected pieces of Nathaniel Hawthorne's short fiction, mostly the tales, plus an occasional essay
and some critical work about Hawthorne. The classes will focus on how to describe and discuss fiction, with written exercises on imagery description, plot and character description, and interpretation. Sample reading list will include "Young Goodman Brown", "Ethan Brand", "Wakefield", "The Maypole of Merrymount", the proto-science-fiction tales, and historical sketches.
Credits: The participants will have to write a critical essay on their selected tales.

The central topic of this proseminar, whose title has been borrowed from a book by Andrea Moro, will be to challenge a fairly widespread conviction that languages differ beyond limits and in unpredictable ways. Evans and Levinson (2009) define this point fairly conspicuously: “languages differ so fundamentally from one another at every level of description (sound, grammar, lexicon, meaning) that it is very hard to find any single structural property they share”. During the proseminar this claim will be confronted with arguments by different authors and examples from distinct languages. The issue of language diversity will be addressed from a variety of viewpoints, and some of the questions to raise will be: Why is there language diversity at all?  How is it manifested? Are there language universals and the universal grammar? A substantial part of the course will be devoted to the famous “Piraha debate” related to Daniel Everett’s (2005, 2009) views and findings, which, according to some, are a “volley fired straight at the heart of Chomsky’s theory”. Is it really so? We will try to validate this claim against the hard reality of linguistic data as discussed by Nevins et al. (2009). However, the aim of the proseminar is not to formulate definitive answers to the enigma of language diversity. Rather, it will aim at instigating controversies and raising puzzles. Hence, it is planned that the participants will be grouped in two teams adhering to opposite views, and it is hoped there may be an element of a debate between the two parties in class.
There are no special prerequisites for the course, and it is recommended to anyone interested in (different types of) linguistics, language diversity, the relation between language and culture, etc. Though touching upon syntax, the course will not include formal syntactic analysis as such.  During the course, the talks in class will be inspired by selected readings, and the final assessment will be based on the activity in class, individual presentations and the end-term achievement test.

Selected bibliography:
Baker, M. 2001. The atoms of language. The mind’s hidden rules of grammar. New York: Basic Books.
Baker, M. 2003. “Linguistic differences and language design”. Trends in Cognitive Sciences Vol.7 No.8
Bartlett, T. 2012. “Angry Words.” The Chronicle Review.
Benitez-Burraco, A & Boeckx, C. 2014. “Universal Grammar and Biological Variation: An EvoDevo Agenda for Comparative Biolinguistics”. Biol Theory. 9(2): 122–134.
Berwick, R.C. & Chomsky, N. 2012. “The Biolinguistic Program: The Current State of its Evolution and Development”.
Bolhuis, J, Tattersall, J., Chomsky, N. R. C. Berwick. 2014. “How Could Language Have Evolved?”. PLOS.12.8
Culicover, P. W.  & Jackendoff, R. 2005. Simple(?) Syntax, Chapter 2, p. 3
Evans, N & Levinson, S. 2009. “The myth of  language universals: Language diversity and its importance for cognitive science”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences.
Evans, V. 2014. The language myth. Why language is not an instinct. Cambridge: CUP.
Everett, D. 2005. “Cultural Constraints on Grammar and Cognition in Piraha”. Current Anthropology 46. 4
Everett, D. 2009. “Cultural Constraints on grammar in Piraha. A Reply to Nevins, Pesetsky, and Rodrigues (2007)".
Everett, D. 2012. “What does Piraha grammar have to teach us about human language and the mind?”. WIREs CognSci 2012, 3:555–563. doi: 10.1002/wcs.1195
Fitch, W. T. 2010. The evolution of language. Cambridge: CUP.
Gil, D. 2010. “What Is Riau Indonesian?”. Unpublished paper.
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. Cambridge: CUP.
Nevins, A., Pesetsky, D. & Rodrigues. 2007. “Piraha exceptionality: A reassessment”. Project Muse.
Nevins, A., Pesetsky, D. & Rodrigues. 2009. “Evidence and argumentation: A reply to Everett (2009)”. Project Muse
Newmeyer, F. 2012. “Goals and methods of generative syntax”. CUP Working Folder. 61-92.
Pesetsky, D. 2009. “Against taking linguistic diversity at “face value”. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 32 , pp 464-465 doi:10.1017/S0140525X09990562
Sampson, G. 2015. “Rigid strings and flaky snowflakes”. Language and Cognition.
Wolfe, T. 2016. “The origins of speech. In the beginning was Chomsky”. Harper’s Magazine.

The course is meant for those students who are interested in selected aspects of language acquisition and language use by communicating individuals and groups with reference to both governmental regulations and natural tendencies in the processes of language evolution. In particular, it will expose the issues of personal self-identification of human individuals, such as the sense of their belonging to social groups of various kind, for example, national, ethnic, cultural, racial, etc. Accordingly, special attention will be paid to situations of individual polyglotism and societal multilingualism, which take various forms and find expression in the communicative behavior of humans as originators of interpersonal relations and social agents.
During our pro-seminars, we will address the following specific topics, as, inter alia, language policy and language planning as disciplines of applied linguistics, a functional typology of languages and language varieties in time and space, bridges and interfaces between contact linguistics and language planning, optimality of language use in support of the development of national states, critical discourse analysis of the research on language policy, the impact of postmodern thought on the theories of national and international language planning, language attitudes, stereotypes and prejudices in language contact situations, linguistic human rights, varieties of English and their social status in the countries under the influence of Anglo-Saxon civilization, the role of English as an international and global language, national languages in Europe (on the basis of selected examples), protection of ethnic and national minorities and their languages (on the basis of selected countries in Europe), language policy and language planning in selected states and regions of the world.
To receive credits, students should take active part in seminars. They are obliged to write short responses after each class and present them for group discussions. Moreover, they are expected to select and to submit individually or in groups a presentation of one or two positions related to the topic of the seminar.

Selected bibliography:
Anderson, Benedict 1983/1991. Imagined Communities. Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. Revised Edition, London, New York: Verso.
Cooper, Robert L 1989. Language Planning and Social Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coulmas, Florian ed. 1991. A Language Policy for the European Community: Prospects and Quandaries. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
Downes, William. 1984/1998. Language and Society. London, EN: Fontana Paperbacks/Second edition. Cambridge, EN, New York, NY, and Melbourne, VIC: Cambridge University Press.
Hornberger, Nancy H. 1998. “Language policy, language education, language rights: Indigenous, immigrant, and international perspectives”. Language in Society 27: 439-458.
Lock, Andrew, Charles R. Peters eds. 1996/1999. Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. Oxford, UK: Clarendon Press, New York, NY: Oxford University Press / Oxford, UK, and Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Ricento, Thomas ed. 2006. An Introduction to Language Policy and Language Planning. Theory and Method. Malden MA, Oxford, Carlton: Blackwell Publishing.
Spolsky, Bernard 2004. Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wodak Ruth, David Corson eds. 1997. Language Policy and Political Issues in Education. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Press.
Wright, Sue 2000. Community and Communication: The Role of Language in Nation State Building and European Integration. Clevedon [etc.]: Multilingual Matters LTD.
Wright, Sue 2004. Language Policy and Language Planning. From Nationalism to Globalisation. Houndmills, New York: Palgrave.

This proseminar will be devoted to socially-conditioned phonetic and phonological variation in English. In other words, it will be about "accents of English", but other social sources of variation (such as social class or gender) will also be discussed. During the first meetings, you will be provided with an overview/consolidation of some basic notions in phonetics and phonology. We will then move on to include the social aspects by looking at real data obtained from electronic sources. Finally, we will become familiar with some research methods in sociophonetcs. Time permitting, we may also explore some adjacent topics, such as phonological and phonetic change in 20th-century English, attitudes to accents among "native" and "non-native" speakers of English, and the use of accent in entertainment.
Course credit will be based on (a) class attendance, (b) active participation, (c) an in-class presentation or a mini-research-project.