GIAL Courses

Applied Anthropology courses start with AA and Applied Linguistics courses start with AL. Click to view a filterable list of all Dallas International course offerings.

Undergraduate Courses

AA4170a Cultural Anthropology (research supplement) (By arrangement) (1 undergraduate credit)

This course emphasizes ethnographic research methods and analysis. After completing this course, students will have satisfied DIU’s requirements in this regard.

AA4305 Second Language and Culture Acquisition (Spring/Summer/Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course introduces students to learner-directed second language and culture acquisition with an emphasis on the beginning stages. Throughout the course students explore and examine perspectives on language and culture learning and develop strategies for dealing appropriately with cultural differences. The course includes a lab component which provides practical experience in learner-directed second language acquisition in a small group, non-instructed setting with a native speaker of another language.

AA4321-OL Dynamics of Multicultural Teamwork (Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course is an introduction to working in a multicultural team and in cooperative activities in small groups of people. Students will consult a variety of resources including writings of western and non-western authors and case studies. Students will create two oral presentations based on research into topics of specific interest. Christian perspectives on teamwork underlie the philosophy of this course.

AA4350 Language and Society (Spring/Summer/Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course considers the relationship between language and society. After successfully completing the course, students will be able to articulate the multilingual nature of the world’s societies, the function(s) of language(s) in nations, and how different languages are used alongside one another, including the idea of diglossia. They will also be able to identify the factors influencing the choice among language varieties for national and educational use. In addition, students will be able to explain how language attitudes and domains of language use influence the long-term maintenance and/or shift of language(s) in society. They will be able to discuss how all the aforementioned may possibly affect an applied anthropology program for a given linguistic community.

AA4357 Genres of Oral Tradition (Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

Oral traditions, especially storytelling, may include aspects of entertainment, but they are art forms and a discipline of academic study. This introductory course will integrate information from various disciplines and include topics that contribute to and are related to the general field of oral traditions. The course examines four broad genres of oral traditions: proverbs, riddles, verse, and stories. For each of these four genres, the course covers three approaches: How to collect/observe the genre; How to analyze the genre; and How to apply the genre in ways that benefit the community.

AA4370 Cultural Anthropology (Spring/Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course is an introduction to cultural anthropology with emphases on application and several research methods. The main assignment is a practicum or research project that includes having students make at least four study-visits outside class hours to a Dallas/Fort Worth-area cross-cultural social situation.

AA4370-OL Cultural Anthropology (Summer) (3 undergraduate credits)

AA4372 Political and Social Systems (Spring) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course is an introduction to political and social systems worldwide. Subjects treated include basic types of political organizations, concepts and practices of authority, power, law, and decision-making.

AA4387 Training in Cross-Cultural Contexts (Spring) (3 undergraduate credits)

The course reviews adult learning theory. Students design and teach learning sessions to people of their own culture and to people of another culture, and analyze some of the cultural factors affecting learning and teaching.

AL4201 Principles of Sign Languages Phonetics (Summer) (2 undergraduate credits)

This course introduces the theory and practice of sign language phonetics. It provides intensive practice in the recognition and production of a wide range of manual and non-manual phonetic elements that are used in natural sign languages, along with terminology for describing those elements precisely. It also teaches reading and writing one or more notational systems that are useful in recording phonetic details when conducting research on sign languages. This course is taught in American Sign Language and written English.

AL4207 Field Data Management (Spring/Summer - Even numbered years/Fall) (2 undergraduate credits)

With a focus on methodology and good praxis, this course instructs students in the use of computational tools for managing and presenting phonological, textual, and lexical data collected in linguistic field research.

AL4302 Principles of Articulatory and Acoustic Phonetics (Spring/Summer/Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

Using an augmented subset of the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), students will be able to identify, mimic, and transcribe sounds and prosodies in normal human speech and to describe the mechanisms by which a speaker produces these sounds. Students will also be introduced to basic techniques of acoustic analysis.

AL4303 Principles of Phonological Analysis (Spring/Summer/Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course provides practice in recognizing the difference between phonetic (etic) and phonological (emic) data through numerous practical exercises. Theoretical topics of focus include the use of distinctive features, natural classes, phonetic plausibility, complementary distribution, free variation, contrast in identical/analogous environments, phonological processes, common conditioning environments, typological universals, tone analysis, and morphophonemics. This is an ideal course for field-workers preparing to help develop or revise an orthography for any language.

AL4304 Introduction to Language Structure (Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

This course provides a basic introduction to language sounds and structures. It will enhance students’ ability to learn another language as they use natural language data to discover and analyze word and sentence formation in a variety of different languages. Students will also have the opportunity to identify, pronounce, and transcribe the most common sounds found in the world’s languages.

AL4304-OL Introduction to Language Structure (Spring/Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

AL4341 American Sign Language 1 (Spring) (3 undergraduate credits)

This beginner-level course introduces students to American Sign Language (ASL) and basic knowledge of Deaf culture. Emphasis is on the acquisition of comprehension, production, and interactional skills using basic grammatical features with respect to use of ASL in the context of everyday life experiences.

AL4342 American Sign Language 2 (Fall) (3 undergraduate credits)

ASL2 is a continuation of ASL1. This novice-level course is designed to continue development of American Sign Language expressive and receptive skills, grammar, vocabulary, cultural awareness, and related terminology. It expands the range of communication skills, with special emphasis on being able to convey prior knowledge in the new language.

AL4406 Field Methods and Linguistic Analysis (Spring/Summer - Even numbered years/Fall) (4 undergraduate credits)

Working with a speaker of a non-western language, students in this course elicit data which they then use to analyze the phonological system and produce a mini-lexicon and a grammar sketch of the target language.

AL4410 Principles of Grammatical Analysis (Spring/Summer/Fall) (4 undergraduate credits)

This course introduces students to techniques for analyzing and describing basic morphological and syntactic issues in natural languages. By working through numerous practical exercises from a large variety of languages, students gain confidence in their ability to determine word classes and allomorphy and to deal with inflectional and derivational morphology. Students also learn to analyze different types of phrases, clauses, and sentences. This course serves as a prerequisite for several graduate linguistics courses.

Graduate Courses

AA5115 Tropical Crops in Small-Scale Agriculture (Year-term) (1 graduate credit)

This course introduces students to horticultural and agronomic crops they should be familiar with in serving small-scale farmers in the tropics and subtropics. It exposes students to categories of crops including annual and perennial vegetables, fruits, multi-purpose trees, and green manure/cover crops. Information is taught in sufficient detail to help students match crops to tropical climates and equip them with practical skills in growing important tropical food plants.

AA5130 Tropical Agriculture Systems (Year-term) (1 graduate credit)

This course investigates sustainable tropical agricultural systems utilized around the world. The course will cover the biophysical and social-economic attributes of these systems, which are practiced by small-scale farmers. The course examines the crops and animals that are part of farming systems but also introduces students to a systems analysis where problems, causes of problems, interventions to resolve these problems, and the consequences of the interventions are investigated. The students will learn about specific systems through lecture and visiting systems both on ECHO’s Global Demonstration Farm and through field trips. Each student will prepare a presentation on a specific tropical agricultural system designated by the instructor and gain hands-on experience with the system that is assigned on the ECHO Global Demonstration and Research Farm during lab time.

AA5145 Community Development (Year-term) (1 graduate credit)

This course is an overview of community development. Students will learn principles and practices for holistic development. The focus will primarily be on international community development and for those working in agriculture development. Theories of knowledge transfer and communication will be emphasized alongside respect for community participants. Students will be exposed to various tools that may be useful when interacting with agricultural communities and will come away equipped to address opportunities and challenges of working in agricultural communities.

AA5150-OL Special Topics in Tropical Agricultural Development (Spring) (1 graduate credit)

TBA

AA5151 Cross-Cultural Teaching Seminar (Spring/Fall) (1 graduate credit)

The Cross-cultural teaching seminar allows students to analyze a teaching process from the perspective of both learning and teaching styles, and identify factors relevant to teaching cross-culturally.

AA5160 Small-Scale Agricultural Experimentation (Year-term) (1 graduate credit)

This course will provide students an overview and the basic skills of agricultural experimentation. Students will learn examples of how experimentation has benefited smallholder farmers around the world. The course will specifically focus on the context of applied experiments for small-scale farmers. The students will be able to implement small-scale experimental designs and research common questions that face agricultural practitioners in the tropics.

AA5181 Special Project in Scripture Engagement (Spring/Fall/By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

This course enables students to synthesize their learning from the three core courses with their elective “emphases” courses. The Special Projects course will operate as an independent study under the supervision of an SE professor, where the student will be expected to submit a project, such as a research paper, presentation, or course outline, that is of high and applicable quality.

AA5190 Thesis Writing (Spring/Fall) (1 graduate credit)

This course covers techniques and skill development for researching and writing a thesis. Topics include distinction between quantitative and qualitative research and the uses, advantages and disadvantages of each, Word style sheets and use of a thesis template to enforce the required style sheet, common parts of a research paper/thesis, description and implementation of the proposal writing process, ethical perspectives and implications for research, and problem areas in technical writing and critical thinking.

Note: This course is graded P/F. Completion of the course will count as one hour of thesis credit but will not trigger the requirement for continuing registration. For applied linguistics see AL5190.

AA5201 Fundamentals of Tropical Agriculture (Year-term) (2 graduate credits)

This course covers principles and practices that are fundamental to small-scale tropical agriculture.
Course content focuses mainly on crop production within systems. It covers basic requirements of
successful cropping including quality seed, adequate water, healthy soil, and productive plants.
Students will gain hands-on experience in meeting these requirements. Woven throughout the
course will be instruction on factors such as climate, cost, resource availability, and level of risk that
guide farmers’ management decisions and adoption of practices. Thus, students will be equipped
with foundational knowledge and skills to grow food in ways that are appropriate to farmers’
growing conditions and needs.

Note: This course is taught in Florida at the ECHO Global Demonstration and Research Farm.

AA5321-OL Multicultural Teamwork (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course addresses issues relating to forming practical, cooperative programs that depend upon people from different cultures working together as teams or as full partners. The course draws upon writings of western and non-western authors, case studies, lectures, and group activities. Upon completing this course, the student will be able to form teams and partnerships, effectively work in teams, and train others in teamwork and partnership. In this course, the term “teamwork” refers not only to closely-knit teams but to many kinds of cooperative action that requires groups of people to work together toward a common goal. Christian perspectives on teamwork underlie the course.

AA5323 Multicultural Leadership (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course explores the implications multi-cultural settings have for leadership, specifically the impact cultural values, beliefs and worldviews have on leadership definitions, leadership styles, communications, authority and accountability dynamics, decision-making procedures, conflict management and ethics. Attention is given to biblical input for faith-based organizations in wrestling with the multi-cultural arena as well as dealing with practical cultural expressions which often reflect conflicting assumptions and allegiances. Suggestions are made for constructive responses to a variety of multi-cultural issues. A student who has taken this course and its prerequisites will be able to lead people who are working together from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

AA5324-SL Foundations of Global Migration and Diasporas (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Global migration and diaspora peoples are both a biblical and historical reality. Understanding the forces driving global migration and the physical and spiritual context of diaspora peoples is essential for the Church as it seeks to commit resources towards the fulfillment of the Great Commission. This course explores the context of global migration and diaspora from historical, political, social/cultural and biblical perspectives. Additionally, students will be challenged to consider appropriate gospel responses to diaspora peoples that address both immediate and long-term needs.

AA5325 Multilingualism in Diaspora Contexts (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

Migrants respond to new linguistic contexts in a variety of ways. This course investigates the specific sociolinguistic dynamics of various multilingual diaspora communities. Attention is given to the various factors influencing language choice including economic factors and social pressures. Generational differences in language choice will be examined along with the emergence of hybridized identities and the resulting blended language approaches in some multilingual contexts.

AA5326 Anthropology of Migration (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Anthropological examination of population movements around the globe, including voluntary and forced, migration, displacement, diaspora, and refugee flows. Students will analyze the underlying political, economic, and social dynamics of both internal and international migrations, and they will examine the personal and cultural experiences of movement. Students will assess international policies and efforts to address mobility. They will also consider connections between conflict and humanitarianism, urban displacement, the effects of climate change, the formation of refugee identities, and the social and economic relations of diasporas with their home countries. Students will use ethnographic methodologies to explore and better understand a diaspora community.

AA5327 Diaspora Economic Development (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

Migrants and refugees face unique economic challenges. This course focuses on the distinct economic challenges that diaspora groups face. There are varying diaspora contexts such as urban slums, transitional refugee camps, long term refugee camps, internal migration contexts, international migration, cyclical migration, remittance-based livelihoods, and others. Skills will include identifying the unique economic challenges of specific groups and the proposal of context-specific approaches to assist diaspora families and or communities to move toward sustainable economic stability.

AA5328-C Teaching in the Refugee Context (TBA) (3 graduate credits)

To prepare for teaching and training people of different cultures, this course introduces students to adult learning theory, and equips them to analyze cultural factors affecting teaching and learning. This course experience first-hand teaching and service at refugee agencies in Dallas, TX. It highlights the many cultural, practical, emotional, and spiritual teaching challenges that refugees encounter.

AA5329 Diaspora Scripture Engagement (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

Begins Spring 2024. Diaspora communities often exist in religiously complex contexts. This course will provide an overview of home country religious expression. It will consider the challenges of contextualization within the unique experiences of migrant and refugee communities. Consideration will be given to language use, modalities, and felt needs related to Scripture engagement. Methodologies most appropriate to various diaspora contexts will be explored. (This course combines relevant components of AA5373 Religion and Worldview, AA5374 Christianity Across Cultures, and AA5355 Scripture Engagement Strategy and Methods but narrow the content by focusing on direct application to diaspora contexts.)

AA5330 Language Acquisition and Teaching (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces students to learner-directed second language acquisition for the purpose of helping diaspora learners navigate new language contexts. Throughout the course students explore and examine perspectives on language learning and develop strategies for dealing appropriately with different contexts. Language learning environments include designing multilingual education for children and for adults and working in cooperation with local or national educational structures.

AA5333 Principles of Literacy (Summer/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Students in this course study principles of culture and language relevant to working with language communities to plan literacy programs and prepare literacy materials. The course involves not only studying ideas, but also hands-on creating of a spelling system, literacy primers, and transition literacy materials. The course also covers training of teachers, funding, and program sustainability.

AA5340 Ethnographic Research Methods (Spring - Even numbered years) (3 graduate credits)

A wide variety of field methods for collecting ethnographic data is explored. Students have the opportunity to engage in a practicum in which to apply field methods to particular social contexts, demonstrating their ability in specific field methods.

AA5341 Social Science Research Design and Methods (Spring - Odd numbered years) (3 graduate credits)

This course helps researchers to learn the application of basic principles of the scientific method to the design of a research project. Topics and practical application of topics include research questions, variables related to research questions, testable hypotheses, and data-gathering instruments and methods.

AA5342 Statistical Methods (Fall - Even numbered years) (3 graduate credits)

Appropriate statistical methods for research in linguistics and related areas are considered. Course discussion includes the claims that can and cannot be made with statistics.

AA5343 Principles of Multilingual Education (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Discussion in this course begins with the intersection of education and multilingualism in developing countries. Included are major perspectives on bilingualism, cognitive dimensions of bilingualism, and educational consequences of bilingualism. Comparison of various models of multilingual education with their strengths and weaknesses is considered. The question of what we can learn from major experiments in multilingual education launched in the last 40 years is a discussion topic. A key element of the course is consideration of implementation-related issues involved in organizing a multilingual education program, especially in a developing country.

AA5352 Program Design and Management (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course engages students in strategic planning procedures for working with speech communities to design and manage language development programs. Students will learn to differentiate key contextual factors, interpret community-based stakeholder input, and collaboratively formulate a program plan. Students will learn to appraise indicator data, deduce lessons being learned, and use their conclusions to revise the original program plan. The course will highlight the management skills crucial for collaborating with local community based organizational stakeholders, including a program goal to improve their capacity for managing language-development program activities.

AA5353 Language Development and Planning (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

The course addresses language-planning principles from an interdisciplinary perspective and applies these in language-development projects. The many topics included are status planning, involving language choice, policy and use decisions at the international, national, and local levels; corpus planning, involving graphization, standardization, and modernization; acquisition planning, involving the provision of opportunity and incentive to adopt innovations; and ethical issues relating to language rights and language ecology.

AA5354 Language Contact (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

The purpose of this course is to discuss phenomena which occur when speakers of different languages come in contact with each other, including such areas as multilingualism (societal and individual), creolistics (Pidgins and Creoles), and obsolescence (language maintenance, shift, and death, language-contact-induced language change, reversing language shift, etc.).

AA5355 Scripture Engagement Strategy and Methods (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course focuses on the sociolinguistic, socioeconomic, sociopolitical, and socio-religious factors that either hinder or foster the use of vernacular literature. Practical strategies and activities that promote the use of Bible translations in public and private venues are central.

Note: For those participating remotely, meeting times are flexible. The instructor will reasonably accommodate time zones availability and other availability issues.

AA5356-OL Current Issues in Scripture Engagement (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

What are the major issues influencing Scripture engagement below the surface? This course encourages the student to analyze motivations and causal elements that underlie many of the Scripture engagement choices people make. Using a partially student-designed approach, course participants select specific Scripture engagement issues and skills they are interested in exploring more comprehensively. Emerging topics related to Scripture engagement are debated and students propose original contributions to the field of Scripture engagement. Students also develop skills in consulting and workshop design.

Note: Online versions of this course require access to an internet connection capable of supporting video conferencing at least once a week.

AA5357 Oral Tradition and Literature (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

The course examines four broad genres of oral traditions: proverbs, riddles, verse, and stories. For each of these four genres, the course covers three approaches: 1) How to collect/observe the genre, 2) How to analyze the genre, 3) How to apply the genre in ways that benefit the community. Each student will select a community/area to study during this course. The student will study proverbs, riddles, verse, and stories in the area of their choice and write a paper about each. At the end of the course, each student will propose at least two ways to apply the community’s oral arts in a way that benefits the community.

AA5361-SL Principles of Language Survey (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

Students study the linguistic and sociolinguistic criteria that can be used to define language and dialect boundaries. They learn to form appropriate research questions and choose appropriate research tools to discover ethnolinguistic identity, determine linguistic similarity, measure inherent intelligibility, assess bilingual proficiency, and describe language attitudes and patterns of language use. To implement these ideas, each student selects a particular language community in the world and prepares an appropriate survey proposal for that community.

AA5362-SL Language Survey Methods (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

Students study a variety of survey tools, then construct their own examples of these tests, implement them by using them with real people, and then write reports about their results.

AA5366 Theory and Practice of Sociolinguistics (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

Students study and discuss sociolinguistic variation at the level of a single language. Topics include such matters as the theory of variation; dialectology; ethnography of communication; pragmatics (power, solidarity, politeness); language and gender; social factors (time, generation, social class, social network, and identity); and standard and non-standard usage.

AA5370 Advanced Anthropology (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course provides students with both a breadth of instruction and focus of specific data analysis applicable to research and applied work across all subdisciplines in anthropology. Students will learn organize, classify, analyze and interpret anthropological data.

AA5372 Political and Social Organization (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

The course is an introduction to social and political organization worldwide. Subjects treated include social groups of various kinds and their principles of recruitment and organization – e.g., kinship, descent, marriage, residence, age, and choice. Also treated are various kinds of social and political relations, rites of passage for both persons and groups, basic types of political organization, concepts and practices of authority, power, law, and decision-making.

AA5373 Religion and Worldview (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

The course is an introduction to the range of religious systems of minority peoples worldwide, including universal religions and their folk varieties. Subjects treated include how religion has been defined by anthropologists and treated within anthropology. There is comparison and contrast of Christian and secular anthropological approaches to religion. There is a certain focus on witches and witch ontologies and how they compare to biblical idols.

AA5374 Christianity Across Cultures (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

The emergence of World Christianity and the growth of the church in the southern hemisphere has shifted the focus of mission toward questions concerning the components of Christianity that are variable across cultures. The course will explore questions of cultural context and tradition, the world Christian movement, the meaning and expression of contextualization and syncretism, and the cross-cultural embodiment of Christianity through conversion, ritual and worship, incarnational ministry, and church models. Through the analysis of case studies students will explore how Christianity is challenged to address social values, needs, and behaviors across a wide range of cultures, ethnic groups, and religious traditions.

AA5377 Area Studies (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

The course is an introduction to the geography, history, cultures, language families of interest, and other aspects of one area or sub-area of the world. Cultures are emphasized. Areas may be all or significant parts (not single countries) of sub-Saharan Africa, the Americas, Asia, Eurasia, or Oceania, depending on instructor availability.

AA5387 Training Across Cultures (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

AA5392-OL Scripture Engagement Practicum (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Students learn to research a people group’s religious worldview and help provide the most appropriate materials and activities that enhance the community’s engagement with Scripture. They work with local authors, artists, teachers or media specialists to create print materials, performances and recordings tailored for specific audiences. They encourage communities to engage with Scripture and apply it to their lives through study, story, song, conversation and celebration. They partner with leaders to strengthen community engagement with Scripture at more times and in more ways.

AA5398 Seminar in Applied Anthropology (TBA) (3 graduate credits)

This course has a unique Applied Anthropology topic and syllabus for each offering. It may be repeated when topic changes with permission of your graduate advisor.

May be repeated when topic changes, with permission of graduate advisor.

AA5399 Independent Study (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

This course is used for an individual student/s to study with a professor outside of the regularly scheduled course offerings. An Independent Study Permission form must be completed and submitted to Academic Affairs.

AA5934-C Literacy Megacourse (Summer - Odd numbered years) (9 graduate credits)

This course covers a wide variety of topics related to literacy programs in developing contexts. Many of the topics are reinforced by hands-on projects involving writing systems, teaching materials, transition materials, budget preparation, etc.

Note: Students should also be aware that there will be some scheduled activities outside normal class hours.

AA5X91 Thesis (Spring/Fall) (1 graduate credit)

The X in the course number will be replaced by a number from 1-6 specifying the number of thesis credits taken in the term for which you are registering. Students cannot register for thesis credits on their own. Communicate with the Registrar, either directly or via your academic advisor, and the Registrar will register you for the number of thesis credits you want to take.

By permission of graduate advisor; graded P/F; may be repeated.

AL5106 Digital Technology for Sign Language Research (Summer) (1 graduate credit)

This course introduces specialized hardware and software tools for researching sign languages, including recording, documenting, analyzing, and presenting textual, grammatical and lexical data. This course is taught in American Sign Language and written English.

AL5190 Thesis Writing (Spring/Fall) (1 graduate credit)

Note: This course is graded P/F. Completion of this course will count as one hour of thesis credit but will not trigger the requirement for continuing registration. For Applied Anthropology, see AA5190.

AL5207 Field Data Management (Spring/Fall) (2 graduate credits)

AL5301 Morphosyntax (Spring/Summer/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces students to techniques for analyzing and describing basic
morphological and syntactic issues in natural languages. By working through numerous practical
exercises from a large variety of languages, students gain confidence in their ability to determine
word classes and allomorphy and to deal with inflectional and derivational morphology. Students
also learn to analyze different types of phrases, clauses, and sentences. This course serves as
foundational for several graduate linguistics courses.

AL5303 Foundations of Translation (Spring/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Students develop an understanding of translation through history, including changing perspectives about translation through different epochs. Students compare and contrast translation theories and practices by exploring key theorists.

AL5304 Advanced Phonological Analysis (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces students to advanced analyses and descriptions of the phonology of human languages from various theoretical perspectives, including Optimality Theory. Analytical and descriptive skills will be developed through the study of phonological data from a variety of natural languages, focusing on morphophonemics. Readings are designed to provide a solid introduction to several important issues in phonological theory and argumentation.

AL5305 Principles of Sign Language Phonology (Summer) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces universal trends in sign language phonology and how the basic phonetic elements in a natural sign language function together in the language’s phonological system. It provides practice in applying various theoretical frameworks to analysis of specific sign languages. It considers the interaction between phonology and morphology. This course is taught in American Sign Language and written English.

AL5308 Oral Translation (Spring - Even numbered years/Summer - Odd numbered years) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces students to orality and its implications for translation. The concepts of teaching within an oral framework and the internalization of a pericope are explored along with the process of oral drafting. Students explore ways of transforming a passage into an artistic product suitable for another linguistic and cultural environment and discuss means of appraising the quality of an oral translation. Finally, students participate in an oral translation project which produces a high-quality oral draft appropriate for a specific audience.

[NOTE: Students should expect to meet with their team to work on the group project daily.]

AL5310 Advanced Sign Language Grammatical Analysis (Summer/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course focuses on morphological and syntactic properties that are characteristic of sign languages and which distinguish them from spoken languages. These include: grammaticalization of space (including deixis and agreement), verb classes, borrowing (particularly fingerspelling and mouthing), nonlinear morphology, classifiers, and nonmanual markers. Students will be taught the principles of analysis of such features, including glossing conventions, theoretical frameworks, analytical procedures, and appropriate means for presenting grammatical analysis. This course is taught in American Sign Language and written English.

AL5311 Relevance Theory (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Beginning with the historical and theoretical roots of relevance theory, this course explores relevance theory’s account of the principles and mechanisms of human communication. Building on that theoretical foundation, students explore implications of the theory for our explanation of tropes, linguistic analysis, and interlingual communication.

AL5312 Discourse Analysis (Spring/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course is designed to help students understand how languages structure texts and how the resulting structure influences communication and translation. The course focuses on the discourse structure of narrative texts, with a brief survey of the structure of nonnarrative texts. Students practice analyzing texts for various discourse features such as sentence structure, macrosegmentation of texts, the use of particles and conjunctions, and information structure. Salience schemes, transitivity, participant reference, and paragraph analysis are some of the other topics included.

AL5313 Advanced Grammatical Analysis (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course provides a survey of recurring syntactic patterns across languages and introduces tools and strategies that can be used to analyze and describe the grammatical structure of individual languages. Topics covered include voice and valence alternations, complementation, control, raising, relativization, morphological causatives, and serial verbs.

This course is required for all students in the Descriptive Linguistics concentration and is a prerequisite for AL5395 Current Issues in Descriptive Linguistics.

AL5315 Semantics and Pragmatics (Spring/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course examines the relationship between form and meaning in human language. We consider the rules for combining word meanings to derive sentence meanings in a predictable way, and we explore the principles which allow speakers to communicate more by uttering a sentence than is contained in the sentence meaning itself. We apply these concepts not only to content words but also to grammatical morphemes such as tense, aspect, and modality markers. This course is required for the MA in Applied Linguistics.

AL5316-SL Theory and Practice of Translation (Spring/Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Building on a theoretical understanding of translation, students explore the implications of translation theory and standard practice for addressing several translation issues commonly encountered by Bible translators. Students learn these principles and procedures through reading, discussion, and assignments.

AL5317 Language Documentation (Summer) (3 graduate credits)

This course involves reading and synthesizing major concepts in the foundational literature, as well as more recent publications in documentary linguistics. The readings are augmented by training in the core technical tasks of a language documentation project, including project planning, audio and video recording, metadata management, and archiving. A final project working with language consultants brings together the theoretical concepts and the technical skills in a small documentary corpus.

AL5319 Biblical Backgrounds (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course is an investigation into the key historical, political, religious, and ideological environments for understanding the bible. As the background to the Old Testament, students will explore the civilizations of the Ancient Near East, particularly those in Mesopotamia, Syria, Egypt, Canaan, and Israel. The New Testament’s first-century context depends both on the second-temple era Jewish religious environment and the broader Greco-Roman world.

Offered Fall, odd-numbered years with Ancient Near Eastern lectures and even-numbered years with Greco-Roman lectures.

AL5320-SL Translation Consulting Skills (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course contributes to students’ professional growth in the consulting skills and attitudes needed to successfully function as translation advisors and consultants. Students develop a personal growth plan for translation consultants. Class sessions involve discussion that incorporates each participant’s knowledge and experience. Students put into practice the skills and attitudes that are discussed.

AL5321 Greek 1 (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces students to the grammar and vocabulary of Biblical Greek with a focus on reading, studying, and translating the Greek New Testament. It offers a quick and efficient path into reading the Greek New Testament. The course is designed for anyone wanting to become a Bible translator and desiring to learn Biblical Greek.

AL5322 Greek 2 (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course is built in tandem with AL5321. Students continue studying Koine Greek with a focus on syntax and fluent reading of the Greek New Testament. This course is available for any student who has successfully completed AL5321 and has good reading comprehension of the Greek Text.

AL5323 Greek Discourse Features (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Note: This course will be offered in Fall 2022, then offered again in Spring 2024.

This course is designed to enable the student of the Greek New Testament to better understand the text, going beyond basic grammatical analysis. To that end, the course considers the discourse function of connectors in the Greek New Testament. Other topics covered include framing devices, emphasis, points of departure, and other issues in information structure. Forward pointing devices, thematic highlighting devices, and constituent structure are additional topics.

AL5324 Greek Textual Analysis (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Note: This course will next be offered in Fall 2023.

This course is concerned with discovering the meaning of a New Testament text as intended by the original author. As an aid in that discovery process, students are introduced to textual criticism. Also covered is how to best do lexical studies. The course looks at issues in grammatical analysis, background studies, and how to proceed in various genres of texts: narrative, epistolary, and apocalyptic. The use of the Old Testament in the New Testament is surveyed as well as the use of biblical theology in interpretation. Finally, each student puts all the elements together to produce an exegetical paper over an assigned text.

AL5325 Hebrew Textual Analysis (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

In this course students learn the steps needed to evaluate and understand the original author’s intended meaning of Old Testament passages. As part of this process, students learn how to evaluate lexical and syntactical issues, interact with textual criticism, perform background studies, and interact with the various genres of the text. These steps enable students to interpret the original meaning and underlying theology in order to translate well and to apply the text, which students demonstrate in an exegetical paper over an assigned text.

AL5326 Hebrew 1 (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

This course introduces students to the foundational features of Classical Hebrew. Beginning with the basics of phonology, the course then moves into foundational morphology and grammar, including nouns, prepositions, and verbs. This introduction to the language is the first step in enabling the student to become a competent translator of the Hebrew Old Testament.

AL5327 Hebrew 2 (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

This course continues where AL5326 left off. It continues introducing students to the basic morphology and grammar of Classical Hebrew. Once the foundational elements are understood, the course introduces students to the translation of large portions of text over a variety of genre types. This course (along with the previous one) provides a solid foundation for understanding the basic features of the language and prepares students to move into the following course which teaches the more complex features of interpretation.

AL5328 Hebrew Discourse Features (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

Note: This course will next be offered in Fall 2023.

Through this course students move beyond traditional grammatical analysis to an analysis and evaluation of the various discourse features of the Hebrew Old Testament. The types of discourse features studied include: discourse types, participant reference, coherence and cohesion, information structure, and many other features. The field of Hebrew discourse analysis is flourishing, and this course is updated every year to include the most recent advancements in the field.

AL5329 Readings: Hebrew Poetry (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

Students develop their language skills by reading extended passages of Old Testament texts of different genres in Hebrew. In this class students will focus on developing their skills in analyzing complete poems in Hebrew in order to explain the functional meaning and pragmatic effect of the Hebrew text. Completion of this course will include translating a text from the Hebrew Bible, writing explanatory notes highlighting points of interest in the exegesis and translation process, and transforming the passage into an artistic product suitable for another linguistic and cultural environment.

AL5331 Translation Advising (Spring) (3 graduate credits)

Students apply linguistic and translation knowledge to translation tasks in a non-western language. They will increase their abilities to identify and solve translation problems, and to evaluate translations in light of the linguistic norms of the target language. Students will also gain experience training and mentoring a speaker of the target language by doing translation alongside them. This course provides students with interpersonal and intercultural training that will help them develop facilitation skills.

AL5333 Tone Analysis (Spring - Odd numbered years/Summer - Even numbered years) (3 graduate credits)

A majority of the world’s unwritten languages are tonal, and this course will prepare those hoping to do language development work in these languages. The course includes extensive practice and coaching in hearing and transcribing tone, review of phonological theory that especially applies to tone, surveys of tonal phenomena by geographical area, and a multi-week project of tone analysis of a specific language that will cover beginning transcription, analysis, and a paper about the system.

AL5345-OL Introduction to The Translator's Assistant (TBA) (3 graduate credits)

Discover a computer program designed to accelerate translation by producing initial drafts based on semantic representations. Students will apply their newly developed linguistic skills and produce initial translations in English and in another language of their choice.

AL5395 Current Issues in Descriptive Linguistics (Fall) (3 graduate credits)

(Fall term, even-numbered years for syntax and semantics topics and odd-numbered years for phonology topics)

This course serves as a cap-stone seminar for students in the Descriptive Linguistics concentration, providing an opportunity to integrate knowledge from preceding courses through intensive study of some issue of current interest for linguistic analysis and description. The course aims to develop basic skills of linguistic scholarship through reading and critically discussing a variety of articles on the selected topic(s), and through writing and presenting a paper related to the issues discussed in the seminar.

This course has a grammar topic in even numbered years and a phonology topic in odd numbered years.

AL5398 Seminar in Applied Linguistics (TBA) (3 graduate credits)

This course has a unique linguistic topic and syllabus for each offering. It may be repeated when topic changes with permission of your graduate advisor.

May be repeated when topic changes, with permission of graduate advisor.

AL5399 Independent Study (By arrangement) (3 graduate credits)

AL5406 Field Methods and Linguistic Analysis (Spring/Fall) (4 graduate credits)

This course serves as the capstone course for the Certificate in Applied Linguistics. Working with a speaker of a non-western language, students in this course elicit data which they then use to produce a mini-lexicon, a phonological description, and a grammar sketch of the target language.

AL5X91 Thesis (Spring/Fall) (1 graduate credit)

By permission of graduate advisor; graded P/F; may be repeated.