Teaching philosophy

Teaching and supervision are an essential part of my academic life. Through teaching and interacting with students, I broadened my perspectives on basic issues in linguistics, and deepened my understanding of theoretical approaches to those issues. My teaching philosophy consists of three principles:

1. make clear statements about long-term goals and short-term goals that a student has to achieve;
2. facilitate students’ interest through tangible but non-trivial puzzles;
3. balance empirical and theoretical aspects in teaching specific linguistic analyses.

I particularly enjoy teaching introductory linguistics courses at the undergraduate level, as it is where I first encountered the excitement of linguistics as a student.

Current and upcoming courses (at Edinburgh)

• Autumn 2021:
  • Course organizer, ‘Semantic Theory’ (upper-level undergraduate; MSc)
  • Contributor, ‘Pragmatics’ (upper-level undergraduate; MSc)

Past courses

• At University of Edinburgh
  • Spring 2020: Semantics block (2 weeks) of ‘Linguistics and English Language 1B’ (1st-year undergraduate)
  • Spring 2020: ‘Current Issues in Semantics and Pragmatics’ (Upper-level undergraduate/MSc; co-taught with Rob Truswell)
  • Fall 2019: Course organiser, ‘Introduction to Semantics and Pragmatics’ (MSc; Edinburgh)
  • Autumn 2021 - ‘Guided Research in Linguistics A: cross-linguistic variation and universal in semantics’ (upper-level undergraduate; MSc) - Semantics block (2 weeks) of ‘Linguistics and English Language 2A’ (2nd-year undergraduate) - Contributor, ‘Pragmatics’ (upper-level undergraduate; MSc)
  • Spring 2021: - Course organiser, ‘Linguistics and English Language 1B’ (1st-year undergraduate) - Contributor, ‘Syntax: Theory and Practice’ (upper-level undergraduate; MSc)
• At Leiden University
  • Fall 2018: ‘Semantics: Current issues’ (MA; LUCL)
  • Fall 2018: ‘Japanese Linguistics seminar’ (BA3; Leiden)
  • Fall 2018: ‘Trends in Japanese Linguistics’ (MA; Leiden)
  • Spring 2017: ‘Semantics 2’ (BA; Leiden)
  • Spring 2017: ‘Graduation seminar’ (BA; Leiden)
  • Spring 2017: ‘Introduction to Japanese Linguistics’ (BA; Leiden)
  • Fall 2016: ‘Trends in Japanese Linguistics: Japanese and theories of semantics and pragmatics’ (MA; Leiden)

Supervision

• I have (co-)supervised the following students and RAs at the University of Edinburgh:

  • Esther Lam (PhD 2024; Currently postdoc at Edinburgh within Caroline Heycock and Jutta Hartmann’s AHRC/DFG project)
    • PhD thesis: Meaning of classifier-noun phrases in Nung (Tai, Vietnam)
  • Thomas Stephen (PhD 2024)
    • PhD thesis: Semantics of nominal and clausal embedding: how (not) to embed a clause and why
  • Takanobu Nakamura (PhD 2023; Currently postdoc at ILLC Amsterdam)
    • PhD thesis: Distribution of distributivity in syntax and discourse
  • Tim Jantarungsee (MScR 2023; Currently PhD student at UCL Linguistics)
  • Mingyang Bian (MSc 2022; Currently PhD student at UPenn Linguistics)
  • Sophia Nauta (MECORE RA 2020-2021; currently PhD student at Leiden Linguistics)
  • Yingyu (Sue) Su (MECORE RA 2020-2022; currently PhD student at USC)
  • Ella Hannon (LiSU RA 2022; currently PhD student at UBC Linguistics)
  • Victoria-Elliot Bush (LiSU Intern 2022; currently student at QMUL Linguistics)
  • Bao Di (MSc 2021; currently at European Masters Program in Language & Communication Technologies, Saarland University)
  • Jenny Wu (MSc 2020; currently PhD student at UCLA Philosophy)
  • Yunchong Huang (MSc 2020; currently MSc student at ILLC Amsterdam)

• I have (co-)supervised more than 20 Undergraduate and Master-level dissertations at Leiden and Edinburgh.