Aims

The course seeks to familiarize the students with the tools of linguistic analysis by deepening their sensibilities to the problems linked to the evolution, variety, and dispersion of languages. It aims to give the students an essential know-how for the analysis of the language inherent to the discourses in the students' chosen field of study. Finally, the course gives the students an overview of the different strands of linguistic analysis and trains them to exercise their critical thought when faced with the methodological and epistemological aspects that characterize these different strands.

Main themes

Internal structure of the language.
Linguistic strands.
Key bibliographic information about general linguistics.

Internal structure of the language : linguistic branches and descriptive units: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, discourse. Illustrations and application to Classical, Romance, and Germanic languages. Linguistic strands : relying on a diachronic perspective, the course reviews the main strands of modern linguistics. It brings out the main contributions in the construction of a scientific reflection about Language and languages. It shows their methodological implications through illustrations and applications to the analysis of Classical, Romance, and Germanic languages. Key bibliographic information about general linguistics : bibliographies, general works, Web sites, etc.

Content and teaching methods

The goal of the course is to give an overvieuw of contemporary linguistic theories (20th century) in order to shed light on the ways our current understanding of language, as a scientific object of study, has been forged. Particular attention will be given to the methods that go hand in hand with each of the theories and approaches.
Starting with Ferdinand de Saussure, the course will pass in revieuw the following theories and approaches : European and American structuralism, generative theory, functional and cognitive linguistics and pragmatic theories of language. These approaches will be linked to the different levels of abstraction as studied in language : phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, semantics and pragmatics.

Other credits in programs