Lin3XX: Language & Mind
Draft Syllabus
Course Description
This course is intended to be a gentle introduction to the core questions of the psychology of language for non-specialists. No previous experience with psychology is required and only introductory knowledge of linguistics is assumed. Check with Andrew about what the rest of the description should emphasize.
Grading
Seven short assignments, of which you have to do 5 to earn full credit. Midterm. Final. blah blah, grading scale.
Schedule
Harley is “The Psychology of Language - From Data to Theory”, 4e, by Trevor Harley
note: some of the linked articles (e.g. Penny’s) are probably too hard for a 300 level linguistics course.
| Meeting | Topic | Due |
|---|---|---|
| Tuesday, Jan 13th | Overview/History of Psycholinguistics | |
| Thursday, Jan 15th | Language & The Brain | Harley 1 |
| Tuesday, Jan 20th | Foundations of Language 1 | Harley 2, HW1 |
| Thursday, Jan 22nd | Foundations of Language 2 | Harley 3 (pp 67 - 101) |
| Tuesday, Jan 27th | Language Acquisition I | Harley 4 |
| Thursday, Jan 29th | Language Acquisition II | Syrett (2024) |
| Tuesday, Feb 3rd | Bilingualism | Harley 5, HW2 |
| Thursday, Feb 5th | Visual Word Recognition | Harley 6 |
| Tuesday, Feb 10th | Reading | Harley 7 |
| Thursday, Feb 12th | Sentence Comprehension I | Harley 10 |
| Tuesday, Feb 17th | Semantic Memory & the Lexicon | Harley 11, HW3 |
| Thursday, Feb 19th | Sentence Comprehension II | Harley 12 |
| Tuesday, Feb 24th | Sentence Memory | Harley 12 |
| Thursday, Feb 26th | Making and encoding inferences | Harley 14 |
| Tuesday, Mar 3rd | Conversation | Eckert (2016) |
| Thursday, Mar 5th | Midterm Exam | |
| Tuesday, Mar 10th | Language & Sensation | TBD, maybe, HW4 |
| Thursday, Mar 12th | Neurons and Neural Net Models | Harley Appendix 1, MIT Blog |
| Tuesday, Mar 17th | Spring break (NO CLASS) | |
| Thursday, Mar 19th | Spring break (NO CLASS) | |
| Tuesday, Mar 24th | Speech Perception I | Harley 9 |
| Thursday, Mar 26th | Speech Perception II | Beddor (2017) |
| Tuesday, Mar 31st | Infant Speech Perception | Bruderer et al. (2015), HW5 |
| Thursday, Apr 2nd | Exemplar Models of Speech Perception | Goldinger (1998) |
| Tuesday, Apr 7th | Language Production I | Harley 13 |
| Thursday, Apr 9th | Language Production II | |
| Tuesday, Apr 14th | Social Cognition & Language I | Holtgraves & Kashima (2007), HW6 |
| Thursday, Apr 16th | Social Cognition & Language II | |
| Tuesday, Apr 21st | Animal Communication I | Harlan 3 (pp 51 - 66) |
| Thursday, Apr 23rd | Animal Communication II | Kaplan (2014), HW7 |
| Tuesday, Apr 28th | Model Building in Psycholinguistics | Harley 15 & 16, Remirez (2025) |
( note: calendar generated/updated with semester.py)