PSYCH 3500
Psychology of Language
UConn Hartford | Fall 2019
Syllabus

Instructor: Sahil Luthra
Class time: Tuesdays, 4-6:30 p.m.
Room: Hartford Times Building, Room 214
Office hours: By appointment

Course description: The power of language lies in how it allows us to take our thoughts and transfer them to someone else’s mind. While this transfer of thoughts can feel effortless, it requires incredibly complex cognitive processing. How is it that we are able to extract meaning from sound waves, visual signs, or letters on a page? This goal of this course is to introduce students to the biggest questions in the psychological study of language, to highlight what we know and what we are still trying to figure out, and to train students to critically evaluate scientific research.

Course format: While the course will largely be lecture-based, we will lean heavily on in-class discussions.

Texts: Required readings should be completed ahead of class and will be uploaded to the course website. We will be reading from an array of texts; you do not need to purchase any textbooks for this course.

Evaluation: Grades will be based on:

1. Exams (40%): Two non-cumulative exams, each worth 20% of your grade. Exams are designed to ensure your knowledge of the core concepts in the field.
2. Papers (40%): Two short paper assignments designed to hone your skills in evaluating scientific evidence. The first is an article critique (15% of your grade) and the second is a paper on an ongoing debate in the field.
3. Weekly quizzes (10%): Short quizzes after each lecture. Only your top eight scores count toward your grade, so don’t worry about missing a few points here and there.
4. Participation in class discussions (10%).

Grades will be posted on HuskyCT under My Grades. Please provide advance notice if you need to miss a class session so that we can make arrangements for you to make up any exams. For each day that an assignment is late without an acceptable excuse, half a letter grade will be deducted.

Technology policy: I encourage students to take notes by hand instead of with an electronic device (e.g., laptop, tablet). Research suggests that taking notes by hand helps students process information more deeply and better identify core ideas, while typing encourages more surface-level processing and leads to less learning (e.g., Mueller & Oppenheimer, 2014, Psychological Science, 25(6)). Further, electronic devices make it easy to multitask, but such multitasking has been shown to reduce learning both for the user and for others in the vicinity (e.g., Sana, Weston & Cepeda, 2013, Computers & Education, 62). Resisting the urge to multitask in and of itself may also deplete cognitive resources, potentially making it harder to learn.

Please also refrain from using your phone in class.

Academic integrity: The UConn student code of conduct defines academic misconduct in the following way:

Academic misconduct is dishonest or unethical academic behavior that includes, but is not limited to, misrepresenting mastery in an academic area (e.g., cheating), failing to properly credit information, research, or ideas to their rightful originators or representing such information, research, or ideas as your own (e.g., plagiarism).

Don’t do these things. It sucks for everyone. See community.uconn.edu for further details.

Students with disabilities: The UConn Center for Students with Disabilities (CSD) can provide information about accommodations. The can be contacted at csd.uconn.edu, csd@uconn.edu, phone: 860-486-2020, or video phone: 860-553-3243. If you need accommodations, don’t hesitate to contact me or the CSD. We want to help you succeed!

Calendar:

Week	Date	Topics	Readings for this week
1	8/27	What is language, and how do we study it? [Lecture summary]
2	9/3	The sounds of speech [Lecture summary]	Sedivy 4.3, 7.1, 7.3, 7.4
3	9/10	Sounds and words [Lecture summary]	Sedivy 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3 Sedivy 272-274
4	9/17	Words and meaning [Lecture summary]	Yee et al. (2013)
5	9/24	Article critique due [Assignment instructions] Sentence processing [Lecture summary]
6	10/1	Pragmatics and non-literal meaning [Lecture summary]	Sedivy 12.2
7	10/8	Exam 1 (covers weeks 1-5) [Review questions] Language acquisition [Lecture summary]
8	10/15	Reading [Lecture summary]
9	10/22	Language diversity and bilingualism [Lecture summary]	Spivey and Marian (1999)
10	10/29	Language production and dialogue [Lecture summary]	Altmann Ch. 10
11	11/5	Exam 2 (covers weeks 6-10) [Review questions]
12	11/12	Language and the brain [Lecture summary]	Sacks (2005), Sacks (2010)
13	11/19	First draft of debate paper due [Assignment instructions] Language and thought [Lecture summary]
14	11/26	No class: Happy Thanksgiving!
15	12/3	Paper workshop Course wrap-up
16	12/10	Final draft of paper due (No class) [Assignment instructions]