LING30007: Semantics

Assignment 1 (25%): Consists of two parts. The first part involves analysing the different meanings of 'like' (after you do this assignment you'll be pulling your hair out everytime you hear the word being used incorrectly - like totally!). The second part involves using event semantics to classify actions as either a state, activity, accomplishment or achievement.

Assignment 2 (25%): Using cognitive semantics draw a radial map of the different meanings of 'side' (I.e: "The 6 sides of a cube", "this is my side of the room", "I sided with her in the argument"). This assignment wasn't explained all that well by the tutor or the lecturer which brought my overall rating of this subject down.

Final essay/research project (50%): A 2,500 - 3,000 word essay or research project on an area within the course. There are a few suggested essay topics if you can't think of something to write about but I'd highly recommend coming up with something yourself in order to get a good mark.

It's a fairly tough subject to begin with but if you're smart you can get through it with minimal work. In a nutshell semantics is the study of the meaning of words independent from context (the literal meaning of something). There are many approaches to semantics that are covered in the course such as event semantics, truth-conditional, prototype semantics, cognitive semantics, componential analysis and a few other smaller topics. These topics are unrelated so it can get confusing when you expect things to link together.

Dr. Baker's lectures are rather relaxed and welcomes questions in the lecture if you don't understand anything. The class itself is fairly small as well (about 60-70 people) with only 3 tutorial classes. You don't have to go to the lectures as they are recorded but I would recommend going to the ones that contain information needed for the assignments. The tutorials are just discussions about the course material with your fellow classmates and there aren't any tutorials in the 1st or last week.

You really need to pick a topic for your final essay early and it can be from any part of the course that you want to focus on. Be warned though, it is very difficult to get a high H1 mark in this essay or any linguistic subject for that matter (unless you're Stonecold ). The tutor explicitly told us that to get a H1 for the final essay you need to write something innovative, creative and original (basically say something that no one else has ever said before). This means that unless you can come up with a completely different perspective on one of the given essay topics, it's highly recommended that you pick your own topic so that you can direct your own study. I actually found this part of the course the most enjoyable as it allowed me to write up my own mini thesis (you come up with your own research question, collect the data for it and then analyse it). The other 2 assignments aren't too hard and you can do fairly well in them (you can 100% even because they are problem based questions with objective answers).

Because there is no exam for this subject you don't need to memorise every single part of the course in depth (thank God!). Honestly you only need to concentrate on a few topics to do well - event semantics, cognitive semantics and the area of study that you are going to write about for your final essay. The rest of the topics aren't assessed so you could potentially skip those lectures if you have other subjects that require attention.
Overall I found this subject really rewarding. I admit that I struggled with it at first but like solving a tough maths problem that you've been working on for ages, it's satisfying when everything just 'clicks'. I realise that there might not be too many people interested in this subject as it's rather obscure (some people called it a 'hippie' subject but I didn't think it was anymore 'hippie' than your average arts subject!) and has no real-world application, but it does make you more conscious about your own language use (which is never a bad thing!) You don't need to have done a linguistic subject before, nor do you have to be a wordsmith but there is something that you need -

Yes, with screen capture.

Dr. Brett Baker

There is no exam component in this subject.

4.5 out of 5

Understanding Semantics by S. Lobner - Not crucial but it does help out with the first few topics and with Assignment 1.
A subject reader that can be purchased in the library for $15 - You need to buy this. It contains all the lecture notes and tutorial exercises for the entire semester.

2x 1 hour lectures and 1x 1 hour tutorial per week

2013, Semester 1

H1