The course aims to treat fundamental contents of Linguistics: concepts, categories and methodological tools relevant for syntax (lexical
classes, constituents, sentence, modality and voice structures), morphological analysis, phonology (features, rules and representations, syllabic structure) and semantic analysis. The use of language in communicative situations will be presented: sociolinguistics, pragmatics, linguistic act theory, mechanism of discourse, non-verbal communication
B. Baldi e L.M. Savoia, Linguaggio e comunicazione. Introduzione alla linguistica, Zanichelli Bologna, 2017
Donati, C. La Sintassi, regole e strutture, Il mulino, Bologna, 2016 (2° ed.)
Learning Objectives
The course aims to provide the students with a good knowledge of the fundamental concepts in the linguistic and pragmatic analysis and to make the students able to apply them to linguistic and communicative phenomena.
The learning goal of the course is to give training in the basic theoretical and methodological skills in the field of Linguistics.
Students will develop
- basic knowledge of the concepts of General Linguistics
- basic knowledge of Historical Linguistics and diachronic change concepts
- knowledge of the basic terms used in Linguistics
- skills related to linguistic methods and synchronic analysis, including:
- Phonetics and Phonology
- Morphology
- Syntax
- Semantics and Lexicon
- Pragmatics
- skills related to the linguistic analysis of texts.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge in the linguistic analysis are required. Substantially the knowledge obtained in the study of Italian grammar or the grammar of a
stranger language in the secondary school.
Teaching Methods
Lessons and workshops; use of electronic resources (via the Moodle learning platform).
Further information
The slides of the course will be available.
Type of Assessment
Students must take an oral examination.
Students may choose to split the examination into two parts by sitting an optional intermediate written test through the Moodle e-learning platform. This intermediate test will consist of a list of multiple choice questions and exercises related to the topics covered in the first part of the course, including
- basic concepts and terms of General Linguistics
- theories, methods and analysis models of Phonetics and Phonology; application of phonetic and phonological analysis; phonetic transcription exercises
- theories, methods and analysis models of Morphology; exercises on the identification of morphemes
- theories, methods and analysis models of Syntax; exercises concerning phrase structure trees.
Students awarded a mark between 18/30 and 30/30 will be admitted to the oral examination, consisting of questions on the topics covered during the second part of the course, including theories, methods and analysis models of Semantics and Lexicon, and Pragmatics.
The examiners will also assess the relevance and coherence of the students' answers, their communication skills, their capacity for making judgements, their ability to express opinions on a topic in a structured way, their language accuracy and their style.
The final mark will be calculated as the average between the marks obtained in the written and oral examinations.
Students
- who have failed the written examination, or
- who are not satisfied with the mark they have been given in the written examination, or
- who did not take the written examination
must take an oral examination on all the topics covered during the course. This oral interview will include written exercises. In this case too, the relevance and coherence of students' answers, their communication skills, their capacity for making judgements, their ability to express opinions on a topic in a structured way, their language accuracy and their style will be assessed during the examination.
For students taking the oral examination only, the final mark will be calculated on the basis of the assessments given for all the questions.
The exam aims to verify the knowledge that the students have acquired in the different topics and their capacity to use these notions in facing linguistic problems and real cases of processes.
Course program
The program of the course presents an articulation that allows for the general disciplinary interests of the Course in Human Sciences for the Communication. After introducing the fundamental issues of the analysis of the natural languages, including the concepts
concerning the notion of natural language and the linguistic human faculty, the lessons treat the notions concerning the syntactic,
phonological and semantic analysis, by means the discussion of examples drawn from different languages beside Italian. Besides, the lessons will address the central topics concerning the use of language in communicative situations, i.e. sociolinguistics and pragmatics, the use of non-verbal communication tools /gestures, the discourse, the communicative event.