Important information concerning the courses of the School of Humanities
Please note:
The list of courses and lectures below is only intended for students at the School of Humanities. Students from other schools can only register for courses from the University-wide electives.
To start the registration procedure please click on 'Details' behind the course title.
For further questions regarding all the courses offered by the School of Humanities,
please contact the departmental exchange coordinator:
incoming.phil uni-mannheim.de
ECTS-Punkte: 8
Diese Lehrveranstaltung richtet sich ausschließlich an MA-Studierende. This class is for MA students only.
Registration: All incoming exchange students at the School of Humanities need to register for their courses via Portal2. For further details, please check the instructions for course registration or contact incoming. phil.uni-mannheim.de
Anmeldung: Alle Austauschstudierenden der Philosophischen Fakultät müssen sich über Portal2 für ihre Kurse anmelden. Weitere Informationen finden Sie in unserer Anleitung oder wenden Sie sich an incoming. phil.uni-mannheim.de
Term paper
You will revise and deepen your knowledge of linguistic core concepts in the area of sounds.
You will develop an understanding of how speech can be described with respect to its phonetic correlates and its phonological characteristics.
You will become familiar with tools used by phoneticians to measure and annotate speech.
You will practice your skills in applying linguistic knowledge.
Ashby, M. & Maidment, J. (2010). Introducing phonetic science. Cambridge: CUP.
Odden, D. (2005). Introducing phonology. Cambridge: CUP.
Klausur, Take-Home (written 90-min exam, open-book via internet; recommended assessment option);
Hausarbeit (15-page term paper on an assigned topic);
Prüfungsgespräch (20-min oral exam)
How can we describe language and speech at the level of sound structure? What is the difference between phonetics and phonology? This course provides you with an overview of the main concepts of phonology and phonetics. We will look at the acoustic and articulatory correlates of speech sounds, we will learn how sounds are influenced by the context and changed by phonological processes, we will discuss how production relates to perception, and we will explore the limits of abstract phonological categories. Please note that this course is not about pronunciation. Rather, we will learn about phonology and phonetics as part of theoretical linguistics.
Primary textbook:
Aitchison, J. (2012). Words in the mind: An introduction to the mental lexicon. John Wiley & Sons.
Additional readings (chapter sections, articles) will be provided.
How are words represented in our brain? How do we extract words from speech and attach meaning to them? How do children learn new words? Do bilinguals have two independent mental lexicons?
These are some of the questions we will explore in this course. We will review different models of the mental lexicon and examine the key differences between those approaches. In this way, we will understand why different conclusions have been reached so far about the nature of the knowledge stored in the mental lexicon and about the organisation of the mental lexicon. We will also focus on different methodologies used to investigate the mental lexicon, such as lexical decision tasks and other psycholinguistic experiments. In our exploration of the mental lexicon, we will consider various topics, including first and second language acquisition, bilingualism, and aging.
Assessment options:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come.
In Shakespeare's times, these lines looked different:
Our father which art in heauen,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdome come.
Three hundred years before that, even more so:
Oure fadir that art in heuenes,
halewid be thi name; thi kyngdoom come to.
And right at the beginning of English language history, these lines are almost unrecognizable:
ure fæder, þu þe on heofonum eardast, ...
Sy þinum weorcum halgad …Cyme þin rice wide.
This course will help you understand how the English language could change so drastically and develop into today's shape over the past centuries. It will provide a concise introduction to diachronic linguistics, which will also include an overview of the history of the English language. The course will be primarily concerned with language change on all levels of linguistic survey, and it will put key concepts which are familiar from the “Introduction to Linguistics” into a diachronic perspective. Accordingly, the main focus will be on phonological, morphological, syntactic as well as semantic and lexical change. All phenomena will be illustrated by examples taken from the English language history which spans almost sixteen centuries.
This class will be taught in the FSS2022 in a flipped classroom format. This means that the course material will be presented as digital self-study materials for weekly asynchronous learning via ILIAS. A weekly synchronous session on campus (changes in restrictions due to covid pandemic pending) will give you the opportunity to discuss the prepared materials, apply what you’ve learned in text analysis tasks, work together on understanding the underlying mechanisms of language change and create your personal learning portfolio.Self-study materials will include a mix of readings, slides and video input as well as asynchronous tasks for the learning portfolio.
Students who want to earn credits in this course should have completed an Introduction to Linguistics course and should be able to understand and apply basic linguistic notions.
Assessment options:
Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy Name. Thy kingdom come.
In Shakespeare's times, these lines looked different:
Our father which art in heauen,
hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdome come.
Three hundred years before that, even more so:
Oure fadir that art in heuenes,
halewid be thi name; thi kyngdoom come to.
And right at the beginning of English language history, these lines are almost unrecognizable:
ure fæder, þu þe on heofonum eardast, ...
Sy þinum weorcum halgad …Cyme þin rice wide.
This course will help you understand how the English language could change so drastically and develop into today's shape over the past centuries. It will provide a concise introduction to diachronic linguistics, which will also include an overview of the history of the English language. The course will be primarily concerned with language change on all levels of linguistic survey, and it will put key concepts which are familiar from the “Introduction to Linguistics” into a diachronic perspective. Accordingly, the main focus will be on phonological, morphological, syntactic as well as semantic and lexical change. All phenomena will be illustrated by examples taken from the English language history which spans almost sixteen centuries.
This class will be taught in the FSS2022 in a flipped classroom format. This means that the course material will be presented as digital self-study materials for weekly asynchronous learning via ILIAS. A weekly synchronous session on campus (changes in restrictions due to covid pandemic pending) will give you the opportunity to discuss the prepared materials, apply what you’ve learned in text analysis tasks, work together on understanding the underlying mechanisms of language change and create your personal learning portfolio.
Self-study materials will include a mix of readings, slides and video input as well as asynchronous tasks for the learning portfolio.
You will revise and deepen your knowledge of linguistic core concepts in the area of words.
You will develop a basic understanding of the mechanisms of speech processing and of linguistic representation in the mental lexicon.
You will become familiar with a variety of experimental paradigms used by psycholinguists to study language comprehension.
You will practice your skills in critical thinking, academic reading, writing, presenting and teamwork.
References to the review and research articles will be provided in class.
Hausarbeit (15-page term paper on an assigned topic);
Prüfungsgespräch (20-min oral exam)
Language seems to be unique to humans. Yet, there is a long-standing debate what underlies the human language faculty and how language relates to other cognitive domains. In the last decade, the discussion has been fueled by theories of embodied cognition which assume that language is rooted in our sensory experiences rather than being an abstract system for thought. This course provides you with an overview of the main findings and theoretical positions with respect to the debate on the embodiment of language. In particular, we will discuss how sensory experiences may give rise to abstract linguistic concepts and how language processing recruits domain-general cognitive capacities.
You will revise and deepen your knowledge of linguistic core concepts in the area of sounds, words and sentences.
You will develop a basic understanding of the mechanisms and processes of (child) language acquisition, and how language learning may be supported by different types of input.
You will become familiar with a variety of empirical (observational and experimental) tools used by psycholinguists to study language acquisition.
You will compare different approaches in first language research in terms of their power to account for phenomena observed in acquisition.
You will practice your skills in critical thinking, academic reading, writing, presenting and teamwork
Horst, J. & Torkildsen, J. (2019). International handbook of language acquisition. London: Routledge.
References to original research articles will be provided in class.
Hausarbeit (25-page term paper on an assigned topic);
Prüfungsgespräch (20-min oral exam)
How do children acquire language? What are the milestones of first language acquisition? How is language learning influenced by innate abilities and environmental factors? This course provides you with an overview of the basic mechanisms and theoretical accounts of child language development. Looking at how children acquire lexicon and grammar, we will discuss how the child is prepared to learn language and how factors in the environment, such as quality and quantity of input, shape language acquisition.