ENGLISH 4167-001 The Mind and Language

Spring 2008

MW 03:30 - 04:45 p.m., 3140 Colvard Bldg., UNC-Charlotte

Goals of this Course

  This course investigates how the architecture of language reflects (and may be determined by) the architecture of the human mind.  That inquiry cuts across a variety of disciplines, including philosophy, cognitive science, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence research.  As per our discussion at the beginning of the semester, we will pay particular attention to the study of aphasia, metaphor, and language growth/learning.  Participants in the course will read sources from those areas and in addition conduct and share individual research projects in fields of their interest, such as aphasiology, child development, forensic linguistics, animal communication research, etc.  We will base our readings on a working understanding of the grammar of English, which will require a compressed review of it.  Thus, the course counts towards the minors in Cognitive Science and Neuroscience and also satisfies the Applied Linguistics requirement for majors of English.

Ralf Thiede - 19-28-2008