MapLE Masterclass

The MapLE Masterclass is an online course on epistemicity, available for everyone as self-study. Send an e-mail to maple@hum.leidenuniv.nl to get access.

What is this course about?
When people communicate, they not only exchange information, but they also indicate how the speaker’s and addressee’s knowledge relate to that information. What is the source of the information, how certain is the speaker of it, is it unexpected for the speaker or addressee? All these aspects fall under epistemicity – the expression of the speaker’s and addressee’s knowledge in grammar.

In this online masterclass, you will become familiar with the whole area of epistemicity, learning about evidentiality, epistemic modality, egophoricity, engagement, mirativity, and information structure. You will learn what is behind the terms, see different linguistic strategies to express speaker and addressee knowledge, and practise recognising and describing this in different languages.

What to expect
The course consists of 8 modules, as in the overview below. On the platform Coursera, you learn by reading articles, watching online video lectures, interviews with experts, thinking along with case studies and doing exercises and a final quiz.

The course is aimed at Master level – basic linguistic knowledge is assumed and necessary to be able to follow the course.

Module 1	What is epistemicity?
Module 2	How certain is your knowledge?
Module 3	How do you know about this? I
Module 4	How do you know about this? II
Module 5	Do you know what I know?
Module 6	Is the information surprising?
Module 7	How do I best pack this information for you?
Module 8	How do we study epistemicity?

Further information
This masterclass forms part of the MapLE project (Mapping Linguistic Epistemicity), funded by the Dutch Research Council NWO and based at Leiden University.

Contact
The course coordinators are Jenneke van der Wal and Håvard Weiberg-Johansen. For any questions, please do not hesitate to contact us via maple@hum.leidenuniv.nl.