230103 The Sounds of the World's Languages (S) (WiSe 2026/2027)

In this course we will learn about the theoretical possibilities and practical applications of articulation in various languages of the world. We will compare these possibilities and applications to the language systems of German and English.

The course is mainly based on the book with the same title as this course by Ladefoged and Maddieson. We will use the introductory textbook on articulatory phonetics as supplementary material, cf. Literature.

We use a mildly innovative format for this course. The similarity to other courses is that there will be presentations on various topics throughout the course, usually each topic will be one class of sounds, e.g. fricatives, vowels... The difference is that all presentations will be held in teams of 1 or 2 students AND the lecturer. This means that each team meets at least once beforehand for coordination and preparation. The team will further devise assignments connected to the presentation topic.

Course credit (Studienleistung) will thus consist of three parts: 1) work on a team in preparing and giving a presentation 2) work on all assignments given by all other teams 3) Presence and active participation in discussion and feedback during the sessions.

It is possible to write a term paper as a Modulabschlussprüfung connected to this course. Usually this is a small empirical project + writeup.

Teilnahmevoraussetzungen, notwendige Vorkenntnisse

Good proficiency of the English language, as this is an interdisciplinary course both for linguistics and English studies.
Basic knowledge of linguistics and phonetics.

Literaturangaben

Ladefoged & Maddieson: The Sounds of the Worlds Languages 1996
Gick, Wilson & Derrick: Articulatory Phonetics 2014