The
Theoretical and Empirical Basis of Linguistics
語言學的理論與實證基礎
Spring
2020
Tuesday 9:10-12:00 文學院306
課碼: 1309005
UPDATED 2020/5/19
Research
& Writing links
Old related classes:
Foundations of Linguistic Theory: 2011, 2013, 2015, 2017
Empirical Methods in Linguistics: 2005, 2007, 2009
Methods of Linguistic Data Collection: 2016
James Myers (麥傑)
Office: 文學院247
Tel: 31506
Email: Lngmyers at the university address
Web: http://personal.ccu.edu.tw/~lngmyers/
Office hours: Tuesday 2-4 pm, or by appointment (made at least one day ahead)
Online only: email me to start chat during my office hours or to make an appointment
Goals
You have already had experience with linguistic theory and analysis. Now we’ll put this experience into philosophical and historical context, and sample some of the many and varied empirical methods underlying these theories and analyses.
Evaluation
30% Participation (saying interesting stuff in the discussions)
20% Discussion leading (one to two leaders per week)
20% Exercises (practice using various methods)
20% Presentation of your own research (as for a conference: 20 minutes presentation + 10 minutes discussion)
10% Journal submission (editor’s receipt of manuscript; may differ from in-class presentation)
Discussion readings
Abbuhl, R., Gass, S., & Mackey, A. (2013). Experimental research design. In Podesva, R. J., & Sharma, D. (Eds.) Research methods in linguistics (pp. 116-134). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Allan, K. (2004). Aristotle’s footprints in the linguist's garden. Language Sciences, 26(4), 317-342.
Ann, J., Myers, J., & Tsay, J. (2011). Lexical and Articulatory Influences on Phonological Processing in Taiwan Sign Language1. Rachel Channon and Harry van der Hulst (Eds.), Formational units in sign language (pp. 107-123). Nijmegen, The Netherlands: Ishara Press.
Bates, E. (1994). Modularity, domain specificity and the development of language. Discussions in Neuroscience, 10(1/2), 136-149.
Bhate, S., & Kak, S. (1993). Pāṇini’s grammar and computer science. Annals of the Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 72, 79-94.
Chomsky, N. (2005). Three factors in language design. Linguistic Inquiry, 36(1), 1-22.
Eckert, P. (2013). Ethics in linguistic research. In Podesva, R. J., & Sharma, D. (Eds.) Research methods in linguistics (pp. 11-26). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Everaert, M., Lentz, T., De Mulder, H., Nilsen, Ø., & Zondervan, A. (2010). The linguistics enterprise: From knowledge of language to knowledge in linguistics. In M. Everaert, T. Lentz, H. De Mulder, Ø. Nilsen, & A. Zondervan (Eds.), The linguistics enterprise: From knowledge of language to knowledge in linguistics (pp. 1-10), Amsterdam: John Benjamin.
Gallant, J., & Libben, G. (2019). No lab, no problem: Designing lexical comprehension and production experiments using PsychoPy3. The Mental Lexicon, 14(1), 152-168.
Givón, T. (2013). On the intellectual roots of functionalism in linguistics. In S. Bischoff & C. Jany (Eds.) Functional approaches to language (pp. 9-29). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
Gries, S. Th. (2015). Some current quantitative problems in corpus linguistics and a sketch of some solutions. Language and Linguistics, 16(1), 93-117.
Hasko, V. (2012). Qualitative corpus analysis. In C. A. Chapelle (Ed.) The encyclopedia of applied linguistics. Wiley Online Library.
Heine, B., & Narrog, H. (2010). Introduction. In B. Heine & H. Narrog (Eds.), The Oxford handbook of linguistic analysis, second edition (pp. 1-25). Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Joseph, J. E. (2015). Structural linguistics. In K. Allan (Ed.), The Routledge handbook of linguistics (pp. 431-446). London: Routledge.
Lin, C. J. Y. (2009). What makes Chinese idioms so difficult to understand?: A study of the semantic transparency of Chinese idioms. 華語文教學研究, 6(2), 163-188.
Matthews, R. J. (1991). Psychological reality of grammars. In A. Kasher (Ed.) The Chomskyan turn (pp. 182-199). Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell.
Myers, J. (2012). Cognitive styles in two cognitive sciences. In N. Miyake, D. Peebles, & R. P. Cooper (Eds.), Proceedings of the 34th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2067-2072). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.
Myers, J. (2019a). Data analysis software: Excel and R. Chapter 2 in Yet another statistics for linguists book. National Chung Cheng University ms.
Myers, J. (2019b). Comparing two continuous variables: t tests and beyond. Chapter 6 in Yet another statistics for linguists book. National Chung Cheng University ms.
Myers, J. (2019c). Comparing category sizes: Chi-squared and related tests. Chapter 7 in Yet another statistics for linguists book. National Chung Cheng University ms.
Newmeyer, F. J. (2010). History and philosophy of linguistics: An interview with Frederick J. Newmeyer. ReVEL, 8 (14). <http://www.revel.inf.br/eng>
Phillips, C., Gaston, P., Huang, H., & Muller, H. (2019). Theories all the way down: Remarks on “theoretical” and “experimental” linguistics. To appear in G. Goodall (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of experimental syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pigada, M., & Schmitt, N. (2006). Vocabulary acquisition from extensive reading: A case study. Reading in a Foreign Language, 18(1), 1-28.
Poeppel, D., & Embick, D. (2017). Defining the relation between linguistics and neuroscience. In A. Cutler (Ed.) Twenty-first century psycholinguistics (pp. 103-118). London: Routledge.
Quer, J., & Steinbach, M. (2019). Handling sign language data: The impact of modality. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, Article 483.
Semino, E. (2017). Corpus linguistics and metaphor. In B. Dancygier (Ed.) The Cambridge handbook of cognitive linguistics (pp. 463-76). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Starks, D., & McRobbie-Utasi, Z. (2001). Collecting sociolinguistic data: Some typical and some not so typical approaches. New Zealand Sociology, 16(1), 79-92.
van Essen, A. (2002). A historical perspective. In M. Grenfell (Ed.) Modern languages across the curriculum (pp. 10-25). London: Routledge.
Wang, Y. F., Katz, A., & Chen, C. H. (2003). Thinking as saying: shuo (‘say’) in Taiwan Mandarin conversation and BBS talk. Language Sciences, 25(5), 457-488.
Wang, W. S. (1989). Language in China: A chapter in the history of linguistics. Journal of Chinese Linguistics, 17(2), 183-222.
Woll, B. (2013). The history of sign language linguistics. In K. Allan (Ed.) The Oxford handbook of the history of linguistics. Oxford Handbooks Online.
Zwaan, R. A., & Yaxley, R. H. (2003). Spatial iconicity affects semantic relatedness judgments. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 10(4), 954-958.
Schedule
Readings must be done prior to class. Discussion leaders should actively guide the discussion, using a handout of questions that encourage us to explore the ideas in the readings. Don't lecture us: The more you encourage other people to express their thoughts, the better!
* Marks deadlines
|
Week |
Topic/exercises |
Readings |
Leader |
|
3/3 |
Approaches to linguistics |
Myers |
|
|
3/10 |
What is linguistics about? |
Everaert et al. (2010) |
柏禎 倍瑜 |
|
3/17 |
Ancient linguistics |
Allen (2004) |
Joanne 浩二 草莊 |
|
3/24 |
Modern linguistics |
Joseph (2015) Woll (2013) |
柏禎 倍瑜 Joanne |
|
3/31 |
Formalism and functionalism |
Chomsky (2005) |
浩二 草莊 |
|
4/7 |
校際活動（停課） |
|
|
|
4/14 |
Language and cognition |
Bates (1994) Matthews (1991) Poeppel & Embick (2017) |
倍瑜 Joanne 浩二 |
|
4/21 |
Linguistic fieldwork |
Eckert (2013) |
草莊 倍瑜 |
|
4/28 |
Corpus linguistics |
Gries (2015) |
Joanne 浩二 草莊 |
|
5/5 |
Experimental linguistics |
Abbuhl et al. (2013) Gallant & Libben (2019) |
柏禎 草莊 Joanne |
|
*5/12 |
Statistics for linguistics |
Myers (2019a) |
浩二 倍瑜 柏禎 |
|
*5/19 |
Discuss research progress |
|
|
|
*5/26 |
Your choice |
Wang et al. (2003) |
Joanne 草莊 |
|
6/2 |
Your choice |
Zwaan & Yaxley (2003) |
柏禎 |
|
6/9 |
Your choice |
Pigada & Schmitt (2006) |
浩二 |
|
*6/16 |
Presentations [last class] |
|
|
|
*6/23 |
Journal acknowledgment due |
|
|