HIF-1019 | UiT

Application deadline

Applicants from Nordic countries: 1 June for the autumn semester and 1 December for the spring semester. Exchange students and Fulbright students: 1 October for the spring semester and 15 April for the autumn semester.

Type of course

This course serves as a "fellesemne" for bachelor i språkfag (engelsk, finsk og kvensk, nordisk, russisk, samisk, spansk), 5th semester (1000-level).

This course may be taken as a single course.

Admission requirements

Application code: 9199 - enkeltemner (ikke realfag)

It is recommended that students have taken at least 40 stp/ECTS in language or linguistics at the 1000-level.

Course overlap

If you pass the examination in this course, you will get an reduction in credits (as stated below), if you previously have passed the following courses:

ENG-2019 Psychology of Language 10 stp

Course content

Language is centrally involved in many of the most complex cognitive tasks that human beings perform, and is arguably unique to our species. Understanding how language works in the human mind is therefore an important aspect in the understanding of human cognition more generally. This course is an introduction to the psychological processes and representations underlying the production and comprehension of natural language (both spoken and written). Students will gain an understanding of the cognitive processes and tacit knowledge systems underlying the production and comprehension of sentences, at the phonological, lexical, semantic and syntactic levels. In doing so, the course will draw from psycholinguistic research on processing and production, on language errors and aphasias, on neuroimaging, and on developmental and second language acquisition

Objectives of the course

The students have the following learning outcomes:

Knowledge The aim of the course is to acquaint students with established results in this area from the fields of linguistics, psychology and neuroscience. By the end of the course, the students will have gained:

knowledge of our current understanding of the mental processes involved in the processing and production of the sounds and structures of natural language in normal adult users
knowledge of the various research methods used to test linguistic behaviours and how they can be interpreted
knowledge of speech errors, disorders and aphasias and what they tell us about language ability more generally
understanding of the relationship between learning, tacit knowledge and more general cognitive processes.

Skills

By the end of the course, the student should have acquired the following basic skills:

the ability to communicate clearly the knowledge objectives described above both orally and in writing
the ability to think about and discuss issues concerning the relationship between behavioural data and what it might tell us about the mind/brain
a critical appreciation of different theories of the language faculty as found in the research literature
an ability to talk about how to convert a hypothesis about language and its speakers into a behavioural study that can meaningfully test it

Language of instruction and examination

English

Assessment

The following coursework requirement must be completed and approved in order to take the final exam:

The student will propose and design an experimental (behavioural) study of their choice, designed to test a so far untested hypothesis about their particular language of study and its usage.

The assignments are evaluated as approved or not approved. The dates for the delivery of these home assignments will be announced in Canvas at the beginning of the semester.

The exam will consist of a 5 hour digital school exam.The exam will be assessed on an A-F grades scale. Grades are A-E for passed and F for failed. A re-sit exam will be arranged for this course for students who fail at the beginning of the following semester. The deadline to sign up for the re-sit exam is 1 January for fall and 1 August for spring.

autumn 2020 HIF-1019 Psychology of Language - 10 ECTS