Alexandra Teodorescu

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As a Lecturer and instructor of record I taught a variety of undergraduate courses in linguistics and cognitive science:

The University of Texas at Austin

Department of Linguistics

  • LIN 306H: “Intro to the Study of Language”
    Discusses how human languages are structured, how they function in society, how language is acquired by both children and adults, how the languages of the world evolved, how the world’s languages are both different and similar, how language ties in with human biology, and how linguistic diversity and multilingualism are factors in politics and society.

  • LIN 372L: “Syntax and Semantics: The Structure and Meaning of Utterances”
    Focuses on the syntax and semantics of human language. Syntax is concerned with how words are combined to form sentences. Semantics is concerned with what those sentences mean, and how the meaning of a sentence is constructed from the meanings of the component words. We will survey and analyze syntactic and semantic phenomena from a variety of the world’s languages. This will reveal interesting patterns lurking within human languages, despite their sometimes chaotic surface appearance. We will also discover surprising similarities across seemingly diverse languages.

  • LIN 350: “Language, Media, and Manipulation”
    Addresses the question of how people use language to influence each other. Starting from various media sources such as political campaign commercials, advertisements, magazines, TV/radio broadcasts and films, we will discuss the relation between language, mind and society. Topics to be examined include: Is there such a thing as "objective" language? How are arguments constructed? What role do linguistic features like accent, word choice, grammatical construction and indirect meaning play in persuading people to do things (buy, vote, believe)? How are images of ethnicity, gender, age and social class constructed through language and how do they help selling products or create social movements? Why does the use of English in Swiss, Romanian advertising appeal to the public? In answering these questions we will draw on readings from sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and linguistic anthropology.

    • Signature course designed for freshmen and sophomores, with a substantial writing component.

Program in Cognitive Science

  • CGS 360/LIN 373/PHL 365: “Intro to Cognitive Science”
    An introduction to the modern study of how the mind works. We will explore how humans perceive the world, how they acquire and represent knowledge, and how they reason, understand language and make decisions. Central to the course will be the computational theory of mind and the embodiment of thought and consciousness in a few pounds of grey meat. All these topics are central to the interdisciplinary field of Cognitive Science, an area in which UT boasts enormous strength. The course will incorporate presentations from faculty across Computer Science, Linguistics, Neurobiology, Philosophy, and Psychology.

    • Designed for juniors from a wide variety of fields.

Department of Communication and Speech Disorders

  • CSD/LIN 350: “Language and the Brain”

    Provides information and theory regarding language representation in the human brain. No prior background is assumed as a complete grounding in human neuroanatomy and neurophysiology is provided. Topics to be discussed include: (i) localizationist vs. holistic arguments for language representation in the brain; (ii) brain imaging studies (iii) the neuropathology of speech-language disturbance following brain injury, i.e., aphasia; (iv) left/right hemispheric specializations. The format is informal lecture style with class participation encouraged.

    • Designed for CSD majors; elective for Linguistics majors.

Princeton University

  • LIN 201/ENG 241: “Intro to Language and Linguistics”
    The eyes may be the mirror of the soul, but language is the mirror of the mind. Linguists study the structure of language to understand the complex computations that we do unconsciously every time we speak or comprehend utterances. This class will offer an introduction to the scientific analysis of human language, including the study of sound patterns, word formation, sentence structure, and the mental representation of linguistic knowledge.

    • Designed and taught lectures as well as precept sections.

McGill University

  • LING 370: “Introduction to Semantics”
    Provides an intro to semantics, the branch of linguistics dealing with the analysis of word meanings and the ways in which word meanings combine into meanings of phrases and sentences. The focus of the course will be on the semantics of quantification. Semantic analysis makes use of some formal tools, such as sets, relations, and functions. Some of these tools will be introduced along the way.

    • My responsibility was to teach one discussion section per week.

University of Bucharest
  • English Grammar