Admission requirements
Students of the MA Linguistics (research) or the MA Asian Studies (research) with (some) knowledge of an Asian language are welcome to attend this course. Students from other programmes are kindly referred to the course description of the regular MA course.
Description
In this course, we investigate a number of topics (e.g., the noun phrase, tense and aspect, classifiers, sentence final particles, to name just a few possible topics – we will concentrate on syntactic topics) by looking at the Asian languages the students of the class are interested in. (One of the languages that will always play a role is Chinese, because that is a language the instructors have worked on a lot.) We intend to take a comparative perspective: for instanbce, if our topic is the noun phrase, we will look at the noun phrase in say, Chinese, Japanese and Hindi and try to find out what they have in common and where they differ. Where do we position adjectives? (in front of the noun? behind it? with or without a marker?) How do we form relative clauses? How do we express definiteness? This is just one example. If we study sentence final particles, the concrete questions will be different, but the approach (looking for similarities and differences between the languages we study) will stay the same.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students will have gained understanding of a certain linguistic topic (or different topics) which is relevant for Asian linguistics. At the same time, the course aims at developing further the research skills of the students (finding information, finding data, linguistic reasoning, etc.), as well as their skills in reporting on their findings, both in writing and orally, for general as well as scholarly audiences.
Timetable
The timetables are available through My Timetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Attendance is compulsory for all sessions. Students must prepare well and contribute to in-class discussion. If a student cannot attend because of illness or misadventure, they should promptly inform the convener. Extra assignments may be set to make up for missed class time, at the convener’s discretion. Absence without notification may result in lower grades or exclusion from assessment components and a failing grade for the course.
Assessment method
Academic Integrity
Students should familiarize themselves with the notion of academic integrity and the ways in which this plays out in their own work. A good place to start is this page. Plagiarism will not be tolerated. Students may not substantially reuse texts they have previously submitted in this or other courses. Minor overlap with previous work is allowed as long as it is duly noted in citation.
Students must submit their assignment(s) to Brightspace through turnitin, so they can be checked for plagiarism. Submission via email is not accepted.
Assessment and weighing
| Partial Assessment | Weighing |
|---|---|
| Oral and written assignments | 40% |
| Term paper | 60% |
In order to pass the course, students need a pass mark (“voldoende”, i.e. “5.50” or higher) for the research paper and for the course as a whole.
All categories of assessment must be completed in the same academic year. No partial marks can be carried over into following years.
Resit
Only if the total weighted average is 5.49 or lower the marked components of the course which resulted in a grade of 5.49 or lower can be redone.
Inspection and feedback
If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Readings for the course time will be announced through Brightspace as we go along.
Registration
Enrolment through uSis is mandatory.
General information about uSis is available on the website.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Vrieshof