here - Linguistic Society of America

WorkshopFriday, 4 JanuaryIncorporating Linguistic Theory Into a Language CurriculumFairfield/Exeter/Dartmouth9:00 – 10:30 AMOrganizers:ParticipantsVera Lee-Schoenfeld (University of Georgia)Chad Howe (University of Georgia)Patrícia Amaral (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill)Chad Howe (University of Georgia)Stefan Huber (University of South Florida)Vera Lee-Schoenfeld (University of Georgia)Christopher Sapp (University of Mississippi)Thomas W. Stewart, Jr. (University of Louisville)This special session grows out of the situation surrounding the discipline of linguistics at the University of Georgia. Given itsprogram status, linguistics has faculty members across a variety of different academic units, including language departments. TheDepartments of Romance Languages and Germanic & Slavic Studies at UGA both offer courses designed to introduce students toissues of linguistic interest in a particular language (mainly French/Spanish and German). These courses are also listed as part ofthe general repertoire of courses for graduate and undergraduate students in the Program in Linguistics. Inherent in these crosslistedLING/SPAN/ROML and LING/GRMN courses is providing an accessible introduction to issues pertaining to linguistictheory to students who have very little (if any) background in the linguistic sciences and who have not been exposed to thetechnical terminology that is introduced in linguistics courses. Likewise, it is often a challenge for linguistics students to producein-depth research of a language they do not speak and may not have studied. The goal of the session is to discuss different ways oftackling these challenges by bringing together professors from various institutions who find themselves in situations similar toours (i.e. colleagues who teach linguistics as part of language programs). Because this meeting of the LSA is being held inconjunction with the Modern Language Association Convention, we believe this to be a timely opportunity to discuss thecomplementary benefits of integrating linguistics and foreign language education.The intent is to provide an opportunity to develop plans for creating course materials that closely integrate general language skillswith specific knowledge of linguistic concepts. This will involve the collaborative efforts of the session participants in exploringcurricula that strike an effective balance between increasing students’ overall knowledge of a foreign language (with Germanicand Romance languages being our target languages) and introducing core concepts of linguistic theory. One overarching theme ofthe panel is the importance of collaborative work between linguistics and language students whose interaction will be crucial bothto teaching conceptual issues in linguistic theory and to exemplifying these issues in language-specific ways. The idea is that thelinguistics students deepen their understanding of linguistic theory by presenting it to the language students, and that the languagestudents in turn apply their language skills by presenting core aspects of the grammar of the language to the linguistics students.In sum, identifying and encouraging those strategies that foster a collaborative and mutually reliant approach in a languagecurriculum is the focus of this session.The session consists of five 15-minute panelist contributions (10 minutes of presentation and 5 minutes of discussion each)followed by a 10-minute period for open discussion. Chad Howe (University of Georgia) will be moderating, and the panelists areVera Lee-Schoenfeld (University of Georgia), Patrícia Amaral (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Stefan Huber(University of South Florida), Christopher Sapp (University of Mississippi), and Thomas Stewart (University of Louisville).Abstracts:Vera Lee-Schoenfeld (University of Georgia)German language acquisition and Universal GrammarThis contribution reports on a cross-listed linguistics/language graduate seminar that is based heavily on peer teaching and studentcollaboration. The linguistics students deepen their understanding of linguistic theory by presenting it to the class, and thelanguage students practice their language skills by presenting the grammar of the language to the class. Then, an applied area oflinguistics (in this case, language acquisition, but it could also be language change or variation) is used to bring theory andlanguage together. Students collaborate on a term paper analyzing an observed phenomenon in the target language within theestablished theoretical framework. I taught this class with a focus on German language acquisition and Chomsky's UG. The term93