First Presentation

Prepare by reading the excerpt from Steven Pinker's The stuff of thought. Each team will have 15 minutes at the start of class on Friday to put finishing touches on their presentation, and then 15 minutes to present their theory to the group. Presentations can include media, please let Carmen know before class if you will need a projector. At the end of the presentations, we will have a debate between the 4 theories, so you should be taking notes during each presentation accordingly.

Team 1: Extreme Nativism

Jasmine David

Margarita Fuentes

Team 2: Radical Pragmatics

Domo Lafontant

Hollis Lane

Jenna Litton

Team 3: Linguistic Determinism

Ornella Njoya

Amanda Ringland

Alex Ross Farris

Team 4: Conceptual Semantics (definitely watch this TEDTalk in addition to the reading)

Rose Shuker-Haines

Owen Thompson

Kullan Warner

Introduction: Course Syllabus and Materials

Course Syllabus

I will be updating this document continuously, so please check it throughout the week to make sure you are seeing all the assignments, readings, and class plans. NOTE: The readings assigned Friday morning are to be discussed Friday afternoon, so you should anticipate doing the majority of those readings during the week (in addition to the Tuesday assignments). THIS COURSE HAS A HEAVY READING LOAD, PLEASE PLAN AHEAD SO YOU ARE PREPARED FOR EACH BLOCK OF CLASS. 

On this blog, I will post links to TEDTalks, Radiolabs, articles, other blogs, etc. I will clarify if the material is supplementary, or if I expect you to have prepared it for the following class. 

For starters, here is a TED Radiohour that you should definitely listen to if you have the time; it references a number of concepts and theories of language that we will be dissecting over the term.