Juan J. Colomina-Almiñana

This course is an introduction to formal syntax, which refers to the use of a mathematically precise formalism to model the syntax of human languages.  Formulating precise models allows us to study the properties of particular human languages empirically, testing our theories against the challenge of new data.  The course will introduce students to Head-Driven Phrase Structure Grammar (HPSG).  In HPSG, the words of a language are equipped with information about the way they combine with other words and phrases and the meaning of the resulting combination.   The forms and meanings of the parts of a sentence are combined bit by bit until we derive a meaning for the whole sentence. The lexicon also encodes the systematic relations between word forms, such as voice alternations and derivational cognates.  Since HPSG is a complete, fully explicit framework for grammatical description, students will be able to grasp the workings of an entire language, from morphemes to words to sentences, including a formal semantic system for representing meaning.  This is a hands-on course in which we will tackle syntax puzzles of increasing complexity.  LIN 372L is not an official prerequisite, but it is recommended as background to this course.

Textbook: Ivan Sag, Thomas Wasow, and Emily Bender. 2003. Syntactic Theory: A Formal Introduction, 2nd Edition. Stanford: CSLI Publications.

Basis for grading:  Class participation (10%), Problem sets (60%), Tests (30%)

Prerequisites:  LIN 306

This course delves into the popular culture implications of a number of scientific conundrums (such as time-travel, AI limitations, and human extinction) without neglecting the scientific aspects and explanations of these phenomena. The course then focuses on both the science behind the above mentioned paradoxes and the evaluation of a number of science-fiction venues (films, novels, comic-books, etc.) where imagination alleviates the physical constraints for the practicability of such phenomena.

Check back for updates.

Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that refers to the capacity to speak and communicate indistinctly in two or more different languages. Then, it is not a semantic feature of the natural language; it is a pragmatic characteristic of its use. Since language is a property of groups of speakers, bilingualism is a skill showed and belonging to certain individuals. Because of the nature of our contemporary society, this phenomenon is a lived reality for a number of individuals in several communities inside and outside the US. This is to say, the fact that several communities in the Américas conserve a native language besides the official one extends between the members of these communities the knowledge and use of different ways to communicate.

The main purpose of this course is to analyze the linguistic, cognitive, social, and cultural aspects of this complex phenomenon. To do so, the course supposes that the main characteristics of the (different variables of the different) languages are independent of the origin of these communities. The course will primarily focus on the relationship that is established between English (as the vernacular language) and the second co-existent language, especially the binomial with Spanish (approximately 70% of course material) and other common US bilingual language experiences as well. The idea is to analyze the bilingual speaker in context within the community to which she belongs, especially relating to Mexican American and US-Latino communities.

TEXT:

Multiple Voices. An Introduction to Bilingualism, by Carol Myers-Scotton (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Additional texts will be available on the Blackboard.

GRADING:

25% Final Paper

25% Two Short Essays (12.5% each)

10% Peer-Review Sessions

10% Oral Presentation

30% Attendance and Participation

(5% additional extra-credit short essay)

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Description: "Sociolinguistics  for MALS Majors" examines the presence and use of English, Spanish, Portuguese, and other "indigenous" languages in the US, focusing particularly on those aspects that characterize Latinx communities, such as language acquisition; language maintenance, change, and loss; language contact phenomena such as code-switching  or lexical borrowing; linguistic identity and ideology, linguistic attitudes, and the interaction between language, gender, race, ethnicity, and social class.

Students will explore the different linguistics aspects that help shaping identity, identify and illustrate historical developments relevant to the presence of Latina/o populations in the US, discuss the diversity of US Latinx communities and its linguistics implications, and explain and analyze important language policy challenges posed by the presence of other language­ speaking communities in the US (mainly those involving Hispanic and Latinx populations).

Therefore, this is not only a course about language but also about the Latinx populations that speak those languages.

• This course is oriented around the problem of translation (literary, cultural, political, sociolinguistic) as it relates to the cultural production and/or language use arising in Latinx communities. This semester the course addresses translation from different angles, mainly issues of linguistic or cultural relativism.

Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that refers to the capacity to speak and communicate indistinctly in two or more different languages. Then, it is not a semantic feature of the natural language; it is a pragmatic characteristic of its use. Since language is a property of groups of speakers, bilingualism is a skill showed and belonging to certain individuals. Because of the nature of our contemporary society, this phenomenon is a lived reality for a number of individuals in several communities inside and outside the US. This is to say, the fact that several communities in the Américas conserve a native language besides the official one extends between the members of these communities the knowledge and use of different ways to communicate.

The main purpose of this course is to analyze the linguistic, cognitive, social, and cultural aspects of this complex phenomenon. To do so, the course supposes that the main characteristics of the (different variables of the different) languages are independent of the origin of these communities. The course will primarily focus on the relationship that is established between English (as the vernacular language) and the second co-existent language, especially the binomial with Spanish (approximately 70% of course material) and other common US bilingual language experiences as well. The idea is to analyze the bilingual speaker in context within the community to which she belongs, especially relating to Mexican American and US-Latino communities.

TEXT:

Multiple Voices. An Introduction to Bilingualism, by Carol Myers-Scotton (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Additional texts will be available on the Blackboard.

GRADING:

25% Final Paper

25% Two Short Essays (12.5% each)

10% Peer-Review Sessions

10% Oral Presentation

30% Attendance and Participation

(5% additional extra-credit short essay)

Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that refers to the capacity to speak and communicate indistinctly in two or more different languages. Then, it is not a semantic feature of the natural language; it is a pragmatic characteristic of its use. Since language is a property of groups of speakers, bilingualism is a skill showed and belonging to certain individuals. Because of the nature of our contemporary society, this phenomenon is a lived reality for a number of individuals in several communities inside and outside the US. This is to say, the fact that several communities in the Américas conserve a native language besides the official one extends between the members of these communities the knowledge and use of different ways to communicate.

The main purpose of this course is to analyze the linguistic, cognitive, social, and cultural aspects of this complex phenomenon. To do so, the course supposes that the main characteristics of the (different variables of the different) languages are independent of the origin of these communities. The course will primarily focus on the relationship that is established between English (as the vernacular language) and the second co-existent language, especially the binomial with Spanish (approximately 70% of course material) and other common US bilingual language experiences as well. The idea is to analyze the bilingual speaker in context within the community to which she belongs, especially relating to Mexican American and US-Latino communities.

TEXT:

Multiple Voices. An Introduction to Bilingualism, by Carol Myers-Scotton (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Additional texts will be available on the Blackboard.

GRADING:

25% Final Paper

25% Two Short Essays (12.5% each)

10% Peer-Review Sessions

10% Oral Presentation

30% Attendance and Participation

(5% additional extra-credit short essay)

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

This course is about semantic translation and its issues. Is there a way to literally translate what one says in a language to another conserving what was originally said? In other words, this course deal with how people mean things with their words, and how this meaning is translated from one language to another. Briefly, we will analyze what is in “other people’s mind,” what they mean or try to say when they speak, and how and why different theories have given different answers to this issue. We shall mainly focus on the question of semantic or literal translation. Is there a way to translate word by word what one says in whatever language? Do culture and context matter at all, or translation is mainly a linguistic matter?

This course carries two different flags: Global Cultures and Cultural Diversity in the United States. Check with your adviser to figure out what flag will count on your records.

Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that refers to the capacity to speak and communicate indistinctly in two or more different languages. Then, it is not a semantic feature of the natural language; it is a pragmatic characteristic of its use. Since language is a property of groups of speakers, bilingualism is a skill showed and belonging to certain individuals. Because of the nature of our contemporary society, this phenomenon is a lived reality for a number of individuals in several communities inside and outside the US. This is to say, the fact that several communities in the Américas conserve a native language besides the official one extends between the members of these communities the knowledge and use of different ways to communicate.

The main purpose of this course is to analyze the linguistic, cognitive, social, and cultural aspects of this complex phenomenon. To do so, the course supposes that the main characteristics of the (different variables of the different) languages are independent of the origin of these communities. The course will primarily focus on the relationship that is established between English (as the vernacular language) and the second co-existent language, especially the binomial with Spanish (approximately 70% of course material) and other common US bilingual language experiences as well. The idea is to analyze the bilingual speaker in context within the community to which she belongs, especially relating to Mexican American and US-Latino communities.

TEXT:

Multiple Voices. An Introduction to Bilingualism, by Carol Myers-Scotton (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Additional texts will be available on the Blackboard.

GRADING:

25% Final Paper

25% Two Short Essays (12.5% each)

10% Peer-Review Sessions

10% Oral Presentation

30% Attendance and Participation

(5% additional extra-credit short essay)

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

FLAGS:   Wr  |  CD  |  GC

DESCRIPTION:

Bilingualism is a complex phenomenon that refers to the capacity to speak and communicate indistinctly in two or more different languages. Then, it is not a semantic feature of the natural language; it is a pragmatic characteristic of its use. Since language is a property of groups of speakers, bilingualism is a skill showed and belonging to certain individuals. Because of the nature of our contemporary society, this phenomenon is a lived reality for a number of individuals in several communities inside and outside the US. This is to say, the fact that several communities in the Américas conserve a native language besides the official one extends between the members of these communities the knowledge and use of different ways to communicate.

The main purpose of this course is to analyze the linguistic, cognitive, social, and cultural aspects of this complex phenomenon. To do so, the course supposes that the main characteristics of the (different variables of the different) languages are independent of the origin of these communities. The course will primarily focus on the relationship that is established between English (as the vernacular language) and the second co-existent language, especially the binomial with Spanish (approximately 70% of course material) and other common US bilingual language experiences as well. The idea is to analyze the bilingual speaker in context within the community to which she belongs, especially relating to Mexican American and US-Latino communities.

TEXT:

Multiple Voices. An Introduction to Bilingualism, by Carol Myers-Scotton (Oxford: Blackwell, 2006). Additional texts will be available on the Blackboard.          

GRADING:

25% Final Paper

25% Two Short Essays (12.5% each)

10% Peer-Review Sessions

10% Oral Presentation

30% Attendance and Participation

(5% additional extra-credit short essay)

This course is oriented around the problem of translation (literary, cultural, political, sociolinguistic) as it relates to the cultural production and/or language use arising in Latina/o communities. Depending upon the expertise of the individual instructor, the course might address translation from different angles: issues of linguistic or cultural relativism, complications of literary translations, the mistranslations that ensue when translating cultural texts from one medium to another (the stage to the screen or the page to the stage, for instance).

Description: "Sociolinguistics  for MALS Majors" examines the presence and use of English, Spanish, Portuguese, and other "indigenous" languages in the US, focusing particularly on those aspects that characterize Latina/o communities, such as language acquisition; language maintenance, change, and loss; language contact phenomena such as code-switching  or lexical borrowing; linguistic identity and ideology, linguistic attitudes, and the interaction between language, gender, race, ethnicity, and social class.

Students will explore the different linguistics aspects that help shaping identity, identify and illustrate historical developments relevant to the presence of Latina/o populations in the US, discuss the diversity of US Latina/o communities and its linguistics implications,  and explain and analyze important language policy challenges posed by the presence of other language­ speaking communities in the US (mainly those involving Hispanic and Latina/o populations). Students will also have the option to complete written assignments in Spanish, since instructor is Spanish and Catalan native speaker (plus also speaks other 6 languages).

Therefore, this is not only a course about language but also about the Latina/o populations that speak those languages.

Texts/Readings:The Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics, edited by M. Diaz-Campos  (specially Part V, which analyzes Spanish in US Latino communities); The handbook of Hispanic Linguistics, edited by J.l. Hualde, A. Olarrea, and E. O'Rourke, Wiley, 2012 (specially Parts 3 and 4, which analyze aspects of US Spanish); "Fighting words: Latina girls, gangs, and Language Attitudes," by Norma Mendoza-Denton, in Speaking Chicana, edited by L. Galindo, University of Arizona Press, 1999.

Grading: 25% Final exam; 25% Final research paper; 25% Short review essays; 25% A&P

Please check back for updates.

The Signature Course (UGS 302 and 303) introduces first-year students to the university’s academic community through the exploration of new interests. The Signature Course is your opportunity to engage in college-level thinking and learning.

Please check back for updates.

Please check back for updates.

Early Modern Philosophy represents the rise of empiricism and humanism in place of scholastic tradition. Beginning in early 17th century, philosophy was dominated by the need to organize philosophy on rational, skeptical, logical and axiomatic grounds.  Students will read and analyze classical thinkers (and their texts) from this period to understand how this new turn in the Western thought supposes a new view about the world. This type of philosophy attempts to integrate religious belief into philosophical frameworks and, often to combat atheism or other skeptical beliefs, by adopting the idea of a binomy between material and ideal reality and the dualism between soul and body (Descartes, Malabranche, and Leibniz). The extension and reaction against this view would be, on the first hand, the monism of Berkeley and Spinoza. On the other hand, it was during this time that the rise of systematic empiricism appears as an alternative to idealistic skepticism on reality (Hobbes, Bacon, Locke, LaMettrie, and Hume). These periods and schools of philosophy will develop a complex understanding of philosophy under a naturalistic view, that will syntetizy in Enlightenment and Kantian idealism.

The main purpose will be to provide to the students the skills enough to understand the historical, social, and cultural connections of some important concepts in order to develop a critical reasoning clarify the plurality of perspectives of our actual thought.

Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going? How is our nature different

from other beings like animals or computers? An ancestral tradition claims that a set of innate skills denotes what human nature is. An opposing view advocates for the plasticity and indeterminacy of this nature. In this course we will explore competing views of human  nature,  their  fundamental  arguments  and  issues,  and  their  implications  to understand what it means to be a human being.

Students will read classical works on human nature from the Western tradition of Philosophy like Plato and Aristotle along with other modern thinkers like Hobbes, Hume, Kant  and  Nietzsche  as  well  as  from  non-Western  traditions  such  as  Confucianism, Buddhism, and Hinduism. We also will consider some interdisciplinary material from evolutionary theory, animal studies, or cognitive psychology in order to rethink how we might revisit some of these previous conceptions.

The main purpose will be to provide the students the skills enough to understand the historical, social, and cultural connections that this concept necessarily includes, and how clarification of a plural cultural perspective will permit them to handle the complex social issues of the society we live in.

This course carries the Global Cultures flag. Global Cultures courses are designed to increase your familiarity with cultural groups outside the United States. You should therefore expect a substantial portion of your grade to come from assignments covering the practices, beliefs, and histories of at least one non-U.S. cultural group, past or present.

A survey of the social, political, and cultural history of Spain.

A survey of principal topics and problems in areas such as ethics, theory of knowledge, and philosophy of religion. 

Theories of human nature, such as those of Plato, Christianity, Marxism, and existentialism. Modern phsychological and biological theories are included, as the interplay of nature and nurture in determining human conduct is explored. 

Explores the interrelationship of language and society, with reference to the Spanish-speaking world. Studies how socioeconomic, political, and anthropological factors like race, social class, gender, age, and identity influence linguistics forms.

Theories of human nature, such as those of Plato, Christianity, Marxism, and existentialism. Modern phsychological and biological theories are included, as the interplay of nature and nurture in determining human conduct is explored.