THEORY OF LANGUAGE

According to the Dublin descriptors, students, at the end of the course, will demonstrate:

1. Knowledge and comprehension: students will acquire basic historical and epistemological knowledge in theory of language, and they will explore the main the principal theorical models and debates about: a) language and cognition; b) evolution of language; c) voice, body and language; d) language, media and complexity theory;

2. Ability to apply knowledge and comprehension: students will exercise the ability to express the main theses and problems of the discipline, and will be able to contextualize the different theoretical perspectives

3. Autonomy of judgement: students will develop the ability to argue theses, or to explicate their theoretical intuitions, through comparison with texts from the reference literature.

4. Communicative abilities: students will exercise the reasoned analysis, the argumentation and exposition of theses, developing in particular the comparison with other points of view or other theoretical positions 

5. Learning abilities: students will learn to deal with philosophy of language, theoretical linguistics, evolution theory and cognitive science texts, and they will extract important information methodically from it.

1. The language as “complex object”
2. Origins and evolution of language: history and theories
3. Continuity and Discontinuity of language
4. Ecology of language et history of Homo Sapiens
5. The Structure of language: Segmentation and combination
6. The problem of meaning
7. Animal languages and human language(s)
8. The origins of human communication
9. Primate and human communication
10. The cooperation and the joint attention
11. Ontogenesis of language: from gesture to language
12. Phylogenesis of language: from cooperation to convention
13. The voice as physical, anthropological and linguistic phenomenon
14. Voice and language
15. Voice, writing and art
16. The distant voice in the media communication

Texts:

- R. Simone, Il software del linguaggio, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2020, pp. 3-105.

- M. Tomasello, Le origini della comunicazione umana, Milano, Raffaello Cortina, 2009, pp. 329.

Other texts may be provided through the Studium platform.

Please remember that in compliance with art 171 L22.04.1941, n. 633 and its amendments, it is illegal to copy entire books or journals, only 15% of their content can be copied.

For further information on sanctions and regulations concerning photocopying please refer to the regulations on copyright (Linee Guida sulla Gestione dei Diritti d’Autore) provided by AIDRO - Associazione Italiana per i Diritti di Riproduzione delle opere dell’ingegno (the Italian Association on Copyright).

All the books listed in the programs can be consulted in the Library.