LING 281 A-Z - Special Topics in Linguistics

Semester Hours: 1-3

Current Special Topics:

LING 281L - Linguistic Landscapes

Language surrounds us in our everyday lives. We communicate through linguistic means, and we are constantly bombarded by signs and other forms of linguistic communication both verbal and visual (as in road signs, billboards, street names, commercial shop signs, and signs on government buildings, to name just a few). The aim of this course is to offer an overview of research on linguistic/semiotic landscapes, focusing in particular on the insights that can be gained from a spatial perspective on languages and other multimodal meaning-making practices such as how language is visualized via images, sounds, drawings, movements, graffiti, tattoos, colors, clothing, and smells. The course will also equip students with different methodologies for analyzing languages in various spaces and places. In this course, we will explore not only the public sphere, but at times the digital sphere as well. We will begin with an overview of the field of linguistic landscapes, moving into examples of linguistic landscape research broadly, as well as through particular foci such as bilingualism/multilingualism, local vs. global advertising, history and the past, tourism, protest, sexuality, and linguistic injustices (when language used in a sign can have legal and other real-world implications for public safety). The focus of the course will thus involve investigating which languages appear where, when, by whom, for whom, in which format, and to what end. From our reading of the linguistic landscape, we can then begin to see the power, meaning, and significance of individual languages in society.

Crosslisted as LING 181L

LING 281X - Expert Witness

This course is taught in coordination with Hofstra Law School’s LAW 3601, Expert Witness in Civil Cases, an upper-level experiential credit law school course. The course is organized around a simulated litigation. Law students are grouped into firms representing a plaintiff and a defendant. Linguistics students will be assigned in teams to each firm to act as expert witnesses.

One of the key objectives of the course is to give simulated experience in the realities that a professional linguist would face serving as an expert witness in a court case. This includes coordination with retaining attorneys to focus one’s linguistic analysis on legally relevant points, and present those in a report dealing with the language evidence facts of the case. Also included is witness preparation by one’s attorneys, giving testimony and being cross-examined in a deposition, qualifying under Daubert or Frye to testify, and giving direct testimony and undergoing cross examination at a jury trial.

Linguistics students are required to attend all sessions and work diligently with teams outside of class hours in emulation of actual professional practice.

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes: Open to second-year graduate students by permission of the instructor.

Prerequisite(s)/Course Notes:
May be repeated for credit when topics vary. As individual subjects are selected, each is assigned a letter (A-Z) which is affixed to the course number. Specific titles and course descriptions for special topics courses are available in the online class schedule. May not be taken on a Pass/Fail basis.

View Course Offering(s):

Fall 2025

January 2026

Spring 2026