Eve Sweetser

Teaching

Undergraduate Courses

Celtic Studies 161. Celtic Linguistics

Topics in the linguistics of the Celtic languages. Likely subject matters include synchronic structure of a Celtic language or languages, history of the Celtic language family, philology and paleography of older Celtic texts, sociolinguistics of the modern Celtic languages, linguistic characteristics of Celtic poetic, and oral traditional literature.

Linguistics 40. Language of Advertising

The ways in which language is used in advertising. An introduction to basic linguistic principles of how speech acts work, the semantic effects of framing, and the contribution of language to multimodal print and video advertising: the division of labor between images and words, and different strategies in integrating them into a single message. Cultural differences both in advertising "message strategies" (what content is presented) and in "formal strategies" (how is it presented?).

Linguistics C105/Cognitive Science 101. Mind and Language

Conceptual systems and language from the perspective of cognitive science. How language gives insight into conceptual structure, reasoning, category-formation, metaphorical understanding, and the framing of experience. Cognitive versus formal linguistics. Implications from and for philosophy, anthropology, literature, artificial intelligence, and politics.

Linguistics 106. Metaphor

The role of metaphor in structuring our everyday language, conceptual system, and world view. Topics include cross-cultural differences, literary metaphor, sound symbolism, and related theoretical issues in philosophy, linguistics, psychology and anthropology.

Linguistics 123. Pragmatics

The relation between language use and human actions. Some topics to be emphasized are conversational logic, speech act theory, politeness, social role, psychological perception of oneself and language, variation in language use.

Linguistics 128. Linguistic Analysis of Literature

Literary texts provide unique material for linguists: good authors manage to use everyday grammatical forms in exceptional ways. In this course, students will read scholarly linguistic works on literary analysis, and also analyze literary texts using the tools they acquire. Linguistics readings will focus on narratology and cognitive linguistic approaches, including mental spaces theory, conceptual metaphor theory, and work on iconicity, viewpoint, and causal structure.

Linguistics 181. Lexical Semantics

Lectures and exercises in the description of word meanings, the organization of lexical systems, the lexicalization of particular semantic domains (kinship, color, etc.), and contrastive lexicology: lexicalization pattern differences across languages.

Graduate Courses

Linguistics 205. Advanced Cognitive Linguistics

This will be an advanced course in cognitive linguistics. Among the topics covered will be cognitive bases for aspects of grammatical structure, cognitive constraints on language change and grammaticalization, and motivations for linguistic universals (i.e., constraints on variability).

Linguistics 240A-B. Field Methods

Training in elicitation and analysis of linguistic data in a simulated field setting. Course language: American Sign Language

Linguistics 290A. Grammar and Viewpoint

Linguistics 290A. Argument Structure

Linguistics 290B. Mental Spaces

Linguistics 290B. Viewpoint and Multimodality

Teaching Outside UC Berkeley

• 2011. 4-week course on Lexical semantics and argument structure, at the Linguistic Institute of the Linguistic Society of America, held at University of Colorado at Boulder. July, 2011.
• 2009. 3-week course on Conditional Constructions, taught at the 2009 Linguistic Institute of the Linguistic Society of America, held on the UC-Berkeley campus. July-August 2009.
• 2008. Short course on Mental Spaces and Viewpoint in Language. Summer seminar of Japan Society of Linguistics, held at Kyoto University. August 19-24, 2008.
• 2008. Workshop in Cognitive Linguistics and Biblical Studies. Co-taught with Drs. Bonnie Howe and Therese DesCamp, held on the campus of the Pacific School of Religion, Berkeley CA. June 5-8, 2008.
• 2004. One-month position at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.
• 2003. Empirical Methods in Cognitive Linguistics workshop at Cornell University, May 2-4, 2003.
• 2001. A six-week Semantics course at the Linguistic Society of America's summer Linguistic Institute, held at the University of California at Santa Barbara. Summer, 2001.
• 2000. One-week graduate short course on cognitive linguistics, at the University of Bergen, Norway. June, 2000.
• 1999. One-month position, teaching three graduate and undergraduate short courses on Cognitive Linguistics, at the Université Paris 7 (Jussieu), France. May-June, 2000.
• 1998. Graduate course on the Semantics of Grammatical Constructions, at the Australian Linguistic Institute, held at the University of Queensland. July, 1998.
• 1998. Graduate short courses on cognitive linguistics at the University of Rio de Janeiro and the University of Juiz de Foro, in Brazil. March-April, 1998.
• 1998. Graduate short course on the Semantics of Grammatical Constructions, at the National Linguistics Graduate Winter School of the Netherlands, held at the University of Leiden. January, 1998.
• 1996. Graduate short course on Cognitive Linguistics, at the Semiotics Institute at Aarhus University, Denmark. June, 1996.
• 1996. Graduate short course on Metaphor, jointly sponsored by the Universities of Aalborg and Odense, Denmark. April, 1996.
• 1995. Co-taught with Professor Phyllis Wilcox, a course on Metaphor in Signed and Spoken Languages, at the Linguistic Society of America Summer Linguistic Institute, held at the University of New Mexico at Albuquerque. Summer, 1995.
• 1992, 1994. Warsaw University Linguistic Summer School. Summer, 1992; Summer, 1994.