Course Description
Course Description: The course introduces students to some of the recent developments in the study of language within the field of Linguistics.
Course Prerequisites: Interest in issues of language and cognition
Course Schedule: Wed/Thu/Fri 11:00am-12:00noon (Synchronous Lectures with recordings of the lectures to be uploaded on this platform)
Course Content
Introductory remarks: What is linguistics and who is a linguist?
Language and Cognition: What the relationship means to the study of language
Field of Study: Different perspectives on the study of language, language structure (Phonology, Morphology, Lexicon, Syntax, Semantics, Logic), Context of use (Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics), Cognitive underpinnings of language (Cognitive Linguistics, Psycholinguistics), Language history (Philology, Comparative Linguistics)
Prescriptive, descriptive and generative traditions in the study of language
Epistemology: Rationalism and empiricism
Internalism and Externalism: Accounts of the faculty of language as modular and amodular
Cognitive Linguistics: Assumptions and practice
Universalism and Relativism: Linguistic universals, thought, and experience
Major questions: discussion
Course Audience
Students of IIT Kanpur crediting HSS Level II
Outcomes of this Course
The course hopes to sensitize the students to the place of language in human cognitive and cultural spaces.