The Linguistic Summer Institute 2015 (original) (raw)
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Linguistic theory in a world of big data
UChicago
July 6-31, 2015
University of Chicago
Directors
Karlos Arregi
Co-Director
University of Chicago
Alan Yu
Co-Director
University of Chicago
Andries Coetzee
Associate Director
University of Michigan
Robin Queen
Associate Director
University of Michigan
Institute Professors
Collitz Professor
UC Berkeley
Fillmore Professor
Stanford University
Sapir Professor
Johns Hopkins University
Forum Lecturers
The Institute
Schedule
The Institute is made up of two sessions of two weeks each, as follows:
- Four-week classes: July 6-31
- Session 1 (2-week classes): July 6-17
- Session 2 (2-week classes): July 20-31
Theme
Linguistic Theory in a World of Big Data
This theme serves to highlight a growing interest within the field of linguistics to test theory with increasingly larger data sets, such as data from extensive linguistic fieldwork and documentation, data from crowd-sourcing over the web, and corpus data from archival recordings and/or written sources.
It captures several areas of emerging disciplinary interests such as the breakdown of a longstanding fundamental distinction between the categorical, discrete nature of linguistic competence and usage-based gradient variation.
With increased scholarly attention being directed toward the gradient characteristics of both linguistic knowledge and use and toward the probabilistic properties that language knowledge and use may exhibit, some of the necessary groundwork is in place for moving towards a unifying theoretical approach.
News and Updates
Friday, June 19, 2015
We are still accepting applications to register for Field Methods (taught by Lenore Grenoble and Hale Professor Anthony Woodbury). If you would like to be considered for this class, please fill out the following survey to apply: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/86V3C7D. The new deadline for application is July 3. If your application is successful, you will be contacted to discuss how to adjust your schedule to accommodate field methods.
Featured Course
Language Contact
This course considers the phenomenon of language contact from both structural and sociocultural angles. We will investigate the processes and patterns involved in lexical and structural borrowing, the formation of new contact varieties such as creoles and mixed languages, and the role of contact in driving and shaping language change. We will take a close look at the dynamics of specific contact zones, most notably the Vaupés region of the northwest Amazon.