Semantics and Pragmatics OpenCourseWare: A Free Online Undergraduate Linguistics Class by MIT

Published Feb 14, 2009

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The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) offers its 'Language and its Structure III: Semantics and Pragmatics' as free OpenCourseWare. In the original undergraduate course, students learned and applied the linguistic concepts of semantics and pragmatics to everyday life. The course was designed for B.S. students in the Linguistics and Philosophy Department at MIT.

Language and its Structure III (Semantics and Pragmatics): Course Specifics

Degree Level Free Audio Video Downloads
Undergraduate Yes No No Yes

Lectures/Notes Study Materials Tests/Quizzes
No Yes No

Language and its Structure III (Semantics and Pragmatics): Course Description

All students in the Program in Language and Mind ( MIT's undergraduate Linguistics major) are required to take 'Language and its Structure III: Semantics and Pragmatics.' Professor Kai von Fintel created this lecture course. In the class, students learn theories about how people decipher the intended meaning of a set of words based on their prior knowledge (semantics). They also learn theories of how context affects meaning (pragmatics). Concepts from other fields like logic and psychology are frequently incorporated in the 'Language and its Structure III: Semantics and Pragmatics' curriculum.

The OpenCourseWare includes problem sets, a course reading list with limited downloadable material and links to related course content. If you'd like to get more details about this MIT course, you'll find them at the pragmatics and semantics course page.

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