COURSE SYLLABUS

HUMAN LANGUAGE AND MIND: THINKING AND SPEAKING

FF UK SPRING/SUMMER 2023   

Please note that classes in the course start on Wednesday Feb. 22 (rather than Feb. 15).             

Prof. Eva Eckert, Ph.D.                                            

Wednesday 9:10 am - 11:30 pm

FFUK Palachovo nám., room 308B

 

 

Semester ECTS credits

4 to 6

Language of Instruction

English

Length

14 weeks

Level

Intermediate to M.A.

1. Course Description

HUMAN LANGUAGE and MIND deals with psychological and cognitive aspects of language as key to human mind and creativity; to interrelation of language, thought and brain; language in mediating experience, remembering and creating meaning; the instinctive, emotional and rational in cognition; pre-linguistic cognition of hominids; psychology of "global" language and mind; language acquisition in children; bilinguals’ speaking and thinking; sign language, and the impact of disappearing languages on human culture. 

2. Reading Materials, in Moodle

textbook: Julie SEDIVY, LANGUAGE in MIND, 2018

web activities linked to the chapters in Sedivy

readings selected from the following list:

Aitchison, Jean 2000. Seeds of Speech, Cambridge U Press

Damasio, Anthony. Cortex convergence zones: Brain yields clues on its organization for language

Diessel, G. Learning vs. Growth, in Language in Use, pp. 313-19

Evans, Vyvan. Language is not an instinct

Hauser, Marc 2002. Researchers debate the origin of language, in Harvard Gazette

Hickey, Raymond. Language and the mind

Kahneman & Tversky, Thinking fast, thinking slow

Kress, G. and T. Leuwen, Semiotic Landscape, in Language in Use, pp. 344-9

Lupyan, Gary & Ben Berger, How Language Programs The Mind

Pinker, Steven 1994. How the Mind Creates Language, in Language Instinct, HarperCollins

          Digital Mind in an Analog World, in Language Instinct

          Language is a human instinct, in Third Culture 1995, ch.13, Simon& Schuster

Plag, Ingo Productivity and the Mental Lexicon, in Language in Use, pp. 106-13

Premack, David 2004. Is Language a Key to Human Intelligence? in Science

Sperber, D. and D. Wilson 1996. Relevance: Communication and Cognition, pp. 1-24, 38, 46-9,172-9

Tomasello, Michael. Language acquisition

Naposledy změněno: úterý, 24. ledna 2023, 14.14