The course intends to provide an introduction to some areas of applied linguistics, such as (i) corpus linguistics (collections of texts from written and spoken language, collected and designed to perform qualitative and quantitative linguistic analyses) and, as a concrete application of the aforementioned, (ii) the study of spoken language and discourse, with some mention also of the study of the language of the new (social) media. Distinctive phenomena of the spoken dimension and discourse analysis will be introduced, such as turn management, reparations and discursive markers.
At the end of the course, the student will be able to plan and conduct the analysis of a linguistic phenomenon related to the spoken dimension, using methodologies and tools from corpus linguistics.
Course Prerequisites
Knowledge of basic notions of Linguistics is beneficial. Nevertheless, if necessary, basic notions will be discussed again during lectures.
Teaching Methods
Lectures
Assessment Methods
The exam consists of two parts: 1) A short written essay or PowerPoint presentation discussing an Italian discourse marker using some examples from the KIParla corpus of spoken Italian. The written essay (of up to 5 pages) or PowerPoint presentation (of up to 15 slides) must be emailed to the lecturer by the registration deadline for the exam, and their evaluation will be part of the overall assessment.
2) Oral colloquium on the course contents.
Contents
1. Introduction a. Why are linguists interested in spoken language? b. Differences between written & spoken language c. Speech: semiotic and linguistic peculiarities d. Where to find (to investigate) speech?
2. Corpus linguistics a. What is a corpus? b. Corpora: defining features and issues (authenticity, representativeness and sampling) c. Methods and tools for querying corpora, annotation and mark-up d. Types of corpora (raw vs. annotated corpora, reference corpora, dynamic corpora, diachronic corpora, corpora for the study of language acquisition, multilingual corpora) e. The KIParla corpus (corpus of spoken Italian) f. Concordances and Key-In-Context (KWIC). How to consult a corpus.
3. Studying Speech & Discourse Analysis a. Introduction to discourse analysis b. Units of analysis for spoken discourse turns and communicative moves c. Repair mechanisms: how to “correct” spoken discourse d. Discourse markers: linguistic elements that help to sustain conversation
Course Language
Italian
More information
Office hours: by appointment only (write an email to alessandra.barotto@uninsubria.it)
