ENGL107

Survey of English Linguistics

Daily polls
Sept
03 05
10 12
17 19
24 26
Oct
01 03
08 10
15 17
midterms
29 31
Nov
05 07
12 14
19 21
26 28
Dec
03 05
10 12
finals

• Professor: Kent Lee
• Fall 2019
• Time: Tue/Thu 1st period, 9.00-10.15am
• Room: 202 서관 (Liberal Arts Building)
• Office hours: by appointment
• Syllabus (강의 계획)

1 Overview

1.1 Course description

This is a first-year level introductory course to linguistics, which provides a general overview of the field. Students will learn basics concepts of human language and linguistics, and will explore how the English language is structured and used. This course aims to prepare students for university linguistic courses, improving their language learning skills (e.g., English as a second language), and developing an interest it English linguistics.

1.2 Course objectives

By the end of the semester, students will

1. Understand basic linguistic terminology;
2. Understand basic concepts of how human language works;
3. Understand basic structural aspects of English;
4. Gain study skills needed for the study of English and other languages.

1.3 Textbook and materials

This might be used as the textbook.

• Fromkin et al. (2018). An introduction to language. (The book is rather expensive, and the 11th edition is new and hard to get in Korea; I will make an electronic version available via Blackboard, so you do not need to buy this book.)

1.4 Announcements

Assignments

• In-class task #1 (10 points)
• Short paper #2, due 08 December, 11:59pm
• Final Google Form assignment, due 11 Dec.
• Final exam questions

Past announcements

• Google Form homework: Dialects
• Short paper #1, due before the midterm
• Review quiz 1, due before class on 17 October (Note: Due to problems with the form, adjustments will be made to your scores for this quiz.)
• Midterm exam: in class, 9am, 22 Oct. 9 (Tuesday). Bring your laptop. You can use the Internet, and you can also bring your notes and textbook. You can work in groups of 1-4 people (form your groups with whomever you like, but try for a good mix of people from different countries & language backgrounds).
• Google Form #2: Minimal pairs quiz; due before class on 01 October
• A pre-class mini-quiz has been posted. Read the phonology chapter and complete the online quiz form before class on 24 September.

 

2 Weekly topics and assignments

Daily polls
Sept
03 05
10 12
17 19
24 26
Oct
01 03
08 10
15 17
midterms
29 31
Nov
05 07
12 14
19 21
26 28
Dec
03 05
10 12
finals

Daily polls (right): There is no right or wrong; I just want to know your opinion on these questions. These all add up to a single grade. These are also used to track your class attendance.

2.1 Weeks 1-7

Introduction (Weeks 1-2): Basic concepts
Key concepts What is language? How does human language differ from (a) computer languages, and (b) animal communication? What is a language? What is linguistics? What is it useful for? Overview of key issues, origins of the field Common language misconceptions What is a theory? Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar Language and languages Rules Grammar Assignments Google Form #1: This is a form to collect basic info and contact info, and to ask you some survey questions.	Lecture materials Week 1 intro lecture slides (Google slides, not PPT) Week 2 intro lecture slides Lecture video 1: Basic terminology Lecture video 2: Key defining issues & history of linguistics Other links An overview of theories and laws in academia, and a very brief, incomplete description of linguistics theories Pullam: The great Eskimo vocabulary hoax
Phonetics & Phonology (Weeks 3-4): Sounds & sound system of language
Key concepts Articulatory phonetics Difference between phonetics & phonology Phonetics Phonology Phonemes, minimal pairs, and allophones Vowels & consonants, especially English vowels and English consonants Voicing, manner of articulation, place of articulation Assimilation Syllabus structure (onset, rime, nucleus, coda) It will be helpful to be familiar with phonetics and phonology terms, at least those discussed in the class lectures and in the book, but you do not need to memorize all these terms. Assignments Pre-class quiz on the phonology chapter. Be sure to read the phonology chapter first (at least the first 50-60% of it) to do this. This requires you to try out and apply what you've read and learned. This is due before class on 24 September. This is worth 25 points, and grading will be based on effort as well as accuracy. Google Form #2: Minimal pairs quiz; due before class on 01 October	Lecture slides & videos Phonetics Phonology Video lecture: English phonemes Links English consonants English vowels Official IPA chart English lexical stress patterns Colloquial contractions See also Shaw Education videos: These might be good videos for English pronunciation; let me know if you find them useful.
Morphology (Week 5): Words and word formation
Key concepts Lexical classes / categories Inflections / inflectional morphemes; inflectional morphology Derivational morphology Bound and free morphemes Assignments Short paper #1, due before the midterm Semi-formal document layout example for paper assignments	Lecture slides and video Morphology 1 Morphology lecture (low quality audio & slides only] Links Morphology for ESL learners/teachers Lexical categories
Semantics (Week 6): Where meaning comes from
Key concepts Compositionality Limitations of traditional semantics Metaphor Semantic change / extension, e.g., grammaticalization, metaphorical extensions, prepositional metaphors Semantic roles / arguments Argument structure (e.g., of verbs, such as unaccusative verbs) Assignments Short paper #1, due before the midterm See also Schemas	Lecture materials Semantics 1: Morphology & semantics slides (08 Oct.) Lecture audio / video: Semantics & morphology (08 Oct.) Semantics 2: Semantics & syntax slides (10 Oct.) Lecture audio / video: Semantics 2 (10 Oct.)
Grammar & syntax (Weeks 7): Word order & sentence structure
Key concepts Verb types, e.g, transitive, intransitive, state & state change, ditransitive / dative Main (independent) & dependent (subordinate) clauses Participles, gerunds Syntactic phrases & constituents How left & right headed constituents can lead to different possible word orders for different sentence elements; this is not explained much in the book, but this was the focus of the last class lecture on syntax and the syntactic structures worksheet. You do not need to know how to draw syntactic trees or how they work, other than the different possible word order patterns.	Lecture materials Semantics & syntax 2 slides (15 Oct.) Semantics & syntax 2 lecture video (15 Oct.) Syntax 2 slides (17 Oct.) Syntax lecture video (17 Oct.) Syntactic structure worksheet (17 Oct.) See also Korean-English grammar terms Types of clauses

2.2 Midterm (Week 8)

Click 'Expand' to see more.

Before the exam

• Review quiz 1, due before class on 17 October (Note: Due to problems with the form, adjustments will be made to your scores for this quiz.)
• Short paper #1, due before the midterm

In-class essay exam

• Date: 9am, Tuesday, 22 October, in our regular classroom
• This will be an essay exam. It will test you over main ideas and concepts from the lectures and the book (not minor details), and how well you can apply them.
• Be sure to bring a laptop for writing, and whatever snacks and drinks you need.
• You can use your textbook and notes. You can use the Internet for whatever resources you need, but you should not (and do not need to) use any other linguistics research sources.
• You can work in groups of 1-4 people (form your groups with whomever you like, but try for a good mix of people from different countries & language backgrounds).
• You will email it to me when finished. Or you can compose it in Google Docs and send it (be sure to make the file shareable, so I can open it).
• You can use either one of these templates for document layout.
  • Semi-formal document layout example for paper assignments
  • Formal document layout example for paper assignments

Exam

The exam questions will posted here at 9am on 22 Oct. Bring your laptop. You can use the Internet, and you can also bring your notes and textbook.

 

2.3 Weeks 9-15

Pragmatics (Week 9): Language in context
Key concepts Grice's maxims Implicature Politeness Hedges or softeners Topic & focus, or old/new information Discourse markers or connectors, discourse particles	Lectures Pragmatics 1 slides Pragmatics 1 video Pragmatics 2 slides Pragmatics 2 video
Sociolinguistics (Week 10): Language in society
Key concepts Dialect & standard variety Register Three circle model Linguistic imperialism	Lectures Sociolinguistics 1 slides Sociolinguistics 1 video Sociolinguistics 2 slides Sociolinguistics 2 video Videos How to tell English accents apart (Wired) 30 UK dialects; | 17 UK accents (Anglophenia); | English in 24 accents (esp. UK) Some US dialects; | Appalachian English Korean dialects
Historical & comparative linguistics (Week 11): Language over time
Key concepts Proto-languages Language families, e.g., Indo-European Linguistic status of Korean Historical stages of English Linguistic reconstruction	Lectures Historical linguistics 1 slides Historical linguistics 1 video Historical linguistics 2 slides Historical linguistics 2 video Assignments Google Form homework: Dialects Short paper #2, due 08 December, 11:59pm
Writing systems (Week 12)
Key concepts Orthography Types of writing systems: logographic, abjad, syllabary, abugida, segmental / phonological / alphabetic (including Phoenician based alphabets), phonetic, featural Hangul Reading psychology Phonemic awareness Eye movements in reading (fixations, saccades) Stage model of literacy Assignments Google Form homework: Dialects, due by midnight, 18 Nov.	Lectures Orthography 1 slides Orthography 1 lecture Orthography 2 slides Orthography 2 lecture
Language acquisition and pedagogy (Week 13)
Key concepts Critical period Neural plasticity L1 and L2 acquisition Bilingualism Phonological, syntactic, & pragmatic development Pedagogical methodologies, e.g., grammar-translation method, Audiolingual Method, communicative & task-based teaching	Lectures Acquisition 1 slides Acquisition 1 lecture Acquisition 2 slides Acquisition 2 lecture
Psycholinguistics (Week 14)
Key concepts Syntactic / structural priming Sentence processing Reading psychology Connectionism, neural networks Cognitive models of language learning Assignments Short paper #2, due 08 December, 11:59pm Final Google Form assignment, due 11 Dec.	Lectures Psycho/neurolinguistics 1 slides Psycho/neurolinguistics 2 slides
Psycholinguistics & neurolinguistics (Week 15)
Key concepts Connectionism Neural networks Research methods Theories of language learning In-class tasks In-class task #1 (10 points)	Lectures Psycho/neurolinguistics 3 slides Wrap-up lecture slides

2.4 Final exam (Week 16)

Essay exam, to do at home. The questions will be posted here on 11 Dec., which is also our last class day. You will have until 20 Dec. to finish your personal essay and turn it in by uploading it to an assignment space on Blackboard.

• Final exam questions
• Final exam topics (Okay, not really...)

3 See also

3.1 Videos

• OP (original pronunciation), extract of Romeo & Juliet (cf. text)
• Shakespeare OP links
• Ben Crystal talks about OP
• TYMNK: Adjective order in English
• TYMNK: Why computers suck at translating
• TYMNK: Why Can't Adults Learn Languages Like Children?
• TYMNK: Why Do We Have "Ye Olde"?

3.2 Other links & resources

Additional recommended books

• Crystal, D. (2002). The English language (2nd ed.). London: Penguin.
• Language Files, 12th ed., Ohio State Univ. Press.