Research Seminar «Introduction to Linguistics and Data Analisys»

Master 2023/2024

Type: Compulsory course (Linguistic Theory and Language Description)

Area of studies: Fundamental and Applied Linguistics

Delivered by: School of Linguistics

Where: Faculty of Humanities

When: 1 year, 1, 2 module

Mode of studies: offline

Open to: students of one campus

Instructors: Alessandro Gubbiotti, George Moroz, Chiara Naccarato, Daria Popova, Alexey Vinyar

Master’s programme: Linguistic Theory and Language Description

Language: English

ECTS credits: 3

Contact hours: 76

Full Syllabus

Abstract

Everywhere, every day, everybody uses language. There is no human society, no matter how small or how isolated, which does not employ a language that is rich and diverse. This course introduces you to linguistics, featuring interviews with well-known linguists and with speakers of many different languages. Join us to explore the miracles of human language! The Miracles of Human Language introduces you to the many-faceted study of languages, which has amazed humans since the beginning of history. Together with speakers of many other languages around the world, as well as with famous linguists such as Noam Chomsky and Adele Goldberg, you will learn to understand and analyse how your native tongue is at the same time similar and different from many other languages. You will learn the basic concepts of linguistics, get to know some of the key features of big and small languages and get insight into what linguists do. This course gives an introduction into the study of languages, the field of linguistics. With the support of the basic linguistic terminology that is offered in the course, you will soon be able to comment both on variety between languages, as well as on a single language’s internal structure. Anyone who wishes to understand how languages work, and how they can give us insight into the human mind is very welcome to join. The course is useful if you want to get a fairly quick introduction into linguistics, for instance because you are considering studying it further, or because you are interested in a neighbouring discipline such as psychology, computer science or anthropology. Furthermore, the course will help you develop analytical skills. The course is also an introduction to R. It aims to familiarize students with the basics of R programming: data types, functions, packages for text processing, data formatting, visualization.

Learning Objectives

introduction to key notions of modern linguistics
acquaintance with goals and methods of modern linguistics
introduction to main theories of modern linguistics
to make students comfortable using programming in their linguistic research;
to teach students the basics of R

Expected Learning Outcomes

For the R version: students will be able to use different R packages. For the Python version: students will be able to write simple scripts in Python in order to use them in their own linguistic research;
For the R version: students will be able to work with complex data types. For the Python version: students will be able to use regular expressions for information extraction;
For the R version: students will be able to write loops and statements. For the Python version: students will be able to retrieve data from the Internet, parse it and use it for linguistic processing;
For the R version: students will be comfortable using R, they will learn about functions, variables, data types. For the python version: students will be comfortable with the Unix shell and simple commands related to processing text
For the R version: students will learn how to import and export data. For the Python version: students will know basic constructions and functions of Python, as well as the most frequently used functions and modules used for text processing;
For the R version: students will learn to write their own functions, to retrieve data from the Internet. For the Python version: students will learn how to retrieve data from the Internet
understands the main concepts and terms of modern linguistics
Knows basic concepts of probability theory

Course Contents

Main concepts of modern phonetics
Introduction to sociolinguistics
General introduction to morphology
Approaches to morphological rules and the lexicon
Morphological productivity
Construction Morphology
Introduction to probability theory
For the R version of the course: Interacting with R. Functions. Variables. Logical operators. For the python version of the course: Interacting with Python. Code presentation.Datatypes and variables
For the R version of the course: tidyverse. For the Python version: Control structures
For the R version: complex data types. For the Python version: Input and output. Modules
For the R version: if and for statements. For the Python version: Regular expressions
For the R version: using different R packages. For the Python version: Text manipulation. Choosing a final project
For the R version: writing functions, internet data. For the Python version: Internet data

Assessment Elements

assignment 1 (programming)
assignment 2 (programming)
final test (morphology)
The test consists of 5 questions, 2 points each
test (probability theory)

Interim Assessment

2023/2024 2nd module
Final grade = 4/17 * assignment_1 + 4/17 * assignment_2 + 6/17 * test (probability theory) + 3/17 * final test (morphology)

Bibliography

Recommended Core Bibliography

Gillespie, C., & Lovelace, R. (2016). Efficient R Programming : A Practical Guide to Smarter Programming. Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1435808
Ren, K. (2016). Learning R Programming. Birmingham: Packt Publishing. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1409189
Velupillai, V. (2012). An Introduction to Linguistic Typology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=473816

Recommended Additional Bibliography

Timberlake, A., Nichols, J., Peterson, D. A., Bickel, B., & Grenoble, L. A. (2013). Language Typology and Historical Contingency : In Honor of Johanna Nichols. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=668042

Course Syllabus