Methods for Language-Related Master's Programmes

Aim and Content

This course discusses different perspectives in philosophy of science related to language research and gives an introduction to the collection, construction and use of text corpora. With varying content from semester to semester, other methods can be taken up, for instance, field methods and the use of informants; elaboration and use of questionaires; statistical methods for processing of corpus data and informant data.

Learning Outcomes

After successfully completing this course, students will be able to apply the knowledge in philosophy of science and methodology in their work with their master's theses, and will be able to discuss common methodology questions across the various sciences of language.

Course offered (semester)

Spring

Language of Instruction

English if students not speaking Norwegian attend, otherwise Norwegian

Course Unit Level

Master.

Access to the Course Unit

Open to all who have been admitted to the master's program in Linguistics or Natural Language Processing or another language related master's program at the University of Bergen.

Pre-requirements

None.

Recommended previous knowledge

A bachelor degree with a language oriented specialization.

Subject Overlap

LING301 (5 ECTS credits).

Teaching Methods

Lectures, seminars and practical exercises, about 2 hours per week. Normally teachers from different language subjects will take part in the teaching.

If fewer than five students are registered to a course, the department might reduce the teaching, please see the department¿s guidelines regarding this on ¿My Space¿. For courses where this is a possibility, the students get information about this at the beginning of the semester, and before the deadline regarding semester registration February 1 / September 1.

Compulsory Requirements

To be allowed to the exam, students must have handed in two obligatory assignments given during the course.

An individual reading list must be provided (normally as the bibliography in the term paper).

Assessment methods

Term paper with a length of about 3000¿4000 words (not including references, notes and appendices)

Grading Scale

A-F.

Reading List

The reading list may consist of about 2/3 common materials and 1/3 materials chosen in consultation with the student's own department and in connection with the language studied by the student. The reading includes contributions to the philosophy of science in linguistics, introductions to linguistic methods and illustrating articles, in all about 400 pages.

Place of Teaching

Bergen.

Course Unit Evaluation

Evaluation of the offered course will be carried out in accordance with the University of Bergen's quality assessment system.

Contact Information

Department of Linguistic, Literary and Aesthetic Studies

Mail address: advice@lle.uib.no