Research methods in Linguistics

This course provides an overview over common methods in linguistic research involving different kinds of studies (qualitative and quantitative) as well as basic techniques of data collection and analysis. General principles of the scientific method and empirical research will be introduced. Students get to know main methods of data compilation such as observation in linguistic/ethnographic fieldwork, study designs with controlled stimulus, survey techniques such as questionnaires and interviews; and corpus building and mining. For data handling, software-based tools such as Praat for phonological analysis or ELAN for grammatical description of spoken language will be introduced. Data analysis by means of basic descriptive statistics will be explored. Based on the students’ interest, particular techniques can be discussed in more detail with the option of working with actual data from current research projects.
Semester: 2024/25 Wintersemester

Morphophonology

This course provides a comprehensive overview of both phonology and morphology, two core areas of linguistics. Students will explore how sounds of the human language are organized into meaningful units and how these units combine to form words. Key topics include phonemes, syllable structures, morphemes, and word formation processes across different languages. The course also examines how phonological and morphological processes interact, shaping the sound and structure of languages. By the end of the course, students will be equipped with the analytical tools to examine and understand the sound and word structure of various languages. This course is ideal for anyone interested in language, linguistics, and communication.
Semester: 2024/25 Wintersemester

Research colloquium

This course supports students in the preparation of their MA thesis. Students will learn about formal and content-related requirements of their final thesis and we will discuss work flows of the writing process. This entails issues such as defining a suitable research question, doing appropriate literature research, developing a suitable methodology to answer the research question, as well as data collection and analysis (in case of an empirical study).
Semester: 2024/25 Wintersemester

Societal multilingualism

In this course, we engage with issues of societal multilingualism from different angles. The sociolinguistic point of view questions the interrelation of language and power such as in the dichotomy between minority languages versus majority languages in European-type nation states. We will have a look at different forms of multilingualism, language policies and language engineering in different countries around the world and also touch upon the topics of language endangerment and linguistic human rights. Furthermore, we will learn how multilingualism comes about at the individual level, that is in multilingual language acquisition. The phenomenon of ‘heritage languages’ is a recent topic with the aim of understanding how typical forms of multilingualism arise in Western societies in speakers with different home languages as opposed to the country’s official language, such as for example Turkish or Russian in Germany. Finally, when different languages are used by the same speakers, there will be inevitably contact between the languages. If the coexistence of bilingual speakers expands over a larger geographical area for some time, particular features of language contact and convergence can develop. We will shed light on the most common structural outcomes of language contact.
Semester: 2024/25 Wintersemester