Psy 310-810, Spring, 2001

Psy 310-810, Spring, 2001
Monday evenings, 7:00-9:45 PM, Mahar 220

Dr. David A. Bozak
601 Culkin Hall, 312-2156
dab@oswego.edu
http://www.cs.oswego.edu/~dab/310/
Office hours by appointment

Prerequisite

PSY100 - Introduction to Psychology

Requirements satisfied by this course

This is a cognate in the new Linguistics major and part of the core of the old Linguistics major. This is an elective for the Psychology major.

Text

The Psychology of Language, by Paul Whitney, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.

Goals of the course

To gain an understanding of the use and development of human language - this presupposes an understanding of what language is.
To achieve the first goal will presuppose that you be able to understand and appreciate the complex process of being able to recognize and organize the world of visual (and to some extent auditory) stimuli.
To have some conception of the relationship of language to other issues in psychology.

The course is designed to provide in-depth coverage of the psychology of language. We will discuss the structure of language and the cognitive processes involved in language comprehension, production, and acquisition. The psychology of language is a very diverse and complex topic and we will look at the psychological processes that underlie language, the experimental techniques used to uncover those processes, and the different opinions scholars have about the nature of these processes.

We meet only once a week and the class is composed of students with a broad variety of backgrounds. Since all students come with differing preparations, the class time will be spent reviewing the foundations of the topic of the week and engaged in class discussions over questions of theoretical interest. Since this is the first time I've taught this course in such a format, and the first time using this primary text, we may need to stretch or compress the schedule of topics to be covered.

Please come to class prepared and with an open mind ready to explore issues where your introspective understanding of language behavior might be quite different than experimental investigation suggests.

General Notes

Read the Preface and Chapter 1
I want to emphasize that you use email liberally for any questions you may have. You are able to make an appointment by calling 315.312.2156 if you wish to meet with me.
Woody Allen once said something along the lines of 90% of success is just showing up. It is expected that you will arrive and be ready to begin the course on time each week.
Please review the college's policy on cheating and plagiarism in the catalog (online at http://www.oswego.edu/Catalog/Academic_Info.html#CP), which is located on page 151 of the current college catalog and page 57 of the current Student Handbook.

Evaluation and Grading

Examination #1, February 19, 2001, 25%
Examination #2, April 2, 2001, 25%
Examination #3, May 7, 2001, 25%
Miscellaneous assignments, 10%
Term paper (described below, due 5/4), 15%
Examinations
Each of the three examinations will be non-comprehensive. This means each test covers just the last portion of the material of the course and each will count 25% towards your final grade. The tests will consist of short answer and short essay portions and will take approximately one hour to complete.
Missed examinations may be made up only in the cases of verifiable emergencies or excused absences as described in the college catalog (see http://www.oswego.edu/Catalog/Academic_Info.html#ATTEND) and the Student Handbook (pages 58-60 of the 2000-2001 handbook). In such cases there will be a single comprehensive examination as a make-up test at the end of the semester, May 4, 2001 (Friday 7 PM).
Consistent with college policy, the last exam of the semester is scheduled during the regularly scheduled final examination period, as described in the Spring 2001 Undergraduate Newspaper, page 4.
Grades to date will be emailed to each student after each exam. It is the student's responsibility to check these postings and report any discrepancies to the instructor.

Miscellaneous Assignments
Over the course of the semester, you will be asked to submit several short pieces of work. These will be reaction papers, the text's "Activity" projects, and other short assignments. These may occur during class, too. They will not be rigorously graded for "correctness" but rather reviewed as an assessment tool, to be able to diagnose and clarify points of confusion. You might best think of these as an example of "class participation" and they will be graded as such.
Assignment #1:
Psychology is the Science of Mental Life...such things as we call feelings, desires, cognitions, reasonings, decisions, and the like. ...a certain amount of brain-physiology must be presupposed or included in Psychology...Our psychology must therefore take account not only of the conditions antecedent to mental states, but of their resultant consequences as well...Standing, walking, buttoning, piano-playing, talking, even saying one's prayers, may be done when his mind is absorbed in other things...Shall the study of such machine-like yet purposive acts as these be included in Psychology?
-- William James, 1890
Given William James' stature, is it correct to consider language a proper topic of study in psychology? Why? (If you don't know who James is, find out!)
This is due the beginning of class, January 29, 2001. This should be in writing (it does not have to be typed, but the operative rule throughout the semester is if I can't read it, it must be wrong) with your name somewhere on the page. You may email your response to me prior to the beginning of class if you prefer.

Term Paper
The purpose of the term paper is to provide you with an excuse to pursue a topic of interest to you related to language. This might be an in-depth exploration of a topic covered by your text or in class, or might be an overview of a topic not covered during the semester. Language is as broad an area of study as is developmental psychology. We cannot possibly explore all of it this semester, so here is your chance to spend some time with a topic we might otherwise miss.
The paper should be from 8 to 10 pages (typed, of course). Let's not get carried away fiddling with margins and all. Any topic you choose ought to be able to provide you with sufficient material.
You will need to provide at least three complete scholarly references in your bibliography. These ought to be primary source material. You may include references to a newspaper or to a weekly news magazine in addition to the scholarly references, not in lieu of them.
Your goal in writing this paper is to provide a succinct presentation of a topic of interest. In this short of a paper you cannot do justice to a very broad topic. A focused description of the major issues surrounding a topic is what you should shoot for. Your grade will be based on your presentation, not the "importance" of the topic you choose to address.
I will ask everyone to choose and notify me of their paper topic, for two reasons. First, I want to know what your topic is going to be (and to help you narrow the topic, if needed). Second, I do not want to see you put off the paper until the week before it is due. Consequently, you should provide a significant paragraph describing the topic along with at least one complete (and relevant) reference by March 26.

Other Important Dates

January 31, 2001 - last day to add or declare P/F
February 9, 2001 - last day to drop
February 12, 2001 - Course Withdrawal period begins
March 2, 2001 - final date for removing incompletes and other grade changes
March 19-23, 2001 - spring recess
April 2, 2001 - Late Course Withdrawal period begins
April 9, 2001 - College Open House
April 18, 2001 - Honors Convocation & Quest (no classes, 8 AM - 5 PM)
May 4, 2001 - last day of classes
May 7-11, 2001 - final exams

Readings

Readings for this course will come from the main textbook, The Psychology of Language, and from additional readings, both primary and secondary source readings, distributed in class or electronically. It is expected that you will have completed the readings before the class in which the relevant material will be discussed. I will assume that you have read this material and are prepared to participate in class discussions.

There are a host of other good general audience books on this topic. Below is a brief (and incomplete!) list of such books that you might wish to read at your leisure.

The Ascent of Babel by Gerry T. M. Altmann, 1997, Oxford University Press, New York.
The Articulate Mammal by Jean Aitchison, 1989, Unwin Hyman, Inc., London.
Language & Species by Derek Bickerton, 1990, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker, 1994, William Morrow and Company, New York.
Words and Rules by Steven Pinker, 1999, Basic Books, New York.

Caveat

The above schedule, policies, and assignments in this course are subject to change in the event of extenuating circumstances. Changes will be discussed in class or on the class email list, psycholinguistics-L. Final changes will be described on the class email list and the appropriate web pages will be annotated.

The Instructor

Dr. Bozak is the current Associate Dean of the College of Arts & Sciences. He is also the current Interim Director of the Linguistics program and has a permanent joint appointment with the Computer Science and Psychology departments. His Ph.D. from the University of New Hampshire was an investigation of the hemispheric lateralization of the word frequency effect.

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