English Linguistics

Linguistics is frequently misconstrued as "abstract", "dry and technical", "removed from real life situations". Do linguists really inhabit a different world from the rest of academia? Are they self-indulgent theoreticians? 

The course establishes the accessibility and practical usefulness of linguistics in a variety of fields : literature and translation, language education, conversation analysis, social science.  

Attendance & engagement (30 %) + learning diary with guided entries and follow-up activities (70 %).

The instruction and training offered in this weekly seminar are particularly suited to prospective language teachers or anyone interested in making sense of language structure and language functioning in spoken or written discourse. 

General principles of language acquisition ; social uses of language (speaking, writing, communicative interaction) ; major theoretical frameworks (French enunciative; functional; cognitive (including metaphor theory and grammaticalization theory);   grammar and  discourse (e.g. negation, interrogation, anaphora, deixis, time rcference); grammar and metaphor / metonymy) ; corpus linguistics and corpus-based approach to grammar; applying linguistics to language teaching (in a fun and creative sort of way). 

Key concepts and categories, together with basic methodological procedures, are systematically defined and illustrated. Special attention is given to making the (multimodal) seminars lively, flexible and suited to all, including visiting students (ERASMUS +, U-California) or students with little or no formal background in linguistics.

All the research papers, book excerpts, filmed lectures and interviews, etc. needed for this course will be made available to students through e-campus.