General Linguistics

This course is part of a degree programme that aims to provide linguistic and metalinguistic skills in at least two foreign languages besides Italian. In this respect, the course aims to raise students' awareness of the different levels of linguistic analysis (phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics), starting from the knowledge and skills they acquired in their previous studies in relation to their mother-tongue and to other languages. It also aims to illustrate the concepts of diachronic, diatopic and diastratic variations of a language. Moreover, students will acquire the terminology needed to describe and conceptualise the various phenomena related to the functioning of a language.

By the end of the course, students are expected to recognise the different levels of linguistic analysis and adopt the main interpretative categories developed by the major schools of thought in linguistics. In addition, students should be able to use the specialised terminology of general linguistics.