24.900  Introduction to Linguistics

UROP opportunities in linguistics

Spring 2009
UROP Department/Lab/Center: MIT Phonetics Lab
Faculty Supervisor: Donca Steriade

Project Title: Artificial Languages

Project Description: Artificial language experiments have gained popularity as a tool in psycholinguistic research. The MIT Phonetics lab is employing this methodology to answer current questions of linguistic theory. Which linguistic patterns are learnable? Can speakers' learning biases explain linguistic typology? The successful applicant will acquire profound knowledge of current methods in psycholinguistic experimentation. Tasks include generating artificial languages, recording and manipulating stimuli, scripting experiments, organizing data and performing statistical and phonetic analysis.

Prerequisites: All necessary training provided. Applicants that have one or more of the following qualifications will be given priority: 1. Programming skills, especially MATLAB, HTML and/or Python. 2. Classes in Linguistics and/or Brain & Cognitive Science. 3. A desire to pursue a career in academia.

Contact: Peter Graff, graff@mit.edu

Spring 2009
UROP Department/Lab/Center: MIT Phonetics Lab
Faculty Supervisor: Donca Steriade
Project Title: Phonetic Annotation and Corpus Transcription
Project Description: MIT Linguistics is in the process of creating a large corpus of spontaneous speech elicited in controlled linguistic environments. We require dedicated annotators capable of working independently. The successful applicant will receive extensive training in articulatory and acoustic phonetics, data organization, scripting and corpus annotation.

Prerequisites: All necessary training provided. Familiarity with British English accents would be beneficial. Applicants that have one or more of the following qualifications will be given priority: 1. Programming, especially MATLAB, HTML and/or Python. 2. Classes in Linguistics and/or Brain & Cognitive Science. 3. A desire to pursue a career in academia.

Contact: Peter Graff, graff@mit.edu

Announced on 17 December 2009  9:45  a.m. by Donca Steriade

Reminder about the time and place of the exam in 24.900

For those who are taking the exam tomorrow: the time is 1:30-4:30PM and the place is DuPont Gymnasium (120Mass Ave).

Those who have a conflict with the Thursday time are taking the exam on Friday 9AM-12PM in Stata, 32-124.

Announced on 16 December 2009  4:42  p.m. by Donca Steriade

Q&A session: Wednesday 12/16 at 5PM, in 32D461

If you have questions on the material covered in 24.900, we will have a Q&A session on Wednesday 12/16 at 5PM in the Stata Center, in D461 (Dreyfoos Tower, 4th floor, near the faculty lunch room).

This is strictly a Q&A session: if you have no questions, I will have nothing to say.

To organize the session, you may want to send your questions to me ahead of time, so I can group them thematically. But come regardless, if you have time and questions.

Donca

Announced on 15 December 2009  7:58  a.m. by Donca Steriade

Topics to review for final; general Q&A session

I have posted under Materials/General a list of topics to review for the final from Morphology onward) but please review Syntax and Semantics as well.

I have also posted the prose accompanying the 12/3 guest lecture on Artificial Grammar experiments.

Finally, I will schedule for Tuesday or Wednesday afternoon (most likely after 5PM) a general question-and-answer session for all students in the class. If you are interested in participating let me know, so I have a sense about how large a classroom we need.

I wish you all a good exam week.

Donca

Announced on 14 December 2009  10:39  a.m. by Donca Steriade

Survey run by the Teaching and Learning Laboratory

Students in 24.900 are being asked to participate in a special assessment
this semester as part of the curriculum reform process evaluating the new
freshman focus classes. Your feedback on 24.900 will help to inform how
classes will be most effectively structured to meet the HASS requirements in
the future. Please take 5-10 minutes to complete the following short survey regarding your experience in 24.900 this semester.

The link to the survey is here:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/RMQ85YN

Announced on 08 December 2009  7:37  p.m. by Donca Steriade