Neurolinguistics: language and the brain

Aims

Aims

Recent advances in both technology and in biological understanding mean that we know more about the workings of the brain than ever. The relationship between language and the brain has been a major area of inquiry since the beginning of modern neuroscience, but in the 21st century we finally have reached a point where neurolinguistic methodology has become not only informative to linguists but also practical. This module will explore the current state of knowledge about the neural underpinnings of language, with a focus on phonetic/phonological and syntactic processing.

At the end of the module, students will:

• Understand the basics of neurocognition, including basic knowledge of brain anatomy and neuroimaging methods
• Know a state-of-the-art picture of the neural bases of language and language processing
• Know how neurolinguistics both informs and is informed by linguistic theory

This module will be capped at 30.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Students must have successfully completed at least ONE of the following:

• L230 Introduction to syntactic theory
• L219 Introduction to phonetics and phonology
• L201 Introduction to language acquisition

Programme

Programme

Contact hours

One 2-hour lecture and one 1-hour seminar per week for most weeks. Week 10 will have extra seminars and no lecture.

Teaching programme

The details of the teaching programme are subject to change, but the overall plan is as follows:

Teaching materials

A reading pack will be made available to students.

Assessment and feedback

Assessment and feedback

Summative assessment

• Exercises
  A set of exercises due on Thursday, week 7 of the autumn term, demonstrating knowledge of key concepts:
  
  • Length: 1000 words
  • Weight: 40%
• Essay
  Due Friday, week 10, autumn term. The essay title will be distributed before week 6 of term, and it will be a topic that students can begin to prepare for at this point. It is expected that the majority of the writing of the essay will take place in Week 10, when there will be no lectures for this module. 
  
  • Length: 2500 words
    
  • Weight: 60%

Skills

Transferable skills developed in this module

All modules provide an opportunity to work on general oral/written communication skills (in class and in assessments) and general self management (organising your studies), alongside the specific skills in language or linguistics that the module teaches.

In addition, this module will allow you to particularly develop skills in:

• application of data analysis skills: in this module you will learn how to interpret experimental data, and draw conclusions from it. You will also get experience in reconciling apparently contradictory data sources.
• written communication: you will learn how to coherently and succinctly report on research done by others. An emphasis will be placed on identifying and clearly distilling the main ideas in sources that are written at a high level of detail.

Follow this link to hear how past students use transferable skills from their degree in their current jobs.