Course Descriptions

This course provides a survey of modern English grammar. It covers the analysis and description of word classes, phrases, clauses, and sentences in English. Challenging areas of English grammar such as passive, tense, aspect, and embedded clauses will be studied in detail. A portion of the course will consist of applying rules of grammar in students' own writing and editing, tasks applicable to those wishing to teach English to a variety of learners.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

An introduction to the findings, theories and methods of modern structural linguistics. Includes phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Basic analytical skills are emphasized. Examples will be drawn from a wide variety of natural languages.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

An introduction to first and second language acquisition, language in society, world languages and animal communication. The human biological propensity to acquire language and language universals are considered.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3.

Drawing on the examples of language technologies that we use frequently, this course focuses on two aspects of language use in the digital era: What language technologies are available, and how these technologies are shaping our language use (e.g., new communication styles, new semiotic resources, and new genres). This course also offers a window into popular language technologies such as spell and grammar checkers, automated speech recognition, machine translation, chatbots (e.g., Siri, Alexa), plagiarism detection, and intelligent language learning tutors. This course does not require previous knowledge of programing or computational algorithms.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

Storytelling/oral stories have long been a tool for teaching and language transmission and a central component of Indigenous stewardship of knowledge and values. This course explores how we can learn about core principles of Indigenous language structure and Linguistics through the study of narratives. Course topics include organization of stories/events, word and sentence structure, and speech sounds, as well as an extensive discussion on the function of stories and narratives, i.e. centrally, how language is intrinsically tied to worldview and conceptualization of the world. It showcases how each language is a holistic complex system. The course also addresses how settler colonialism has impacted the study of Indigenous languages as well as the field of linguistics.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

This taught-abroad course explores the dynamics of language contact from both a theoretical and applied perspective. Students will travel with their instructor to a multilingual region of the world to learn about past and present language contact in that area, while also experiencing first-hand the linguistic, social, cultural and historical underpinnings and effects of contact-induced language change. This course will also highlight the thoughts and attitudes of speakers of different language communities towards language contact and, in the case of languages that have been affected by historical and present-day colonialism, students will learn about the valuable work that community members and activists are doing to reclaim and strengthen their languages.

Prerequisite(s): LING 111 or LING 114; and LING 112; and permission of the instructor.
Note: Costs in addition to tuition will apply to this course. Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided that the location is sufficiently different each time. Students must consult the department to ensure that the location is sufficiently different. Students must have a minimum cumulative weighted average of 65% to participate in this course. Students must also have completed 30 cu by the start of the course.

This course introduces students to translation studies from linguistic, cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives. The course considers the nature of linguistic meaning, as well as semantic and cognitive processes involved in translation. Text types and styles are analyzed. Discoursal and pragmatic aspects of translation are considered along with cultural and ideological backgrounds. The learners will develop practical translation skills (from and to English and the other language of their competence).

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and 6 credit units of courses in one language other than English, or permission of the instructor.

Advanced introduction to structural and transformational models of grammar. Emphasizes recent trends in linguistic analysis and theory. Natural language data from diverse languages will be analyzed extensively.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 110.3, LING 111.3, LING 114.3, or permission of the department.

Introduces articulatory, acoustic, and auditory phonetics, the structure and functioning of the vocal tract, the major classes of speech sounds and the IPA systems of phonetic notation. Recognition, production, and perception of speech sounds and the preliminaries of phonological analysis will be emphasized. Students will also be introduced to the computer software PRAAT for phonetic analysis.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3

Investigates the internal structure of words and the rules by which words are formed. Material from a wide variety of languages is drawn upon to explore morphological processes, their relationship to syntactic structures, and to language typology. Practical work in morphological analysis is emphasized.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3

Presents language in its social context, covering aspects of linguistic variation within and across speech communities. Topics include language and class, gender, age, speech context and ethnicity. Language standardization, code-switching, bilingualism and diglossia, rules of conversation and appropriate address, and societal features of language change will be discussed.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and one of LING 112.3, SOC 111.3, SOC 112.3, WGST 210.3, or 6 credit units of ARBC, CHIN, CREE, FREN, GERM, GRK, HEB, HNDI, JPNS, LATN, RUSS, SNSK, SPAN or UKR courses.

This course addresses fundamental issues of general lexicology and lexicography. It provides understanding of the lexicon as a systemic whole, its development, latest theories about the processes. The course focuses on the basic unit of the language word (lexeme), its structure, meaning, etymology, variants. The word is viewed in three aspects: structural, semantic and functional. There is thorough treatment of word-formation, its historical development, semantic and morphological aspects. Much attention is paid to phraseology. Lexicographical issues cover entries, dictionary types and size, explanations, translation, computer dictionaries, databases. The course will also dwell upon aspects of stylistics from the lexicological point of view. Examples are drawn from a wide variety of languages.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3.

Gives an overview of six most influential languages of the world: English, French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic and Chinese. The course explores the main concepts of geographical linguistics, factors that make a language influential, globalization and language ideology, the language life cycle and the role of globalization in language obsolescence. The focus will be on the spread of each of these languages in two aspects: geographical-historical (the origins of the languages, their spread in space and time) and socio-cultural (linguistic variation, language as national identity marker). A considerable portion of time will be devoted to the linguistic portraying of these languages: characterization of their typological features on the levels of phonology, morphology, syntax, as well as study of fragments constituting their different linguistics pictures of the world.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s):LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3 or 6 credit units ARBC, CHIN, CREE, FREN, GERM, GRK, HEB, HNDI, JPNS, LATN, RUSS, SNSK, SPAN or UKR courses.

The course provides an overview of second language acquisition theories. It considers views on the nature of language learning, on first and second language acquisition and native/non-native language processing.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3.

This course provides an overview of the major varieties of English. Different geographical varieties of English will be addressed and discussed with respect to core components of their phonology, phonetics, morphology, lexicon, and sentence structure. The course also examines factors in the development of language variation such as language change, language planning, migration, language contact, and second language teaching.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 110.3, LING 111.3, LING 114.3, or 24 credit units at the university level.

This course provides learners with an understanding of the challenges in communication across cultures, ethnicities and social groups; and of managing these challenges. Intercultural communication considers patterns of interaction across cultures, social attitudes, thought patterns employed by individuals from different socio-cultural backgrounds to produce and interpret messages. While examples are drawn from a variety of world regions, the course will focus predominantly on the comparison of Canadian/North American and Asian (China, Japan, Russia, Middle East countries) communication patterns. This course will help Canadian born students as well as international and immigrant students to function better in a multicultural environment and develop their intercultural communication skills.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3, LING 114.3, 24 credit units of university courses, or 6 credit units ARBC, CHIN, CREE, FREN, GERM, GRK, HEB, HNDI, JPNS, LATN, RUSS, SNSK, SPAN, or UKR courses.

This course provides an overview of the linguistic landscape of the Indigenous languages of Canada and North America. We will begin with the Indigenous perspectives of the origin, properties, and relations between languages and cultures and the properties of languages growing from the places of where they are spoken. We will then correspond this view with the Western linguistic perspective of language family trees and linguistic features commonly found in Indigenous languages of North America. We will address the process of child language acquisition, in particular the effects of interruptions through residential schools, forced assimilation, and foster care. A second major topic in this course will be the linguistic and cultural impact of education delivered through the lens of official bilingualism. The last major topic is the revitalization of Indigenous languages in Canada and worldwide. The methods, the approaches, and the success stories will provide a varied picture of the efforts by speakers, educators, and linguists to relieve and reverse the loss of languages and cultures.

Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3, LING 114.3, or 24 credit units of university courses.
Note: Students with credit for LING 342 may not receive credit for this course.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

This course will provide a unique opportunity to conduct real linguistic fieldwork with endangered languages. Students to delve into the fascinating and urgent task of studying and preserving languages that are often spoken by marginalized communities that are rapidly disappearing, taking with them millennia of human history, culture, and knowledge. Students will work with language consultants on a one-on-one basis and in groups to document unique aspects of their languages with the goal of learning the skills needed to aid in their preservation, reclamation, and revitalization.

Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 243.3 or LING 340.3; and permission of the instructor.
Note: Costs in addition to tuition will apply to this course. Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided that the location is sufficiently different each time. Students must consult the department to ensure that the location is sufficiently different. Students in this course may be required to have a conversational level of proficiency in the language used in the destination location. In order to be granted permission to register, students will have to prove this level of proficiency to the instructor. Students must also have a minimum of 30 cu and an overall average no lower than 65%.

This course considers language diversity explained by multiple societal factors as well as individual child language development. The overall philosophy of the course is that of multilingualism, multiculturalism, and inclusion. The course addresses language and speech variability, promotes its appreciation, and differentiates between variability and pathology. In particular, the course explores divergent first language acquisition, non-binary and transgender language issues, language innovation resulting from language contact and indigenous varieties of world’s major languages.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; LING 112.3; and 3 credit units of 100-level ARBC, CHIN, CREE, DENE, FREN, GERM, HNDI, JPNS, SPAN, UKR, or other living language course (not English). Students who are fluent in a language other than English may receive permission to take a LING course in lieu of the language course requirement. Please contact the department to request this permission.

Basic concepts of phonology and the procedures of phonological analysis are introduced, through a number of different frameworks. Data from a variety of natural languages is analyzed.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3, LING 114.3, or permission of the department.
Note: Students with credit for LING 240 may not take this course for credit.

This course will introduce advanced linguistics students to the foundations of word and sentence semantics and to the tools of semantic description. Students will practice field work in Semantics.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and 3 credit units 200-level LING.

This course provides an overview of the field of first language acquisition. It examines issues of language development from the child's birth to high school graduation. Topics covered in this course include linguistic development in infancy, acquisition of linguistic ability in phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and speaking skills. Furthermore, it examines underlying factors that may lead to atypical language development. It also includes a practical component applying and evaluating research methodology in child language research.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3.

An introduction to the historical linguistics of unwritten and written languages. Topics will include genetic and typological and areal relationships between languages, comparative reconstruction, dialect formation, phonological, morphological and semantic change, and writing systems. The integration of linguistics with prehistory and historical ethnology will be emphasized.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3.
Note: Students with credit for LING 246 may not take this course for credit.

The course will introduce students to discourse analysis in which language use is examined within its sociocultural context. Students will be introduced to the basics of discourse analysis as well as to current research paradigms such as critical discourse analysis.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3

Introduces students to key applied linguistic principles and criteria used in assessing and selecting materials in second/foreign language teaching. The course addresses the main types of materials available to ESL teachers and develops skills in adapting and developing materials for second/foreign language acquisition.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; LING 112.3 and 6 credit units 200, 300 or 400-level LING.

The course will introduce advanced linguistic students to the foundations of computational linguistics. Using freely available resources for natural language processing, students will be introduced to corpus linguistics, data mining, tokenizing, part-of-speech-tagging, morphological analysis and syntactic parsing.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): 6 credit units of LING or CMPT; or permission of department.
Note: Participants should have completed LING 111 and at least one other Linguistics course at 200 or 300-Level. Alternatively they should have completed at least 6 credit units of Computer Science courses.

This course examines how linguistic meaning arises from the broader context of communication. A portion of the course is concerned with things that are left unsaid (implicature, presupposition, and dog whistles), and how they can be exploited for efficient communication as well as for more nefarious purposes. We also look at how language can quite literally change the world (speech acts), and at words that change their meaning depending on the speaker/listener (deixis).

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): (LING 111.3 or LING 114.3) and 3 credit units 200-level LING courses; or permission of the department.

This course provides an introduction to the field of communication sciences and disorders, as well as an overview of professional practice in Speech-language Pathology. It will focus on disordered communication and development, types of communication disorders, and treatment pathways. The course will begin with an overview of the profession and clients, followed by an introduction to the anatomy and physiology of the speech production mechanism. We will then investigate articulation, language, literacy, cognitive, fluency, voice, swallowing, and hearing disorders affecting communication with reference to various diagnostic and treatment options. An exploration of case studies will be used to illustrate assessment practices, identification and diagnosis, therapeutic avenues, and data measured outcomes for clients impacted by communication disorders. Time will be awarded to aspects of client and counseling, English language learners, augmentative communication systems, and ethical expectations within the field. Material will be presented through class lectures, assigned readings, and class discussions.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; LING 112.3; LING 241.3; and LING 242.3.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours

This course focuses on the relationship between language and culture, and how they shape and influence each other. Drawing on a variety of languages and cultures from all over the globe, we examine topics such as conceptual metaphor, conceptualization of space, linguistic taboos, interactional patterns, or verbal art. Examples may come from everyday speech, media, song lyrics, folk tales, or other genres of human speech.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3 or LING 244.3; and 6 credit units of senior Linguistics courses.

Helps students to develop an ability to obtain, organize, and analyze language-related experimental data. Empirical methods are explored with some attention given to data-driven quantitative methods employed in natural language analysis. The course includes language data collection, statistical analysis, language corpora, the fundamentals of automated syntactic parsing, text classification, information extraction, tagging, and summarization. Students will also benefit from learning data processing computer software packages such as R and Excel.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 112.3; and a minimum of 9 credit units of LING courses at the 200-level or higher.

Focuses on the role of languages in constructing and sustaining gender in different societies around the world. Students will also examine linguistic mechanisms of creating gender divisions and stereotypes, as well as remedying gender-related inequalities.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; and LING 244.3; and 3 credit units of senior LING or permission of the department.

This course introduces students to the description and research on a non-Indo-European language. The specific language and topic changes according to the respective instructor's area of expertise. Students learn about the traditions and current practices of describing understudied languages, learn current field research methods, and read primary literature on descriptions and analyses. This course provides an in-depth introduction to the research of languages that have little to no research focus compared to major languages such as English.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): LING 111.3 or LING 114.3; plus 9 credit units of LING courses at the 200-level or higher.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided that the language covered is sufficiently different each time. Students must consult the department to ensure that the language is sufficiently different. Students with credit for LING 498.3 The Grammar of Inuktitut may not take this course for credit if the language covered is Inuktitut.”

This course leads to the completion of an research project. Major components include literature research, topic development, methodology, ethics application (if needed). Presentations and regular meetings with the supervisor are required. The course leads to a final paper that discusses the literature, the research, and its results.

Permission of the department and the instructor required.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Offered occasionally by visiting faculty and in other special situations to cover, in depth, topics that are not thoroughly covered in regularly offered courses.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours

This course will introduce graduate students to advanced concepts in discourse analysis. The course will outline the role of discourse in social and ideological constructs. It will cover multiple theoretical approaches to discourse as well as practical tools of discourse analysis with examples from different disciplines. The subject matter will also include Conversation Analysis as well as some concepts in pragmatics, such as speech acts, and politeness theory. Students will be introduced to current research paradigms including Critical Discourse analysis (CDA) and Critical Discourse Studies (CDS).

Weekly hours: 1 Lecture hours and 2 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.

This course introduces graduate students to methods employed in linguistic research. This course has two primary concentrations: one on language documentation and the other on quantitative and/or qualitative linguistic analysis. Concepts covered in course include building hypotheses, empirical data analysis, developing critical thinking skills using the scientific method. All data used in this course comes by way of natural language data.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

This course introduces students to contemporary theories of syntax and morphology, discusses their role in foreign language teaching and learning, and introduces teaching methodologies for teaching morphological and syntactic rules. We will learn about contemporary theories of syntax and morphology, such as the Minimalist Program, HPSG, LFG, and the Easier Syntax approach. After considering the role of grammar in various teaching paradigms, we will examine theories of syntactic and morphological acquisition in second language learning and consider how to integrate these theories into a modern foreign language syllabus.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.

This course focuses on the role of languages in constructing and sustaining gender in different societies around the world. Students will also examine linguistic mechanisms of creating gender divisions and stereotypes, as well as remedying gender-related inequality.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.
Note: Students with credit for LING 820 may not receive credit for this course.

This course surveys modern sociolinguistic theories as well as methods of conducting sociolinguistic research, collecting and analyzing sociolinguistic data. The theoretical approaches include linguistic relativism, language variation, sociology of language, social psychology of language, interactional sociolinguistics, ethnomethodology, and variationist sociolinguistics.

Weekly hours: 3 Lecture hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.

This course addresses varying topics in the analysis and description of formal phenomena in language from syntax, phonetics/phonology, morphology, semantics.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite: Registration in a Graduate program.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

This course will introduce graduate students to linguistic structures of non-Indo European languages. This may be a thorough survey of the grammatical structure of non-Indo European language or language family, or as a survey of certain grammatical topics from a typological, areal, or historical perspective.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Restriction: Registration in a graduate program
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

This course will allow students to examine linguistic structures in detail from a typological and/or areal viewpoint. The typological perspective will inform students about the prevalence of those structures in the languages of the world, whereas the areal perspective will address how those structures are diffused across languages that are in close contact with each other.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

This course introduces the theories in second language acquisition (SLA) as well as SLA theory-informed practices in second language pedagogy. Students will also learn how to design second language research and analyze language learner-related data quantitatively and qualitatively.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.

This course addresses sociolinguistic aspects of bilingualism and multilingualism with a focus on Canadian context. The topics include language dynamics in immigration (official versus home language use and attitudes), heritage language speakers, language and cultures interactions, language and identity, and family language policies.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.

This course addresses subjects of general interest to applied linguists and linguists.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Prerequisite(s): Registration in a Graduate program.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

This course will examine topics from sociolinguistics and linguistic anthropology. Possible topics include variationist sociolinguistics, language contact, language ideologies, ethnography of speaking, the conceptualization of space and time, metaphor, etc.

Weekly hours: 3 Seminar/Discussion hours
Restriction: Restricted to graduate students in the Department of Linguistics.
Note: Students may take this course more than once for credit, provided the topic covered in each offering differs substantially. Students must consult the Department to ensure that the topics covered are different.

Offered occasionally in special situations. Students interested in these courses should contact the Department for more information.

Offered occasionally in special situations. Students interested in these courses should contact the Department for more information.

Students and faculty will make presentations concerning their current research. All candidates for a graduate degree must make one presentation. Attendance is required throughout the graduate program.

Students writing a Master's thesis must register for this course.

Students enrolled in Special Case PhD in Linguistics must register for this course. This course is designed to enhance the student's knowledge of the subject area. Readings are assigned on an individual basis. The course is expected to prepare the student for writing the PhD thesis. Attendance is obligatory. The course in non-credited.