175-408 Issues in Linguistic Research

Admission to the postgraduate diploma or fourth-year honours in linguistics and applied linguistics.

This subject takes a broad and historically based view of some of the great topics that have preoccupied thinkers in linguistics, and how they interrelate, by juxtaposing the history of ideas on each of a dozen topics with relevant contemporary debates. Topics to be covered include defining properties of language; sign and system; arbitrariness versus constraints on the system; the role of typology; the role of formal modelling of language systems; linguistic relativity; synchrony versus diachrony; linguistics as a science; the linguistic system and the community of users; the boundaries of the language system; functionalism, adaptation and evolution of language systems; categories, classical and otherwise; and language, mind and brain.

Oral presentation of 60 minutes, a book review of 2500 words, and an essay of 4000 words.

A subject reader will be available.