Professor Michael K. Tanenhaus (Instructor)
Meliora 420
585-275-5491; 585-899-0506 (cell)
Dr. Anne Pier Salverda (TA)
Meliora 405
585-273-5323
About the Course
This course is a seminar-style class, focusing on issues in language processing at the level of the word, the sentence,
and discourse and conversation. We will examine selected topics in each of these areas for both language production and
language comprehension. Each topic will typically be covered in a three-class sequence. The first class on a topic will
typically include a presentation of some of the relevant background, sometimes accompanied by an overview paper. During
the next two or three classes we will discuss assigned articles, which will typically be short articles on topics where
there is an ongoing controversy. The format of the classes will vary. However, when we focus on a controversy involving
"dueling" papers, we will often try to design possible follow-up experiments that build upon one of the target articles
or that combine ideas from several related articles. Students in the class will be responsible for leading the discussion
on many of the articles, which will involve preparing a handout to facilitate discussion. Many of the topics will be
related to work that is ongoing in the Rochester language processing community.
Grading
Grades will be based upon a mid-term essay exam, presentations of articles and participation in discussion, and a project
presentation and report. The project will be a small experiment—as many as four students can work together on a
project—that you will present the results at a mini-conference towards the end of the semester and write a short
report (ten pages or fewer). Some of the faculty, post-docs and graduate students in the language processing have indicated
they are willing to help supervise projects. A list will be provided one the date indicated in the syllabus.
Topics
This semester we will focus primarily on four topics:
Perspective-taking by speakers and listeners
Language and Thought
"Embodied" Language
When and how you say it, and when you don't.
(Potpourri of topics, including disfluency (uhs and uhms) and optional words
("that", "who is", which was, contraction and ellipsis)