Phonology and selected issues in sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics and language acquisition – MA Seminar 3 3301-JFS3ŁUK

There will be three main topics:
(i) Recent theoretical advances in Generative Phonology (in particular, Optimality Theory). We will cover such problems as: phonetic grounding of phonological categories, phonological processes as distributional patterns, markedness as a grammatical factor. Theoretical issues richly illustrated with examples from English and Polish (as well as other Slavic languages).
(ii) The phonology of English (including sociolinguistic variation, i.e. systematic differences among various accents).
(iii) Phonological acquisition: universal and individual strategies in speech development (illustrated with data from English- and Polish-speaking children). The origin and development of phonology viewed from the perspective of Universal Grammar, psycholinguistic experiments, and the child speech output.