Entrance examination Syllabus for MPhil in Linguistics ...jaduniv.edu.in/upload_files/scroll_info/1498738721.pdf · Entrance examination Syllabus for MPhil in Linguistics -2017 June

Entrance examination Syllabus for MPhil in Linguistics -2017 June 29, 2017

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Entrance examination Syllabus for MPhil in Linguistics -2017

School of Languages and Linguistics

Jadavpur University

In accordance with clause 5.4.11 & 5.4.2 2 of the Gazette of India REGD. NO. D. L.-33004/99 on (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of M.PHIL./PH.D Degrees) Regulations, 2016, 5/7/2016

1 Research methodology (50%) Method of research, Basic reading strategies, Project management, Data collection and management, Data analysis, Drafting and redrafting, Bibliography preparation etc.

1 What is research?

1.1 – What are the different types of linguistic research exist (theoretical work and experimental work of various types?)

1.2 – Who does what type of research in the department?

1.3 – Ethics, data protection and plagiarism with respect to different types of research

2 How to read a paper

2.1 – What is critical reading?

2.2 – Methods for critical reading

– Worked examples

2.3 – Organizing a bibliography using citation management tools

3 How to write a paper

3.1 – Requirements for M. Phil essays and dissertation

3.1.1 – Choosing a topic

3.1.2 – Essay planning

1 5.4.1 An Entrance Test shall be qualifying with qualifying marks as 50%. The syllabus of the Entrance Test shall

consist of 50% of research methodology and 50% shall be subject specific. The Entrance Test shall be conducted at

the Centre(s) notified in advance (changes of Centres, if any, also to be notified well in advance) at the level of the

individual HEI as mentioned in clause 1.2; and

2 An interview/viva-voce to be organized by the HEI as mentioned in clause 1.2 when the candidates are required to

discuss their research interest/area through a presentation before a duly constituted Department Research

Committee. For details refer to http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/4952604_UGC-(M.PHIL.-PH.D-DEGREES)-

REGULATIONS,-2016.pdf

http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/4952604_UGC-(M.PHIL.-PH.D-DEGREES)-REGULATIONS,-2016.pdf

http://www.ugc.ac.in/pdfnews/4952604_UGC-(M.PHIL.-PH.D-DEGREES)-REGULATIONS,-2016.pdf


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3.1.3 – Drafting and proof reading

3.1.4 – Correct use of references and quotations

3.2 – Plagiarism

4 Developing/writing theoretical arguments: Part 1

4.1 – Types of enquiry: rationalism vs. empiricism

– Inference: deduction, induction and abduction

4.2 – Research questions for theoretical arguments

4.3 – Developing a theoretical argument

– Examples of theoretical linguistic research

5 Developing/writing theoretical arguments: Part 2

5.1 – Research questions for theoretical arguments

– Developing a theoretical argument

– Examples of theoretical linguistic research

5.2 Planning and carrying out longer research

– Writing an M.Phil dissertation plan

– Expected structure of M.Phil dissertation

– Planning your time—what can go wrong

– Interaction with your supervisor

5.3 Presentation skills

– Technicalities

– Empathizing with your audience

– Tailoring your material to the presentation

– Handling questions

5.4 Presenting data

– Good practice when presenting numerical data

– Good practice for drawing a graph


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–– Practical issues (typographical tools and version control)

5.5 Experimental methods: Informants and surveying

5.5.1 – Interviews vs. questionnaires

5.5.2 – Types of questions and types of answers

5.5.3 – Sample size and selection

5.5.4 – Working with specific informants (children, aphasics, elderly, speakers of other languages, ...)

5.5.5 – Ethical issues and data protection

5.5.6 – Interpretation and significance of results

5.5.7 – Writing up field work

5.6 Experimental methods: cognition

5.6.1 – Designing psycholinguistic and neuro linguistic experiments (controlling variables)

5.6.2 – Practical issues (using equipment, dealing with systematic errors)



5.6.5 – Writing up a cognitive experiment

5.7 Experimental methods: Syntax, Semantics and Pragmatics

5.7.1 – Theoretical issues (grammaticality, gradience)

5.7.2 – Practical matters (designing questionnaires for experimental syntax/semantics/pragmatics)



5.7.5 – Writing up a project in experimental syntax/semantics/pragmatics

5.8 Experimental methods: sound

5.8.1 – Data collection (recording equipment, data quality, data longevity)

5.8.2 – Transcription (notation schemes, transcription tools)

5.8.3 – Interpretation of data (including inter-annotator agreement)



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5.8.5 – Writing up a project in experimental phonetics and phonology

5.9 Experimental methods: corpora

5.9.1 – Types of corpora

5.9.2 – Representation and sampling

5.9.3 – Methods for accessing and comparing corpora

5.9.4 – Building a corpus (ethical issues)

5.9.5 – Writing up corpus work

5.10 Talking about styles

5.10.1 -APA , Chicago Manual

1.1 Suggested readings • http://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab/

• Kidwai, Ayesha. 2012. The SLL & CS Research Handbook. Jawaharlal Nehru University.

• Mouton, Johann, HC Marais 1996. BASIC CONCEPTS in the methodology of the social sciences. HSRC Publishers.

1.2 Model question 1. Which of the following is not true?

a Research simply means a search for facts b Research is purposive investigation c Research is disorganized detailed enquiry d Research include solutions to problems

2 Discipline of Linguistics (50%) For this component the syllabus has been prepared following the model curriculum proposed by UGC. For details refer to

http://www.ugc.ac.in/oldpdf/modelcurriculum/linguistics.pdf.

As per the standard practices, the syllabus is also likely to cover the maximum number of courses offered by the Indian Universities at the post graduate level in Linguistics.

[Snapshots are taken from the UGC model curriculum for PG course in Linguistics pp-41-85]

Introduction to linguistics

What is linguistics? – Its Scope and branches; Definition of language, Origin of language, Language and Linguistics, Language and Mind; Language and Society;

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/writinglab/

http://www.ugc.ac.in/oldpdf/modelcurriculum/linguistics.pdf


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Language and Communication; Language as systems of system; Design features of language; Structure of language; Approaches to the study of language; Synchronic and diachronic approaches in linguistics; Writing system; Some important concepts like complementary vs. contrastive distribution, -emic vs. –etic representations, langue vs. parole, competence vs. performance etc.

Phonetics


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Phonology


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Morphology


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Syntax


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Semantics


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Pragmatics & Discourse analysis

What is Pragmatics?

Basic concepts of pragmatics: Entailment, Presupposition;

The Co-operative Principle and Implicature; Locution, Illocution, Perlocution; Centrality of Context, Performance, Discourse larger than sentence etc.; Pragmatization of Syntax and Semantics; Relevance theory etc.

Definitions of discourse

Discourse, grammar, interaction

Discourse and Cognition

Discourse Pragmatics

Conversational analysis

Text Analysis

Discourse representation theories

Language and Society

Historical perspective of Sociolinguistics, Aims and Scope; Sociology of language and Sociolinguistics; Key concepts: Speech communities, Linguistic variations, Standardized dialect, dialects, linguistic identity, regional dialects, isoglosses, social dialects, registers, diglossia; Sapir-Whorf hypothesis; Language contact; Linguistic inequality: Power and Solidarity etc.


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Language typology


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Computational linguistics


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Introduction, the role of natural language processing, linguistics and its structure,

the important role of the fundamental; a historical outline:

The structuralist approach, initial contribution of chomsky, a simple context-free grammar , transformational grammars, the linguistic research after chomsky: valencies and interpretation, linguistic research after chomsky: constraints, head-driven phrase structure grammar, the idea of unification,

The meaning ⇔ text theory: multistage transformer and government patterns, the meaning ⇔ text theory: dependency trees, the meaning ⇔ text theory: semantic links;

Products of computational linguistics: present and prospective: classification of applied linguistic systems, automatic hyphenation, spell checking, grammar checking, style checking, references to words and word combinations, information retrieval, topical summarization, automatic translation, natural language interface, extraction of factual data from texts, text generation, systems of language understanding, related systems; language as a meaning ⇔ text transformer, possible points of view on natural language, language as a bi-directional transformer, text, what is it?, meaning, what is it?,

Two ways to represent meaning, decomposition and atomization of meaning, not-uniqueness of meaning ⇒ text mapping: synonymy, not-uniqueness of text ⇒ meaning mapping: homonymy, multistage character of the meaning ⇔ text transformer, translation as a multistage transformation, two sides of a sign,

Linguistic sign, linguistic sign in the mmt, linguistic sign in hpsg, are signifiers given by nature or by convention?, generative, mtt, and constraint ideas in comparison;

Linguistic models: what is modeling in general?, neurolinguistic models, psycholinguistic models,

Functional models of language, research linguistic models, common features of modern models of language, specific features of the meaning ⇔ text model, reduced models, significance of linguistic models, analogy in natural languages, empirical versus rationalist approaches: limited scope of the modern linguistic theories

Psycho-Neuro Linguistics

What is neurolinguistics?, The development of theories about brain and language,

Models and frameworks in neurolinguistics today,


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Phonology in neurolinguistics, Morphology and syntax in neurolinguistics, Lexical semantics, The semantics and pragmatics of communicative contributions in context from a neurolinguistic perspective,

Reading and writing from a neurolinguistic perspective,

Neurolinguistic aspects of bilingualism, On the evolution and development of the brain, communication, and Language,

Multimodality in neurolinguistics, Methods of investigating the brain, Modeling the brain, Some basic concepts in neuroscience

History of Psycholinguistics: Formative period, Linguistic Period, Cognitive Period; Speech perception and Speech production;

stages in speech perception: Auditory stage, phonetic stage, phonological stage, syntactic-semantic stage; Signification of studying error;

Theories on language development: Piaget and Vygotsky;

First language acquisition; Second language acquisition; Learning theories: Classical and operand conditioning (Pavlov), Cognitive constructivism (Piaget),

Social constructivism (Vygotsky), Social Learning (Bandura), Discovery learning (Bruner) etc.

Cognitive linguistics

Introduction: What is cognitive linguistics?,

Conceptual Approach to linguistic analysis, Frames, domains, spaces:

The organization of conceptual structure, Profile-frame organization, conceptual domains and spaces, locational and configurational profiles, scope of predications, inter-/intra-domain relationships etc.

Conceptualization and construal operations, Attention/salience, selection, scope of attention, scalar adjustment, dynamic attention, categorization, figure-ground alignment, viewpoint, structural schematization, force dynamics etc.,

Categories, concepts and meanings, Classical model of category structure, prototype model of category structure, graded centrality, representation of conceptual categories, levels of categorizations, category boundaries, frames, contextualized interpretation, construal, structural and logical aspects of meaning etc.,

Cognitive approaches to lexical semantics, Polysemy: the construal of sense boundaries, Homonymy, polysemy, entrenchment, boundary effects, the nature of full sense units, facets, micro-senses, ways of seeing, semantic components and low autonomy of active zones contextual modulation etc.,


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Dynamic construal approach to sense relations, Hyponymy and context, relations between lexical items, taxonomy, the part-whole relation, meronymy, oppositeness, complimentarity, antonymy etc. Metaphor, Figurative language, issues in conceptual theory of metaphor, blending theory, context sensitivity, metaphor and simile, metaphor and metonymy etc. Cognitive approaches to grammatical form,

From idioms to construction grammar, Problems in modeling meaning construction in case of idioms, idioms as constructions, from construction to construction grammar, representing the anatomy of construction using the principles of construction grammar, cognitive grammar as construction grammar, radical construction grammar etc.,

Usage based model, Grammatical representation and processes, entrenchment and representation of word forms, regularity, productivity, and default status, product-oriented schemas, network organization of word forms etc.

Historical linguistics

Introduction to Historical Linguistics; Growth and development of Historical Linguistics; Language from the diachronic viewpoint;

Historical linguistics as the study of language change; How and why do Languages change? – substratum, local identification, functional need, simplification, structural pressure etc.;

Types of sound change: lenitition, fortition, aphoresis, apocope, syncope, cluster simplification, haplology, Excrescence, Epenthesis/Anaptyxis, Prothesis, Metathesis, Assimilation, Dissimilation etc.;

Representing sound changes: rule writing and rule ordering; Morphological changes: Boundary shifts, doubling and reinforcement etc.;

Syntactic change; Lexical and semantic change; Language contact leading to the historical development of the languages: Convergence; Pidginization; Creolization, Language attrition etc.

Philosophy of language

Historical background: Frege, Wittgenstein; Philosophy of language in the Twentieth Century; The nature of language: Psychologism,

Language as internal, Languages and Idiolects; The Nature of Reference: Rule following, meaning and Normativity;

Naturalist Theories of Meaning, Truth and Meaning,


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Meaning Holism, Intention-based semantics, Propositional content, Conceptual role semantics, Semantic internalism and externalism,

Relevance theory; The nature of reference: Predicate reference, Names and natural kinds; Linguistic Phenomena: Compositionality, Opacity, Tense, Plurals, The pragmatics of logical constants, Quantifiers, Logical form and LF;

The Epistemology and Metaphysics of language: Meaning and Reference, Knowledge of language, Realism and antirealism, Shared content;

Sphota theory of Bhartrihari, Karaka theory of Sanskrit Grammar, Byakti (Individual) vs. jati (Universal) etc.

Logical and mathematical linguistics

The conceptual background: Structural linguistics, Mathematical logic, Computation, Sets, Strings, Monoids,

Polynomials and series on strings, Basic properties of languages, Factorization of strings, Polynomials on phonemes;

Turing machine; Formal systems: definitions, rewriting rules and building processes, auxiliary symbols, variables, extension of rewriting systems, Equivalence relation, Congruence relation, the product of classes, morphism;

Relation between Turing Machines and rewriting systems; Computing systems and Natural Languages:

Natural languages as recursively enumerable sets, deletions, insertions, permutations; Fintele state processes: Context free languages;

Linguistic adequacy of mathematical models; Propositional logic; First order predicate logic etc.

2.1 Suggested readings Akmajian A., R.A. Demers and R.M. Harnish, 1984. Second revised edition. Linguistics: An Introduction to Language and Communication. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press. (Indian ed. 1991. Prentice Hall.)

Hockett. C.F. 1958. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New York: Macmillian. Indian Edition, New Delhi: Oxford and IBH Publishing Co.

Lyons, J. 1968. Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics. Cambridge (UK): CUP

Ladefoged,P. 2001 [1975]. A course in phonetics (with interactive CD-ROM). New York: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich.

Ladefoged,P. 2004 [2000]. Vowels and consonants. Oxford: Blackwell.

Ladefoged,P. 2003. Phonetic data analysis. An introduction to fieldwork and instrumental techniques. Oxford: Blackwell.


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Laver,J. 1994. Principles of phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Chomsky N and M Halle The Sound Pattern of English, New York 1968.

Dell F. Generative Phonology. Cambridge 1980.

Clark, J. and C. Yallop 1990. An Introduction to phonetics and phonology. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Katamba F. Morphology. London 1993. Saeed, John I. 1997. Semantics. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

Levinson, Stephen. 1983. Pragmatics . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Trask R L. Historical Linguistics . London . Arnold. 1996.

Trudgill, P. 1995. Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. London: Penguin.

Lenneberg E. H. : Biological Foundations of Language 1967. Martinich, A. P. (1996), The Philosophy of Language, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press.

Allwood, Jens, Lars-Gunnar Andersson, and Östen Dahl. 1977. Logic in linguistics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bolshakov, I.A. & A. Gelbukh 2004. Computational Linguistics: Models, Resources, Applications, Dirección de Publicaciones.

Ahlsen, E. 2006. Introduction to Neurolinguistics. John Benjamins Publishing Company.

Croft, W. and Allan D. Cruse 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge University Press.

2.2 Model questions 1. Explain the differences in past tense markers and show the derivations in the

light of Lexical morphological model. 2. Illustrate with examples that passivization is a valence decreasing device and

causation is an increasing one. 3. Consider the following collection of utterances:

A: Where is C? B: There is a yellow BMW outside D’s house?

Do you think these two utterances produced by A and B respectively, could be a part of any meaningful communication between them? – Justify your answer.

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Entrance examination Syllabus for MPhil in Linguistics ...jaduniv.edu.in/upload_files/scroll_info/1498738721.pdf · Entrance examination Syllabus for MPhil in Linguistics -2017 June