AT THE FACULTY OF HUMANITIES IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LATVIA

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Latvian BSP and English, European languages and business studies BSP study courses

Digital Opportunities for Language Acquisition and Research (Valo3533)

Lecturer: doc. I. Urbanoviča

Course language: Latvian

The aim of the study course is to introduce students with the digital opportunities in linguistics in the digital humanities context. The information on the main fields of digital language technologies is analysed as well as the national language resources (including language corpora) and platforms for their use and analysis are examined, strengthening students’ skills in the use of digital tools and resources for language learning and research.

The objectives of the study course are: - to explain the key terms of the digital humanities, - to introduce the most important fields of the development of digital language technology as well as Latvian institutions which are involved in the design of different digital language tools and resources, - to improve the ability to use national language resources and their analysis platforms as well as language models and tools for automatic text analysis and synthesis, - to strengthen the skills of digital information and content processing and managing for the research in linguistics. 

EU Institutional and Project Management Discourse (ValoB064)

Lecturers: assoc. professor J. Kuzmina, lecturer M. Spirida

Course language: English

The course aims at ensuring students' understanding of EU institutional discourse, project management discourse as well as providing knowledge about documentary databases, text organisation and text analysis digital tools.

The course prepares students for the changing realities of the labour market and builds students’ digital competence, helps connect their learning to real-world problems and ultimately take ownership of the learning experience in the context of EU institutional and project management discourse.

The objectives of the course are 1. to develop a critical, interdisciplinary understanding of the EU as a multinational and multilingual union, by providing an insight into the development of the EU and its institutions. 2. to reflect on the dynamic interaction of academic and professional discussions on how academic discussions on language policies and multilingualism coincide with practical terminology issues that arise in the process of information transfer in the EU context 3. to raise students' awareness of discourse and genre theories that underpin the use of digital toolkits for text analysis. 4. to develop students' transversal digital competence: instrumental skill of using digital tools for text selection from databases, data visualisation, text organisation and analysis in institutional and professional context.

The acquired analytical skills will enable them to pursue careers in a variety of sectors (e.g. EU entities, European and international organizations, NGOs, public and private sector) and/or undertake further research in the field of applied linguistics and/or European studies.

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Anglistika MSP

Corpus Linguistics (Valo5593)

Lecturer: assoc. professor Z. Vinčela

Course language: English

The aim of the course is to extend the students’ theoretical and practical knowledge about corpus linguistics, corpus-based research methodology in linguistics and literary studies, text corpora creation approaches, tools, annotation, data extraction and analysis.

Objectives: 1. To introduce students to corpus linguistics theoretical background and the approaches to corpora application and creation; 2. To introduce students to the role of corpora types, corpora creation, application in a language research, acquisition and literary text research; 3. To develop corpus-based research skills. 

Programming Languages for Linguists (SDSKM031)

Lecturers: assoc. professor J. Kuzmina, doc. E. Rencis

Course language: English

The goal of the course is to acquire the concept of algorithms, their features and use for solving linguistic problems. It covers the basics of Python for practical algorithm application in linguistics.

Course objectives: 1. to acquire basic programming knowledge and skills in Python; 2. to develop basic programming skills, using structured and object-oriented programming paradigms; 3. to master the main principles of problem-solving and data processing with computer programming.

Traditional and Electronic Lexicography (ValoM098)

Lecturer: doc. I. Karpinska

Course language: English

The aim of the course is to develop students’ understanding of the theory and practice of traditional and electronic English lexicography in a broader context of linguistics and literary studies by browsing and filtering the content of electronic dictionaries as well as using the digital sources of language data and content selection tools available in modern lexicography.

The objectives of the course: to acquaint students with the types of dictionaries, their structural and functional peculiarities, focusing on electronic and online dictionaries, their characteristic features and approaches to filtering of their content; the basic features of lexicographic discourse in the digital age; traditions and latest developments in the field of lexicography, highlighting the important role of text corpora and digital content selection tools in contemporary lexicography.