Experimental Pragmatics (317-0-20)

Instructors

Eszter Eva Ronai
2016 Sheridan Road
Office Hours: By appt

Meeting Info

Cresap Laboratory 101: Tues, Thurs 9:30AM - 10:50AM

Overview of class

When I say "I ate some of the cookies", why are you likely to assume I didn't eat all of them? From "The professor was late again", why do we know she's been late before? And how do we make sense of sentences like "My lawyer is a shark", when lawyers are human, and sharks are animals? The field of pragmatics is concerned with such instances of natural language meaning that go beyond the literal, and with how speakers and hearers coordinate to communicate and derive them. Importantly, in the past two decades, pragmatics has experienced an ‘experimental turn', giving rise to a growing body of literature that examines theoretical problems experimentally, using the tools of psychology and cognitive science. This course will provide an overview of some major topics in experimental approaches to pragmatics, paying special attention to how linguistic theory can inform experimental design, and in turn, how experimental data bears in on theory.

Registration Requirements

Any 200-level course in linguistics or consent of instructor.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this course, students will be able to: 1) identify and explain major concepts, experimental findings, and debates in the field of experimental pragmatics, 2) read original academic publications in experimental pragmatics and identify the methodologies used to address theoretical questions, 3) propose and conduct experiments testing theoretical questions in pragmatics and write summaries of experimental findings.

Teaching Method

Lecture and Discussion

Evaluation Method

Canvas quizzes, five reaction papers, two labs (experimental stimuli creation, data collection, writeup)

Class Materials (Required)

All assigned reading will be available to students on Canvas

Class Attributes

Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area