This course is an introduction to statistics for language studies that develops and illustrates fundamental ideas in statistics with examples and applications from language. Through the lectures, readings, and assignments you will get experience in applying concepts and using statistical methods to collect, analyse, and interpret data from a diverse set of linguistic sources. These statistical concepts that facilitate linguistic explanation through the analysis of quantitative data will be emphasized in this course.

Based on Program Learning Outcome

PLO 1 Being able to apply concepts and theories of foundational English Linguistics to respond to a variety of language phenomena.

PLO 5 Being able to work independently by using English Language-related knowledge and skills in order to make a creative work.

PLO 8 Being able to demonstrate English language proficiency as indicated by an English proficiency achievement equivalent to minimum CEFR level B2

1. Being able to use R to provide counts from linguistics data, construct contingency tables, compute basic descriptive statistics, plot probability distributions, and explore data graphically in other ways. (CLO 1);

2. Being able to conduct basic significance tests and explain the meaning of the results (CLO 1);

3. Being able to discriminate between different types of probability distributions, and test goodness of fit of data to distributions; (CLO 2);

4. Being able to Distinguish between fixed effects and random effects, specifically in language data using multiple linguistic productions from multiple speakers with multiple linguistic forms (CLO 2);

Baayen, R. H. 2008. Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics Using R . 1st ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, ISBN: 9780521709187.

Butler, C.S. 2008. Statistics in Linguistics . Oxford: Basil-Blackwell.

Stirzaker, D . 2007. Probability and Random Variables: A Beginner’s Guide. 1st ed. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN: 0521642973.