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Teacher
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DE DOMINICIS Amedeo
(syllabus)
The course will cover the following topics:
- Summary of acoustic phonetic analysis.
- Summary of phonological analysis: (phone, phoneme); phonological properties (tone, accent, coarticulation and assimilation/dissimilation).
- Phonological theories (structuralism, generativism, auto-segmentality).
- Finally, we will deal with the theme of the relationship between intonation and pragmatics.
With regard to the temporal distribution of the didactic commitment dedicated to the various topics, it seems to me that any hypothesis formulated in advance would be devoid of plausibility, as it is not likely to organize a didactic work in the abstract: the time slots will depend on the responses of the learners, answers that by definition depend on the audience of the learners, their characteristics and their intellectual profiles, that is, from elements that today are unknown to me – as to anyone – and consequently it is impossible to make reliable predictions about it. In general, I can only predict that this will go as in all previous years, that is to say that in my intentions I should devote a quarter of the hours to the summary of acoustic phonetics, a quarter to the summary of phonology, a quarter to phonological theories, a quarter to the relationships between intonation and pragmatics, but in reality the learners will cyclically ask me to go back, explain again points of the program, thus nullifying all predictions. And this depends on the fact that the learners, even attending students, do not study at home the program carried out in the classroom, but study only near the exam and realize only a posteriori (perhaps after weeks) that they have misunderstood what was done in the classroom. The problem would be solved if only students were required to take the final exam immediately after the course, with only one date per year, in addition to a second date destined for recovery, and not – as is the case today – to be able to take it on numerous exam dates spread over the entire academic year (and beyond): but the adoption of this solution does not depend on the undersigned (who also hopes for it), but from political choices and academic regulations that go in the opposite direction.
(reference books)
1) A. De Dominicis, Fonologia, Roma, CAROCCI, 2003.
2) F. Albano Leoni & P. Maturi, Manuale di Fonetica, Roma, CAROCCI, 2008.
3) A. De Dominicis, Intonazione, Roma, CAROCCI, 2010.
4) A. De Dominicis, Intonazione e pragmatica, in Franca Orletti, Anna Pompei, Edoardo Lombardi Vallauri (eds.), Grammatica e Pragmatica. Atti del XXXIV Convegno Annuale della Società Italiana di Glottologia. pp. 43-85, Roma, IL CALAMO, 2012.
In my opinion, there is no possibility of learning phonetics and phonology without frontal didactic guidance. In general, it does not seem to me that it is possible to learn acoustic analysis and formal methods without a teaching aid consisting of a teacher. Perhaps this is possible in the case of historical or literary disciplines, but neither Linguistics nor Phonetics/Phonology are examples of historical or literary disciplines. Consequently, it is not possible for me to indicate - in science and conscience - any supplementary reading for self-taught students.
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