2024/2025
English for Specific Purposes. General Linguistics - 1
Type:
Optional course
Delivered by:
School of Foreign Languages
When:
1, 2 module
Open to:
students of one campus
Language:
English
ECTS credits:
3
Course Syllabus
Abstract
«English for Specific Purposes. General Linguistics – 1» is an elective course intended for first-year students who are training with the major in linguistics. It is to be administered as one of the set of courses of English in accordance with the Concept of developing English-speaking communicative competence of students of the Higher School of Economics. The aims of the course are (1) to develop academic English competence on the basis of getting familiar with academic written and oral production in English, and (2) to advance HSE students’ research skills in the area of their specialization, i.e. linguistics. The course focuses on core tasks relevant to all academic purposes, such as working out the main points of an academic text or lecture; presenting the summary of the information received, taking into consideration positions of all contributors to the area in focus; and extending one’s own scope of English communicative competence and professional vocabulary in the area of linguistics and linguistic studies as a means to develop academic writing and listening skills. The students will be expected to produce critical, analytic or evaluative texts in speech and writing throughout the course. The syllabus covers concepts and key vocabulary necessary for discussing linguistics as well as words and phrases commonly used in academic English. Finally, the course is to highlight the skills and academic norms that are required for participation in linguistic seminars and tutorials in English language, on the one hand, and in international academic events, on the other. As a result, students are expected to present their group and individual projects orally and in writing throughout the course. The main components of the course are studying parts of the book by Edward de Chazal & Sam McCarter Oxford EAP: A course in English for academic purposes; watching video lectures devoted to separate areas of linguistics; listening to radio programmes with discussions of the state of English language; practising areas of English grammar and English vocabulary; reading linguistic academic papers in English followed by presentation of students’ summaries or discussions of the scholarly arguments in the papers; presentations in class of students’ own linguistic projects.
Learning Objectives
- 1. The course is aimed at developing BA Theoretical and Computational Linguistics students’ professional intercultural communicative competence (PICC) that is referred to as the “integrative ability of solving professional tasks with the help of foreign language”. Development of the PICC, as an integrative goal of this course, ensures plunging students as active participants into the process of solving a variety of professionally-oriented tasks with the help of the English language that model a broad diverse social and (quasi-) professional context of their future career paths. 2. provides an opportunity to discover various genres, formats, strategies, purposes and means of learning and narrating about the Theoretical and Computational Linguistics, as well as describing and interpreting art works of different styles and periods, creating and presenting linguistic projects in English using Information and Communications technology (ICT); 3. gives a chance to work with different sources and types of information for finding new solutions to the existing problems and designing innovative creative and personally meaningful research, educational and professional projects related to their future professional field; 4. practices analytical and critical thinking skills; 6. enables to reflect on their own and their team work and experience; 7. develops problem solving skills and creativity.
Expected Learning Outcomes
- to extract, organize and complete the information according to the given task using the strategies of predicting, prioritizing, identifying the general and specific (detailed), key and additional info, recognizing relevant/irrelevant, major and supporting facts, opinions, arguments etc., differentiating between narration, description and reasoning;
- to work with ideas and concepts related to the field of linguistics individually and in a team using the brainstorming, formulating, refining, adapting, arguing, debating, supporting, transforming etc. strategies;
Course Contents
- How Language Shapes the Way We Think
- How to read a linguistic article
- Experimental linguistics
- First language acquisition
- Sociolinguistics
Interim Assessment
- 2024/2025 2nd module0.3 * Final Assessment + 0.25 * Independent Work Assessment + 0.2 * Oral Assessment + 0.25 * Written Assessment
Bibliography
Recommended Core Bibliography
- 9780340950012 - Martin Haspelmath, Andrea Sims - Understanding Morphology - 2010 - Routledge - https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=348096 - nlebk - 348096
- Barón Birchenall, L. (2016). Animal Communication and Human Language: An overview.
- Boroditsky, L. (2019). Language and the brain. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aaz6490
- Christelle Gillioz, & Sandrine Zufferey. (2020). Introduction to Experimental Linguistics. Wiley-ISTE.
- James McGilvray. (2014). Chomsky : Language, Mind and Politics: Vol. Second edition. Polity.
- Of minds and language : a dialogue with Noam Chomsky in the Basque country, , 2010
- Oxford EAP : a course in English for academic purposes : upper-intermediate / B2, Chazal de, E., 2020
- Sulaiman, M., & Yuliani, S. (2017). A Contrastive Analysis between British and American Varieties: A Case-Study of English Accents. https://doi.org/10.26638/470.203X
Recommended Additional Bibliography
- Alison Edgley. (2015). Noam Chomsky. Palgrave Macmillan.
- Hendricks, R. K., Demjén, Z., Semino, E., & Boroditsky, L. (2019). Emotional Implications of Metaphor:Consequences of Metaphor Framing for Mindset about Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1080/10926488.2018.1549835
- Pullum, G. K. (2018). Linguistics : Why It Matters. Cambridge, UK: Polity. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&site=eds-live&db=edsebk&AN=1910481