The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

When we call someone we know well on the phone, it only  takes a few seconds to get a sense of how they are, for example whether they’ve just woken up, are upset, or have a cold. We might even hear that they are smiling, all based on cues in their voice, speech and language use. What if we could harness and measure this information? What other cues are present when we speak? Are there signs of undiagnosed diseases or developmental disorders that are otherwise difficult to evaluate? Recent research suggests this is the case.  Language samples, recordings of people talking, can contain indicators of whether someone is in the early stages of a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or ALS, even before the individual notices symptoms.

Furthermore, speech samples are one of the most precise tools in a speech-language pathologist’s toolkit, allowing the detection of various nuances in language use that other tools, such as standardized tests, may miss. This is particularly important when diagnosing developmental language disorders in multilingual children, as developing reliable measurements for them has proven difficult. Rapid advances in language technology over the past decade have revolutionized the field of clinical linguistics, leading to various health-tech solutions that automatically analyze speech and language. 

But do these technological solutions work across different languages? Are the symptoms of developmental language disorders and neurodegenerative diseases the same in Icelandic as in other languages? What can the answers to these questions tell us about human language and cognition? These questions will form the core of this workshop, where students will have the opportunity to participate in ongoing research in the fields of clinical linguistics and health technology under the guidance of the instructors.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of Old Icelandic and to describe and account for the main syntactic changes that the language has undergone up to the present. Among these are changes in word order, verbal constructions, case government, reflexivization, etc. Students will be trained in using the Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus to search for and analyze examples of various syntactic constructions. In relation to this, current theories on the origin and nature of syntactic change will be examined and tested against Icelandic data.

This course is intended for language technology students who do not have linguistic background. The purpose of the course is to give an overview of the structure of Icelandic, with a special consideration to features which can be problematic for natural language processing. The main topics that will be covered are the sound system of Icelandic and phonetic transcription (IPA and SAMPA); the inflectional and derivational morphology of Icelandic with a special consideration to Part-of-Speech tagging and tagsets; and the syntactic structure of Icelandic with emphasis on both phrase structure and dependency parsing.

This workshop focuses on 21^st-century research on Icelandic modern literature. All students participate actively in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the teachers for the transfer of knowledge and the progress of the work. The teachers are professional leaders, supervisors and discussion moderators but do not give formal lectures. Emphasis will be placed on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding older research, reviewing it, having an opinion on it and expressing themselves about it in a group of peers in a research group, collecting their own data, analyzing it and describing it, receiving feedback, giving feedback to others and writing an academic text (research thesis).

More information on workshops can be found here.

The course explores the relationship between political and aesthetic discourse in Iceland during the era of the cultural Cold War, a global ideological struggle waged by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, for the hearts and minds of populations around the world in the latter half of the 20th century. The course draws on interdisciplinary research on the Cold War, with a focus on the interplay between global influences and local conditions. This glocal approach allows for an examination of Icelandic agents in the Cold War not only as representatives of the two empires, the United States and the Soviet Union, but also based on their own cultural values and interests. A mixed methodology will be employed, incorporating theories and methods from the social sciences, as well as from art history, literary studies, and historiography. Special emphasis will be placed on the analysis of literary texts and artworks, while attention will also be given to the participation of Icelandic intellectuals and artists in international cultural activities. Students will explore how the Cold War has been addressed in recent years, both in academic contexts and in public dissemination through exhibitions, podcasts, and graphic novels.

In this course, Völsunga saga will be read and analyzed from different perspectives, in close connection to the heroic lays of the Eddic tradition. After an in-depth reading, the focus will be set on individual episodes, such as about Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and his ancestry, the Gjúkungar, Atli, and Jörmunrekr. Some European analogues will be examined, whether in historiography, poetry or art. Then, we will turn our attention to the dissemination of the material throughout the ages and its representations in different forms of art and textual media, as for example opera, film and other visual arts, folktales, folk songs and traditional ballads. The objective is to demonstrate the multifunctional and diverse strands that lie between the literature and the older as well as younger manifestations of the subject matter.

The course is designed for MA students in general and Icelandic linguistics and is also useful for other MA students that plan to conduct linguistics research. The course will cover the main research methods in linguistics, both in regards to experimental and natural data. We will discuss the fundamentals of the design of judgment tasks, fill-ins, elicitation tasks, behvioural and neuroimaging experiments and search in corpora such as the Icelandic Gigaword Corpus and IcePaHC. Research methods in diverse domains will be introduced, including syntax, phonology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, interactional linguistics and more. Finally we will discuss data analysis and interpretation of results, the pros and cons of differerent research methods and ethical considerations in linguistics.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

In this course we concern ourselves with how language and society interact by examining sociolinguistic methods and concepts with regard to international and domestic research in the field.

Among the topics discussed are language attitudes, language contact, dialects, language style and language management. We take a look at different manifestations of language use and language variation as well as contemplating on how factors such as environment, context and background of a language user potentially influence language use and choice of style.

We provide an overview of principal research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, discuss recent trends in sociolinguistics and evaluate methods and methodologies with respect to the particular research topic.

Besides presenting research on attitudes towards language and language use, considering both attitudes towards one’s own language and that of others, we consider possible outcomes of unconventional language use. Special emphasis will be put on considering the language use of those who speak Icelandic as a foreign language as well as the status of immigrants in Iceland.

Additionally, we address the current status of the Icelandic language, particularly in relation to English and other languages. Principles of language management are discussed along with people’s ideas and believes about language through time. In that respect, we have a look at Icelandic language policy, language management, language standardization and linguistic purism from different perspectives, e.g. a synchronic and diachronic angle as well as with regard to other speech communities. 

We will discuss language use of particular social groups (e.g. teenagers) in terms of its social meaning for the group on the one hand and for the speech community as a whole on the other hand.

Students are expected to complete group or individual tasks on questions and problems originating from topics and discussions in the class room.

Many students, who finish their studies in the School of Humanities, in particular students from the Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, are likely to be employed in the future by media-companies, publishing houses and cultural institutions and asked to write criticism or news about books and art-events. The course focuses on the role and characteristics of cultural journalism in Iceland. Students will get acquainted with most of the genres of cultural journalism, such as interviews, criticism, news-releases and blog. They will work on practical assignments that will be related to specific cultural events in Iceland in the spring of 2018.

This workshop covers important international research conducted on Icelandic medieval literature in the 21^st century. Students will actively participate in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the instructor for the dissemination of knowledge and the progress of the course. The instructor serves as a professional leader and discussion facilitator but does not give formal lectures. The emphasis will be on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding research publications, analyzing them, forming opinions about them, and expressing them in a peer group setting. They will collect their own data, analyze and describe it, receive feedback, provide feedback to others, and write a research thesis.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The purpose of this course is to introduce to students the role and utility of language resources (corpora), both for software development and for research on texts and speech. Available language corpora for Icelandic will be presented, and students will also gain insights into the composition of new corpora. The structure of these resources will be analyzed along with the opportunities and limitations associated with them. Students will work with the resources in an original manner and use them to develop new applications or new resources.

The course focuses on the fiction of Sjón, with emphasis on novels, poetry and cinema, based on the study Sjónsbók: Ævintýrið um höfundinn, súrrealisma og sýnir (2016) by Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir, and the essay collection Critical Approaches to Sjón : North of the Sun (2025). Theories of surrealism and the avant garde, narrative and cultural studies will be discussed.

Close reading of poetry, both religious and secular, from the 17th and 18th centuries. The concept baroque and the main characteristics of socalled baroque-texts will be analysed, in order to answer the question wether literary genres used by Icelandic poets can be identified as baroque texts and whether there are comparisons in contemporary foreign (European) literature. Texts will be read by the poets Hallgrímur Pétursson, Stefán Ólafsson, Bjarni Gissurarson, Steinunn Finnsdóttir, Sigga skálda og Látra-Björg.

By focusing on folk tales, literature and other relevant sources, the course discusses the manifestations of nature and the supernatural in Icelandic narrative culture throughout the centuries. Students will learn about the significance, interface, and unclear boundaries of these phenomena and how they have shaped society and the environment as well. Students will thus get to know different ideas about the position of people and (other) animals within, above or "outside" of nature. Through diverse lectures and assignments, topics such as humanity vs. animality, the known world vs. other worlds, and the materiality vs. the supernatural, will be discussed from critical points of view. The roles and forms of landscape, organisms, bodies, weather, and natural phenomena in the narrative culture will be explored. The latest research in this broad field will be presented, such as on the representation of earthquakes and celestial bodies, bears, whales, seals, and domestic animals, and on the supernatural creatures of nature and other mythological creatures such as fairies, ghosts, trolls, and berserks. Students will learn how story worlds and folklore have left their mark on the perception of nature, folk traditions, folk customs, and social spaces such as enchanted spots, sacred places and hunted places. We also ask how these narratives appear in folk art and visual art, from previous centuries to the present. Finally, we will explore the significance of nature narratives and the supernatural in the context of the Anthropocene, human perspectives, climate change, and the different status of social groups and species.

In this course, Faroese and Icelandic literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries will be read and placed in the context of the literary and cultural history of these two island nations. The course topics include, among other things, the questions that have preoccupied the authors, how the nations’ identities are reflected in the works, and the connections between the Faroese and Icelandic literary fields, such as through translations.

The course is taught in collaboration with Guðrún í Jákupsstovu, a lecturer at the University of the Faroe Islands, who teaches a comparable course there during the same semester. Part of the course will therefore be taught online, but classroom teaching and student participation in person are also expected. The aim is for a study trip to Tórshavn to be part of the course, and likewise, the Faroese group will visit Reykjavík

The main purpose of the course is twofold. First, to shed light on how Icelandic is taught in upper primary and secondary schools. Second, to explore ways of developing Icelandic as a school subject, with respect to practical and theoretical research. What ability should be emphasized in the use and practice of the language? What skills should students have obtained by the end of each school level and how should they be trained? Which aspects of language and literature are most important for the students to know and understand? What are the most used teaching methods? What kind of teaching material is most commonly used in schools and to what extent does it reflect recent knowledge and developments in the fields of language and literature? In the course assignments the students will be trained in defining and implementing their own teaching ideas, with an emphasis on recent knowledge.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The goal of this course is to strengthen the studentsʼ understanding of syntax by comparing selected phenomena in the syntactic structure of Icelandic to corrsesponding phenomena in other languages, both related and unrelated. It is assumed that all students have some knowledge of syntax, but a special attempt will be made to accommodate students with different background and expectations, even by splitting the group up into sections according to their previous knowledge of syntax and interest. Thus the course is meant to be suitable to graduate students of Icelandic and general linguistics, who mainly have theoretical interest in syntax, as well as to students of other languages, students in the School of Education and studdents of translation theory, provided that they have some basic knowledge of syntax.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

When we call someone we know well on the phone, it only  takes a few seconds to get a sense of how they are, for example whether they’ve just woken up, are upset, or have a cold. We might even hear that they are smiling, all based on cues in their voice, speech and language use. What if we could harness and measure this information? What other cues are present when we speak? Are there signs of undiagnosed diseases or developmental disorders that are otherwise difficult to evaluate? Recent research suggests this is the case.  Language samples, recordings of people talking, can contain indicators of whether someone is in the early stages of a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or ALS, even before the individual notices symptoms.

Furthermore, speech samples are one of the most precise tools in a speech-language pathologist’s toolkit, allowing the detection of various nuances in language use that other tools, such as standardized tests, may miss. This is particularly important when diagnosing developmental language disorders in multilingual children, as developing reliable measurements for them has proven difficult. Rapid advances in language technology over the past decade have revolutionized the field of clinical linguistics, leading to various health-tech solutions that automatically analyze speech and language. 

But do these technological solutions work across different languages? Are the symptoms of developmental language disorders and neurodegenerative diseases the same in Icelandic as in other languages? What can the answers to these questions tell us about human language and cognition? These questions will form the core of this workshop, where students will have the opportunity to participate in ongoing research in the fields of clinical linguistics and health technology under the guidance of the instructors.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of Old Icelandic and to describe and account for the main syntactic changes that the language has undergone up to the present. Among these are changes in word order, verbal constructions, case government, reflexivization, etc. Students will be trained in using the Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus to search for and analyze examples of various syntactic constructions. In relation to this, current theories on the origin and nature of syntactic change will be examined and tested against Icelandic data.

This course is intended for language technology students who do not have linguistic background. The purpose of the course is to give an overview of the structure of Icelandic, with a special consideration to features which can be problematic for natural language processing. The main topics that will be covered are the sound system of Icelandic and phonetic transcription (IPA and SAMPA); the inflectional and derivational morphology of Icelandic with a special consideration to Part-of-Speech tagging and tagsets; and the syntactic structure of Icelandic with emphasis on both phrase structure and dependency parsing.

This workshop focuses on 21^st-century research on Icelandic modern literature. All students participate actively in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the teachers for the transfer of knowledge and the progress of the work. The teachers are professional leaders, supervisors and discussion moderators but do not give formal lectures. Emphasis will be placed on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding older research, reviewing it, having an opinion on it and expressing themselves about it in a group of peers in a research group, collecting their own data, analyzing it and describing it, receiving feedback, giving feedback to others and writing an academic text (research thesis).

More information on workshops can be found here.

The course explores the relationship between political and aesthetic discourse in Iceland during the era of the cultural Cold War, a global ideological struggle waged by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, for the hearts and minds of populations around the world in the latter half of the 20th century. The course draws on interdisciplinary research on the Cold War, with a focus on the interplay between global influences and local conditions. This glocal approach allows for an examination of Icelandic agents in the Cold War not only as representatives of the two empires, the United States and the Soviet Union, but also based on their own cultural values and interests. A mixed methodology will be employed, incorporating theories and methods from the social sciences, as well as from art history, literary studies, and historiography. Special emphasis will be placed on the analysis of literary texts and artworks, while attention will also be given to the participation of Icelandic intellectuals and artists in international cultural activities. Students will explore how the Cold War has been addressed in recent years, both in academic contexts and in public dissemination through exhibitions, podcasts, and graphic novels.

In this course, Völsunga saga will be read and analyzed from different perspectives, in close connection to the heroic lays of the Eddic tradition. After an in-depth reading, the focus will be set on individual episodes, such as about Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and his ancestry, the Gjúkungar, Atli, and Jörmunrekr. Some European analogues will be examined, whether in historiography, poetry or art. Then, we will turn our attention to the dissemination of the material throughout the ages and its representations in different forms of art and textual media, as for example opera, film and other visual arts, folktales, folk songs and traditional ballads. The objective is to demonstrate the multifunctional and diverse strands that lie between the literature and the older as well as younger manifestations of the subject matter.

The course is designed for MA students in general and Icelandic linguistics and is also useful for other MA students that plan to conduct linguistics research. The course will cover the main research methods in linguistics, both in regards to experimental and natural data. We will discuss the fundamentals of the design of judgment tasks, fill-ins, elicitation tasks, behvioural and neuroimaging experiments and search in corpora such as the Icelandic Gigaword Corpus and IcePaHC. Research methods in diverse domains will be introduced, including syntax, phonology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, interactional linguistics and more. Finally we will discuss data analysis and interpretation of results, the pros and cons of differerent research methods and ethical considerations in linguistics.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

In this course we concern ourselves with how language and society interact by examining sociolinguistic methods and concepts with regard to international and domestic research in the field.

Among the topics discussed are language attitudes, language contact, dialects, language style and language management. We take a look at different manifestations of language use and language variation as well as contemplating on how factors such as environment, context and background of a language user potentially influence language use and choice of style.

We provide an overview of principal research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, discuss recent trends in sociolinguistics and evaluate methods and methodologies with respect to the particular research topic.

Besides presenting research on attitudes towards language and language use, considering both attitudes towards one’s own language and that of others, we consider possible outcomes of unconventional language use. Special emphasis will be put on considering the language use of those who speak Icelandic as a foreign language as well as the status of immigrants in Iceland.

Additionally, we address the current status of the Icelandic language, particularly in relation to English and other languages. Principles of language management are discussed along with people’s ideas and believes about language through time. In that respect, we have a look at Icelandic language policy, language management, language standardization and linguistic purism from different perspectives, e.g. a synchronic and diachronic angle as well as with regard to other speech communities. 

We will discuss language use of particular social groups (e.g. teenagers) in terms of its social meaning for the group on the one hand and for the speech community as a whole on the other hand.

Students are expected to complete group or individual tasks on questions and problems originating from topics and discussions in the class room.

Many students, who finish their studies in the School of Humanities, in particular students from the Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, are likely to be employed in the future by media-companies, publishing houses and cultural institutions and asked to write criticism or news about books and art-events. The course focuses on the role and characteristics of cultural journalism in Iceland. Students will get acquainted with most of the genres of cultural journalism, such as interviews, criticism, news-releases and blog. They will work on practical assignments that will be related to specific cultural events in Iceland in the spring of 2018.

This workshop covers important international research conducted on Icelandic medieval literature in the 21^st century. Students will actively participate in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the instructor for the dissemination of knowledge and the progress of the course. The instructor serves as a professional leader and discussion facilitator but does not give formal lectures. The emphasis will be on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding research publications, analyzing them, forming opinions about them, and expressing them in a peer group setting. They will collect their own data, analyze and describe it, receive feedback, provide feedback to others, and write a research thesis.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The purpose of this course is to introduce to students the role and utility of language resources (corpora), both for software development and for research on texts and speech. Available language corpora for Icelandic will be presented, and students will also gain insights into the composition of new corpora. The structure of these resources will be analyzed along with the opportunities and limitations associated with them. Students will work with the resources in an original manner and use them to develop new applications or new resources.

The course focuses on the fiction of Sjón, with emphasis on novels, poetry and cinema, based on the study Sjónsbók: Ævintýrið um höfundinn, súrrealisma og sýnir (2016) by Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir, and the essay collection Critical Approaches to Sjón : North of the Sun (2025). Theories of surrealism and the avant garde, narrative and cultural studies will be discussed.

Close reading of poetry, both religious and secular, from the 17th and 18th centuries. The concept baroque and the main characteristics of socalled baroque-texts will be analysed, in order to answer the question wether literary genres used by Icelandic poets can be identified as baroque texts and whether there are comparisons in contemporary foreign (European) literature. Texts will be read by the poets Hallgrímur Pétursson, Stefán Ólafsson, Bjarni Gissurarson, Steinunn Finnsdóttir, Sigga skálda og Látra-Björg.

By focusing on folk tales, literature and other relevant sources, the course discusses the manifestations of nature and the supernatural in Icelandic narrative culture throughout the centuries. Students will learn about the significance, interface, and unclear boundaries of these phenomena and how they have shaped society and the environment as well. Students will thus get to know different ideas about the position of people and (other) animals within, above or "outside" of nature. Through diverse lectures and assignments, topics such as humanity vs. animality, the known world vs. other worlds, and the materiality vs. the supernatural, will be discussed from critical points of view. The roles and forms of landscape, organisms, bodies, weather, and natural phenomena in the narrative culture will be explored. The latest research in this broad field will be presented, such as on the representation of earthquakes and celestial bodies, bears, whales, seals, and domestic animals, and on the supernatural creatures of nature and other mythological creatures such as fairies, ghosts, trolls, and berserks. Students will learn how story worlds and folklore have left their mark on the perception of nature, folk traditions, folk customs, and social spaces such as enchanted spots, sacred places and hunted places. We also ask how these narratives appear in folk art and visual art, from previous centuries to the present. Finally, we will explore the significance of nature narratives and the supernatural in the context of the Anthropocene, human perspectives, climate change, and the different status of social groups and species.

In this course, Faroese and Icelandic literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries will be read and placed in the context of the literary and cultural history of these two island nations. The course topics include, among other things, the questions that have preoccupied the authors, how the nations’ identities are reflected in the works, and the connections between the Faroese and Icelandic literary fields, such as through translations.

The course is taught in collaboration with Guðrún í Jákupsstovu, a lecturer at the University of the Faroe Islands, who teaches a comparable course there during the same semester. Part of the course will therefore be taught online, but classroom teaching and student participation in person are also expected. The aim is for a study trip to Tórshavn to be part of the course, and likewise, the Faroese group will visit Reykjavík

The main purpose of the course is twofold. First, to shed light on how Icelandic is taught in upper primary and secondary schools. Second, to explore ways of developing Icelandic as a school subject, with respect to practical and theoretical research. What ability should be emphasized in the use and practice of the language? What skills should students have obtained by the end of each school level and how should they be trained? Which aspects of language and literature are most important for the students to know and understand? What are the most used teaching methods? What kind of teaching material is most commonly used in schools and to what extent does it reflect recent knowledge and developments in the fields of language and literature? In the course assignments the students will be trained in defining and implementing their own teaching ideas, with an emphasis on recent knowledge.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The goal of this course is to strengthen the studentsʼ understanding of syntax by comparing selected phenomena in the syntactic structure of Icelandic to corrsesponding phenomena in other languages, both related and unrelated. It is assumed that all students have some knowledge of syntax, but a special attempt will be made to accommodate students with different background and expectations, even by splitting the group up into sections according to their previous knowledge of syntax and interest. Thus the course is meant to be suitable to graduate students of Icelandic and general linguistics, who mainly have theoretical interest in syntax, as well as to students of other languages, students in the School of Education and studdents of translation theory, provided that they have some basic knowledge of syntax.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

When we call someone we know well on the phone, it only  takes a few seconds to get a sense of how they are, for example whether they’ve just woken up, are upset, or have a cold. We might even hear that they are smiling, all based on cues in their voice, speech and language use. What if we could harness and measure this information? What other cues are present when we speak? Are there signs of undiagnosed diseases or developmental disorders that are otherwise difficult to evaluate? Recent research suggests this is the case.  Language samples, recordings of people talking, can contain indicators of whether someone is in the early stages of a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or ALS, even before the individual notices symptoms.

Furthermore, speech samples are one of the most precise tools in a speech-language pathologist’s toolkit, allowing the detection of various nuances in language use that other tools, such as standardized tests, may miss. This is particularly important when diagnosing developmental language disorders in multilingual children, as developing reliable measurements for them has proven difficult. Rapid advances in language technology over the past decade have revolutionized the field of clinical linguistics, leading to various health-tech solutions that automatically analyze speech and language. 

But do these technological solutions work across different languages? Are the symptoms of developmental language disorders and neurodegenerative diseases the same in Icelandic as in other languages? What can the answers to these questions tell us about human language and cognition? These questions will form the core of this workshop, where students will have the opportunity to participate in ongoing research in the fields of clinical linguistics and health technology under the guidance of the instructors.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of Old Icelandic and to describe and account for the main syntactic changes that the language has undergone up to the present. Among these are changes in word order, verbal constructions, case government, reflexivization, etc. Students will be trained in using the Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus to search for and analyze examples of various syntactic constructions. In relation to this, current theories on the origin and nature of syntactic change will be examined and tested against Icelandic data.

This course is intended for language technology students who do not have linguistic background. The purpose of the course is to give an overview of the structure of Icelandic, with a special consideration to features which can be problematic for natural language processing. The main topics that will be covered are the sound system of Icelandic and phonetic transcription (IPA and SAMPA); the inflectional and derivational morphology of Icelandic with a special consideration to Part-of-Speech tagging and tagsets; and the syntactic structure of Icelandic with emphasis on both phrase structure and dependency parsing.

This workshop focuses on 21^st-century research on Icelandic modern literature. All students participate actively in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the teachers for the transfer of knowledge and the progress of the work. The teachers are professional leaders, supervisors and discussion moderators but do not give formal lectures. Emphasis will be placed on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding older research, reviewing it, having an opinion on it and expressing themselves about it in a group of peers in a research group, collecting their own data, analyzing it and describing it, receiving feedback, giving feedback to others and writing an academic text (research thesis).

More information on workshops can be found here.

The course explores the relationship between political and aesthetic discourse in Iceland during the era of the cultural Cold War, a global ideological struggle waged by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, for the hearts and minds of populations around the world in the latter half of the 20th century. The course draws on interdisciplinary research on the Cold War, with a focus on the interplay between global influences and local conditions. This glocal approach allows for an examination of Icelandic agents in the Cold War not only as representatives of the two empires, the United States and the Soviet Union, but also based on their own cultural values and interests. A mixed methodology will be employed, incorporating theories and methods from the social sciences, as well as from art history, literary studies, and historiography. Special emphasis will be placed on the analysis of literary texts and artworks, while attention will also be given to the participation of Icelandic intellectuals and artists in international cultural activities. Students will explore how the Cold War has been addressed in recent years, both in academic contexts and in public dissemination through exhibitions, podcasts, and graphic novels.

In this course, Völsunga saga will be read and analyzed from different perspectives, in close connection to the heroic lays of the Eddic tradition. After an in-depth reading, the focus will be set on individual episodes, such as about Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and his ancestry, the Gjúkungar, Atli, and Jörmunrekr. Some European analogues will be examined, whether in historiography, poetry or art. Then, we will turn our attention to the dissemination of the material throughout the ages and its representations in different forms of art and textual media, as for example opera, film and other visual arts, folktales, folk songs and traditional ballads. The objective is to demonstrate the multifunctional and diverse strands that lie between the literature and the older as well as younger manifestations of the subject matter.

The course is designed for MA students in general and Icelandic linguistics and is also useful for other MA students that plan to conduct linguistics research. The course will cover the main research methods in linguistics, both in regards to experimental and natural data. We will discuss the fundamentals of the design of judgment tasks, fill-ins, elicitation tasks, behvioural and neuroimaging experiments and search in corpora such as the Icelandic Gigaword Corpus and IcePaHC. Research methods in diverse domains will be introduced, including syntax, phonology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, interactional linguistics and more. Finally we will discuss data analysis and interpretation of results, the pros and cons of differerent research methods and ethical considerations in linguistics.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

In this course we concern ourselves with how language and society interact by examining sociolinguistic methods and concepts with regard to international and domestic research in the field.

Among the topics discussed are language attitudes, language contact, dialects, language style and language management. We take a look at different manifestations of language use and language variation as well as contemplating on how factors such as environment, context and background of a language user potentially influence language use and choice of style.

We provide an overview of principal research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, discuss recent trends in sociolinguistics and evaluate methods and methodologies with respect to the particular research topic.

Besides presenting research on attitudes towards language and language use, considering both attitudes towards one’s own language and that of others, we consider possible outcomes of unconventional language use. Special emphasis will be put on considering the language use of those who speak Icelandic as a foreign language as well as the status of immigrants in Iceland.

Additionally, we address the current status of the Icelandic language, particularly in relation to English and other languages. Principles of language management are discussed along with people’s ideas and believes about language through time. In that respect, we have a look at Icelandic language policy, language management, language standardization and linguistic purism from different perspectives, e.g. a synchronic and diachronic angle as well as with regard to other speech communities. 

We will discuss language use of particular social groups (e.g. teenagers) in terms of its social meaning for the group on the one hand and for the speech community as a whole on the other hand.

Students are expected to complete group or individual tasks on questions and problems originating from topics and discussions in the class room.

Many students, who finish their studies in the School of Humanities, in particular students from the Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, are likely to be employed in the future by media-companies, publishing houses and cultural institutions and asked to write criticism or news about books and art-events. The course focuses on the role and characteristics of cultural journalism in Iceland. Students will get acquainted with most of the genres of cultural journalism, such as interviews, criticism, news-releases and blog. They will work on practical assignments that will be related to specific cultural events in Iceland in the spring of 2018.

This workshop covers important international research conducted on Icelandic medieval literature in the 21^st century. Students will actively participate in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the instructor for the dissemination of knowledge and the progress of the course. The instructor serves as a professional leader and discussion facilitator but does not give formal lectures. The emphasis will be on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding research publications, analyzing them, forming opinions about them, and expressing them in a peer group setting. They will collect their own data, analyze and describe it, receive feedback, provide feedback to others, and write a research thesis.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The purpose of this course is to introduce to students the role and utility of language resources (corpora), both for software development and for research on texts and speech. Available language corpora for Icelandic will be presented, and students will also gain insights into the composition of new corpora. The structure of these resources will be analyzed along with the opportunities and limitations associated with them. Students will work with the resources in an original manner and use them to develop new applications or new resources.

The course focuses on the fiction of Sjón, with emphasis on novels, poetry and cinema, based on the study Sjónsbók: Ævintýrið um höfundinn, súrrealisma og sýnir (2016) by Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir, and the essay collection Critical Approaches to Sjón : North of the Sun (2025). Theories of surrealism and the avant garde, narrative and cultural studies will be discussed.

Close reading of poetry, both religious and secular, from the 17th and 18th centuries. The concept baroque and the main characteristics of socalled baroque-texts will be analysed, in order to answer the question wether literary genres used by Icelandic poets can be identified as baroque texts and whether there are comparisons in contemporary foreign (European) literature. Texts will be read by the poets Hallgrímur Pétursson, Stefán Ólafsson, Bjarni Gissurarson, Steinunn Finnsdóttir, Sigga skálda og Látra-Björg.

By focusing on folk tales, literature and other relevant sources, the course discusses the manifestations of nature and the supernatural in Icelandic narrative culture throughout the centuries. Students will learn about the significance, interface, and unclear boundaries of these phenomena and how they have shaped society and the environment as well. Students will thus get to know different ideas about the position of people and (other) animals within, above or "outside" of nature. Through diverse lectures and assignments, topics such as humanity vs. animality, the known world vs. other worlds, and the materiality vs. the supernatural, will be discussed from critical points of view. The roles and forms of landscape, organisms, bodies, weather, and natural phenomena in the narrative culture will be explored. The latest research in this broad field will be presented, such as on the representation of earthquakes and celestial bodies, bears, whales, seals, and domestic animals, and on the supernatural creatures of nature and other mythological creatures such as fairies, ghosts, trolls, and berserks. Students will learn how story worlds and folklore have left their mark on the perception of nature, folk traditions, folk customs, and social spaces such as enchanted spots, sacred places and hunted places. We also ask how these narratives appear in folk art and visual art, from previous centuries to the present. Finally, we will explore the significance of nature narratives and the supernatural in the context of the Anthropocene, human perspectives, climate change, and the different status of social groups and species.

In this course, Faroese and Icelandic literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries will be read and placed in the context of the literary and cultural history of these two island nations. The course topics include, among other things, the questions that have preoccupied the authors, how the nations’ identities are reflected in the works, and the connections between the Faroese and Icelandic literary fields, such as through translations.

The course is taught in collaboration with Guðrún í Jákupsstovu, a lecturer at the University of the Faroe Islands, who teaches a comparable course there during the same semester. Part of the course will therefore be taught online, but classroom teaching and student participation in person are also expected. The aim is for a study trip to Tórshavn to be part of the course, and likewise, the Faroese group will visit Reykjavík

The main purpose of the course is twofold. First, to shed light on how Icelandic is taught in upper primary and secondary schools. Second, to explore ways of developing Icelandic as a school subject, with respect to practical and theoretical research. What ability should be emphasized in the use and practice of the language? What skills should students have obtained by the end of each school level and how should they be trained? Which aspects of language and literature are most important for the students to know and understand? What are the most used teaching methods? What kind of teaching material is most commonly used in schools and to what extent does it reflect recent knowledge and developments in the fields of language and literature? In the course assignments the students will be trained in defining and implementing their own teaching ideas, with an emphasis on recent knowledge.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The goal of this course is to strengthen the studentsʼ understanding of syntax by comparing selected phenomena in the syntactic structure of Icelandic to corrsesponding phenomena in other languages, both related and unrelated. It is assumed that all students have some knowledge of syntax, but a special attempt will be made to accommodate students with different background and expectations, even by splitting the group up into sections according to their previous knowledge of syntax and interest. Thus the course is meant to be suitable to graduate students of Icelandic and general linguistics, who mainly have theoretical interest in syntax, as well as to students of other languages, students in the School of Education and studdents of translation theory, provided that they have some basic knowledge of syntax.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

When we call someone we know well on the phone, it only  takes a few seconds to get a sense of how they are, for example whether they’ve just woken up, are upset, or have a cold. We might even hear that they are smiling, all based on cues in their voice, speech and language use. What if we could harness and measure this information? What other cues are present when we speak? Are there signs of undiagnosed diseases or developmental disorders that are otherwise difficult to evaluate? Recent research suggests this is the case.  Language samples, recordings of people talking, can contain indicators of whether someone is in the early stages of a neurodegenerative disease like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s or ALS, even before the individual notices symptoms.

Furthermore, speech samples are one of the most precise tools in a speech-language pathologist’s toolkit, allowing the detection of various nuances in language use that other tools, such as standardized tests, may miss. This is particularly important when diagnosing developmental language disorders in multilingual children, as developing reliable measurements for them has proven difficult. Rapid advances in language technology over the past decade have revolutionized the field of clinical linguistics, leading to various health-tech solutions that automatically analyze speech and language. 

But do these technological solutions work across different languages? Are the symptoms of developmental language disorders and neurodegenerative diseases the same in Icelandic as in other languages? What can the answers to these questions tell us about human language and cognition? These questions will form the core of this workshop, where students will have the opportunity to participate in ongoing research in the fields of clinical linguistics and health technology under the guidance of the instructors.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The main purpose of the course is to give an overview of the syntax of Old Icelandic and to describe and account for the main syntactic changes that the language has undergone up to the present. Among these are changes in word order, verbal constructions, case government, reflexivization, etc. Students will be trained in using the Icelandic Parsed Historical Corpus to search for and analyze examples of various syntactic constructions. In relation to this, current theories on the origin and nature of syntactic change will be examined and tested against Icelandic data.

This course is intended for language technology students who do not have linguistic background. The purpose of the course is to give an overview of the structure of Icelandic, with a special consideration to features which can be problematic for natural language processing. The main topics that will be covered are the sound system of Icelandic and phonetic transcription (IPA and SAMPA); the inflectional and derivational morphology of Icelandic with a special consideration to Part-of-Speech tagging and tagsets; and the syntactic structure of Icelandic with emphasis on both phrase structure and dependency parsing.

This workshop focuses on 21^st-century research on Icelandic modern literature. All students participate actively in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the teachers for the transfer of knowledge and the progress of the work. The teachers are professional leaders, supervisors and discussion moderators but do not give formal lectures. Emphasis will be placed on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding older research, reviewing it, having an opinion on it and expressing themselves about it in a group of peers in a research group, collecting their own data, analyzing it and describing it, receiving feedback, giving feedback to others and writing an academic text (research thesis).

More information on workshops can be found here.

The course explores the relationship between political and aesthetic discourse in Iceland during the era of the cultural Cold War, a global ideological struggle waged by the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, for the hearts and minds of populations around the world in the latter half of the 20th century. The course draws on interdisciplinary research on the Cold War, with a focus on the interplay between global influences and local conditions. This glocal approach allows for an examination of Icelandic agents in the Cold War not only as representatives of the two empires, the United States and the Soviet Union, but also based on their own cultural values and interests. A mixed methodology will be employed, incorporating theories and methods from the social sciences, as well as from art history, literary studies, and historiography. Special emphasis will be placed on the analysis of literary texts and artworks, while attention will also be given to the participation of Icelandic intellectuals and artists in international cultural activities. Students will explore how the Cold War has been addressed in recent years, both in academic contexts and in public dissemination through exhibitions, podcasts, and graphic novels.

In this course, Völsunga saga will be read and analyzed from different perspectives, in close connection to the heroic lays of the Eddic tradition. After an in-depth reading, the focus will be set on individual episodes, such as about Sigurðr Fáfnisbani and his ancestry, the Gjúkungar, Atli, and Jörmunrekr. Some European analogues will be examined, whether in historiography, poetry or art. Then, we will turn our attention to the dissemination of the material throughout the ages and its representations in different forms of art and textual media, as for example opera, film and other visual arts, folktales, folk songs and traditional ballads. The objective is to demonstrate the multifunctional and diverse strands that lie between the literature and the older as well as younger manifestations of the subject matter.

The course is designed for MA students in general and Icelandic linguistics and is also useful for other MA students that plan to conduct linguistics research. The course will cover the main research methods in linguistics, both in regards to experimental and natural data. We will discuss the fundamentals of the design of judgment tasks, fill-ins, elicitation tasks, behvioural and neuroimaging experiments and search in corpora such as the Icelandic Gigaword Corpus and IcePaHC. Research methods in diverse domains will be introduced, including syntax, phonology, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, psycholinguistics, interactional linguistics and more. Finally we will discuss data analysis and interpretation of results, the pros and cons of differerent research methods and ethical considerations in linguistics.

Training in various aspects of the writing and editing of scientific texts. Various kinds of texts (non-fiction) examined and evaluated. Training in reviewing and commenting on scientific texts and in other aspects of editorial work. The main emphasis will be on the writing of articles, but other kinds of texts will also be considered, both shorter (conference abstracts, reviews) and longer (theses, books), as well as research proposals. Discussion of guidelines for the preparation of manuscripts. Types of plagiarism and how to avoid them and find them. Texts on different subjects will be used as examples, especially writings in linguistics, literature and history. The book Skrifaðu bæði skýrt og rétt will be used as a textbook (Höskuldur Þráinsson 2015).

This course is open to students of many MA programmes in the School of Humanities, cf. the regulations of the individual subjects. Students in the MA programmes in Icelandic literature, Icelandic linguistics, Icelandic studies and Icelandic teaching can take the course as part of the MA course requirements in Icelandic literature or Icelandic linguistics. Students in the MA programme in Icelandic teaching can, however, not have this course as the only linguistics or literature course in their MA.

The course is first and foremost organized for students in language technology that have a background in linguistics (or humanities) but are not experienced in computer science. This course is most often taken in the same semester as the course “Computer Science 1a”. If someone with a different background is interested in the course, please contact the teacher for further information.  The course is taught alongside ÍSL333G Programming for the humanities at the BA-level and all students attend the same lectures but MA students get longer assignments than BA students.

The main goal of this course is to support students in taking their first step toward learning programming, help them to knack the basis and train them in solving simple but diverse assignments in language technology using Python. Besides, students will be introduced to a few text processing tools that can be used for natural language processing.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

The student chooses a subject in consultation with a teacher, who takes on the role of a supervisor. Together they draw up a reading list and define the project output.

In this course we concern ourselves with how language and society interact by examining sociolinguistic methods and concepts with regard to international and domestic research in the field.

Among the topics discussed are language attitudes, language contact, dialects, language style and language management. We take a look at different manifestations of language use and language variation as well as contemplating on how factors such as environment, context and background of a language user potentially influence language use and choice of style.

We provide an overview of principal research methods, both quantitative and qualitative, discuss recent trends in sociolinguistics and evaluate methods and methodologies with respect to the particular research topic.

Besides presenting research on attitudes towards language and language use, considering both attitudes towards one’s own language and that of others, we consider possible outcomes of unconventional language use. Special emphasis will be put on considering the language use of those who speak Icelandic as a foreign language as well as the status of immigrants in Iceland.

Additionally, we address the current status of the Icelandic language, particularly in relation to English and other languages. Principles of language management are discussed along with people’s ideas and believes about language through time. In that respect, we have a look at Icelandic language policy, language management, language standardization and linguistic purism from different perspectives, e.g. a synchronic and diachronic angle as well as with regard to other speech communities. 

We will discuss language use of particular social groups (e.g. teenagers) in terms of its social meaning for the group on the one hand and for the speech community as a whole on the other hand.

Students are expected to complete group or individual tasks on questions and problems originating from topics and discussions in the class room.

Many students, who finish their studies in the School of Humanities, in particular students from the Department of Icelandic and Comparative Cultural Studies, are likely to be employed in the future by media-companies, publishing houses and cultural institutions and asked to write criticism or news about books and art-events. The course focuses on the role and characteristics of cultural journalism in Iceland. Students will get acquainted with most of the genres of cultural journalism, such as interviews, criticism, news-releases and blog. They will work on practical assignments that will be related to specific cultural events in Iceland in the spring of 2018.

This workshop covers important international research conducted on Icelandic medieval literature in the 21^st century. Students will actively participate in discussions and projects and share responsibility with the instructor for the dissemination of knowledge and the progress of the course. The instructor serves as a professional leader and discussion facilitator but does not give formal lectures. The emphasis will be on research-based learning, which involves students defining research questions, finding research publications, analyzing them, forming opinions about them, and expressing them in a peer group setting. They will collect their own data, analyze and describe it, receive feedback, provide feedback to others, and write a research thesis.

More information on workshops can be found here.

The purpose of this course is to introduce to students the role and utility of language resources (corpora), both for software development and for research on texts and speech. Available language corpora for Icelandic will be presented, and students will also gain insights into the composition of new corpora. The structure of these resources will be analyzed along with the opportunities and limitations associated with them. Students will work with the resources in an original manner and use them to develop new applications or new resources.

The course focuses on the fiction of Sjón, with emphasis on novels, poetry and cinema, based on the study Sjónsbók: Ævintýrið um höfundinn, súrrealisma og sýnir (2016) by Úlfhildur Dagsdóttir, and the essay collection Critical Approaches to Sjón : North of the Sun (2025). Theories of surrealism and the avant garde, narrative and cultural studies will be discussed.

Close reading of poetry, both religious and secular, from the 17th and 18th centuries. The concept baroque and the main characteristics of socalled baroque-texts will be analysed, in order to answer the question wether literary genres used by Icelandic poets can be identified as baroque texts and whether there are comparisons in contemporary foreign (European) literature. Texts will be read by the poets Hallgrímur Pétursson, Stefán Ólafsson, Bjarni Gissurarson, Steinunn Finnsdóttir, Sigga skálda og Látra-Björg.

By focusing on folk tales, literature and other relevant sources, the course discusses the manifestations of nature and the supernatural in Icelandic narrative culture throughout the centuries. Students will learn about the significance, interface, and unclear boundaries of these phenomena and how they have shaped society and the environment as well. Students will thus get to know different ideas about the position of people and (other) animals within, above or "outside" of nature. Through diverse lectures and assignments, topics such as humanity vs. animality, the known world vs. other worlds, and the materiality vs. the supernatural, will be discussed from critical points of view. The roles and forms of landscape, organisms, bodies, weather, and natural phenomena in the narrative culture will be explored. The latest research in this broad field will be presented, such as on the representation of earthquakes and celestial bodies, bears, whales, seals, and domestic animals, and on the supernatural creatures of nature and other mythological creatures such as fairies, ghosts, trolls, and berserks. Students will learn how story worlds and folklore have left their mark on the perception of nature, folk traditions, folk customs, and social spaces such as enchanted spots, sacred places and hunted places. We also ask how these narratives appear in folk art and visual art, from previous centuries to the present. Finally, we will explore the significance of nature narratives and the supernatural in the context of the Anthropocene, human perspectives, climate change, and the different status of social groups and species.

In this course, Faroese and Icelandic literary works from the 20th and 21st centuries will be read and placed in the context of the literary and cultural history of these two island nations. The course topics include, among other things, the questions that have preoccupied the authors, how the nations’ identities are reflected in the works, and the connections between the Faroese and Icelandic literary fields, such as through translations.

The course is taught in collaboration with Guðrún í Jákupsstovu, a lecturer at the University of the Faroe Islands, who teaches a comparable course there during the same semester. Part of the course will therefore be taught online, but classroom teaching and student participation in person are also expected. The aim is for a study trip to Tórshavn to be part of the course, and likewise, the Faroese group will visit Reykjavík

The main purpose of the course is twofold. First, to shed light on how Icelandic is taught in upper primary and secondary schools. Second, to explore ways of developing Icelandic as a school subject, with respect to practical and theoretical research. What ability should be emphasized in the use and practice of the language? What skills should students have obtained by the end of each school level and how should they be trained? Which aspects of language and literature are most important for the students to know and understand? What are the most used teaching methods? What kind of teaching material is most commonly used in schools and to what extent does it reflect recent knowledge and developments in the fields of language and literature? In the course assignments the students will be trained in defining and implementing their own teaching ideas, with an emphasis on recent knowledge.

This course provides an overview of Icelandic manuscript culture. Students will get practical training in reading Icelandic manuscripts from different periods, from the earliest extant Icelandic vellums dating to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries down to the paper manuscripts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The origins of the Icelandic script will be discussed as well as its development over time, and students will get practical training in reading different types of script from different periods. The orthography of medieval manuscripts differs considerably from the modern orthography. It includes a system of abbreviations that is partly inherited from a much earlier Latin tradition. Students will get practical training in interpreting these abbreviations. The Icelandic language has also changed over time, and different manifestations of these language changes appear when reading and examining Icelandic texts from different periods. A selection of these changes will be discussed. Changes in script, orthography, and language provide valuable indications of the date of the manuscript, and students will get practical training in dating medieval Icelandic manuscripts based on script, orthography, and language.

Various aspects of medieval book production will be discussed, including the making of parchment and ink, and book binding. Scribes and scribal schools will be discussed as well as probable centres of book production in medieval Iceland. The works of some prolific scribes in the fourteenth century will be examined. What did they write? How did they write? Did they change their practice over a long scribal career? The texts contained by the manuscripts will also be examined and the basics of textual criticism introduced. Njáls saga, for instance, has survived in over sixty manuscripts with considerable textual variation. Which manuscript should then constitute the basis for a printed edition of Njáls saga? Different types of printed editions will be discussed, and students try their hand at editing a medieval text. The electronic editing of pre-modern texts will be introduced, and students will get practical training in mark-up with XML according to the guidelines of the Medieval Nordic Text Archive (MENOTA) and the Medieval Unicode Font Initiative (MUFI).

The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be pre-recorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions.

The course is run in cooperation with the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies which has the custody of the largest single collection of Icelandic medieval manuscripts. Students will visit the institute to learn about its collections and facilities and to examine manuscripts.

Course synopsis

Week 1
(1) Introduction
The course: format, readings, requirements and assessment.
The subject matter: Medieval Icelandic manuscripts.

(2) The earliest Icelandic manuscripts
A sketch of the history of the Latin script and the earliest writings in Icelandic. Where did Icelanders learn to use the Latin alphabet? Which orthography did they employ? Some main characteristics of medieval orthography and the use of abbreviations.

Week 2
(3) Electronic editing of medieval texts
How can medieval texts be presented electronically? The XML mark-up language, TEI, MENOTA, MUFI, and related matters. We will try our hand at electronic editing.

(4) The earliest Icelandic orthography and the First Grammatical Treatise
The use of the Latin alphabet for writing Icelandic: challenges — and the solutions proposed by the author of the First Grammatical Treatise in the middle of the twelfth century.

Week 3
(5) Icelandic script and orthography in the thirteenth century
The difference between Icelandic and Norwegian orthography in the twelfth century. What changed in the course of the thirteenth century?

(6) Different types of print editions: scholarly editions
How accurate should printed editions be? Should every little detail in the manuscript be reproduced? What is “Classical Old Icelandic Normalized Orthography”? What are the needs of the readers? What is the role of the editor?

Week 4
(7) Norwegian influence on script, orthography, and language in Icelandic manuscripts
What is the manifestation of this Norwegian influence? How deep-rooted was it? How long did it last?

(8) The dating of manuscripts: script, orthography, and language
How can medieval Icelandic manuscripts be dated? Features of script, orthography, and language that can be helpful for dating.

Week 5
(9) Icelandic script and orthography in the fourteenth century
Main characteristics and their development.

(10) One scribal hand or many?
Distinguishing different scribal hands: some criteria. The Icelandic Homily Book from around 1200: One scribe or fourteen?

Week 6
(11) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
From animal skin to parchment. How was the ink produced? Book design and book binding. The care and conservation of medieval manuscripts.

(12) Book production: parchment, ink, binding — and conservation
A visit to the Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies.

— STUDY WEEK —

Week 7
(13) Scribes, scribal milieus, the export of books
On prolific scribes, scribal collaboration, and extensive production of books. Were books produced in Iceland for export in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries?

(14) Icelandic script and orthography in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

Week 8
(15) Textual criticism
On the transmission of texts through copying. Textual variation, manuscript classification, and stemmatology.

(16) Textual criticism
Comparing manuscripts and collecting variants.

Week 9
(17) Manuscript illumination
On illuminated manuscripts, historiated initials, artists and their models.

(18) Manuscript catalogues and cataloguing
We will familiarize ourselves with the most important manuscript catalogues and learn about the principles of manuscript cataloguing.

Week 10
(19) Icelandic script and orthography in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Main characteristics and their development.

(20) The transmission of the text: a relic or a living text?
How did the language change when a scribe copied from an old exemplar? Njáls saga is believed to have been written towards the end of the thirteenth century. What is the language of Njáls saga in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century manuscripts?

Week 11
(21) Antiquarianism, manuscript collectors, and copyists
The sixteenth century saw the rise of interest in antiquities, old manuscripts were collected and copied.

(22) Different types of print editions: popular editions
How is a pre-modern text best presented to the modern reader? Should archaic features of language and orthography be retained or should they be updated? On the allegiance to the manuscript and allegiance to the reader.

Week 12
(23) Manuscript collections and manuscript collectors
The life and work of Árni Magnússon.

(24) The manuscript dispute and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland
The search for Codex Scardensis and a nerve-racking auction in London. The custody dispute with Denmark and the return of the manuscripts to Iceland 1971–1997.

— This synopsis may be subject to change. —

Readings

The reading list is on the course website on Canvas. It consists of readings in several languages, including English, Icelandic, Danish, Norwegian, German, and French. The reading list is (often) divided into three main sections:

(a) Required readings: Texts that everyone is required to read. These are all in English.

(b) Optional supplementary readings: These are optional readings for those who want a more in-depth discussion. Most of these readings are in English, but not all.

(c) For those who still want more: A variety of optional readings in several languages, not least in Icelandic, for those who still want more. This section is mostly for reference purposes and as a tool for further research.

Many of the required readings (and some of the optional readings) are found on the Canvas course website. Other reading materials are available in the institute library in the Árni Magnússon Institute in Edda and the University Library (Háskólabókasafn) in the Þjóðarbókhlaða.

Prerequisites
Some skills in Icelandic are essential to fully benefit from the course, as emphasis will be placed on practical training in reading and transcribing text from medieval Icelandic manuscripts. MIS105F Old Icelandic 1 or equivalent study of Old Icelandic is sufficient or some skills in Modern Icelandic. Please, consult the instructor if in doubt.

Course format
The course is taught through a combination of lectures and workshops with considerable student engagement. Many of the lectures will be prerecorded allowing more time in the classroom for discussion and student contributions (flipped classroom).

Working language: This course is open to students with different linguistic backgrounds, and there are two working languages, English and Icelandic. Pre-recorded lectures are in both English and Icelandic (except for guest lecturers who will present in English), written assignments are in both English and Icelandic, and reading materials are in English, Icelandic and the Scandinavian languages, but for those who cannot read Icelandic or the Scan-dinavian languages, all required readings are in English. English is the main working language in the classroom, but questions and contributions to class discussion may also be in Icelandic. — See a separate note on the working languages and the classroom arrangement.

Course requirements and assessment
The final grade for the course will be based on:

(1) Transcription assignments: 30%
(2) Manuscript catalogue assignment: 10%
(3) Manuscript dating assignment: 10%
(4) Presentation: manuscript of the day: 10%
(5) Research paper: 30%
(6) Class participation: 10%

All written assignments will be submitted through Canvas. More detailed instructions and information on deadlines is found on Canvas.

The goal of this course is to strengthen the studentsʼ understanding of syntax by comparing selected phenomena in the syntactic structure of Icelandic to corrsesponding phenomena in other languages, both related and unrelated. It is assumed that all students have some knowledge of syntax, but a special attempt will be made to accommodate students with different background and expectations, even by splitting the group up into sections according to their previous knowledge of syntax and interest. Thus the course is meant to be suitable to graduate students of Icelandic and general linguistics, who mainly have theoretical interest in syntax, as well as to students of other languages, students in the School of Education and studdents of translation theory, provided that they have some basic knowledge of syntax.

Students wishing to write a MA thesis shall contact the head of department regarding the choice of supervisor. Requests for a specific supervisor are honoured where possible, but otherwise a supervisor is selected based on the topic of the thesis and the specialist knowledge of teaching staff in Icelandic.