122051 PS PS Linguistics (2020W)

“Vocabulary knowledge provides the essential building blocks of language and without vocabulary neither language production nor language comprehension is possible” (Milton & Treffers-Daller 2013: 151).

Taking the area of vocabulary as an example this course provides students with more detailed insights into one area of linguistics and prepares them for their first small-scale research project.
After introducing basic lexical concepts, we will explore the topic from different angles, such as the mental lexicon, word-formation, word meaning and specialized vocabulary. In addition, we will discuss the process of empirical research and look at data elicitation and corpus linguistic methods.

Some of the questions we will investigate in the course of the term are:
- How do we define ‘a word’ and what does it mean to ‘know a word’?
- How can we describe associations between words in the mental lexicon?
- How can we describe lexical meaning?
- How can we define and describe specialized (e.g. technical) vocabulary?

In addition to exploring these questions and learning about lexical research, participants will also learn how to find relevant literature on a specific research topic/question, critically analyse and reflect on existing research in the field and collect first experience in planning, conducting and writing about a small-scale linguistic research project.

This course combines lecturer input, sample analyses of relevant material, on- and offline assignments, group work, discussions and student presentations.