What is this course about?
Linguistics is the systematic study of human language. Linguists are interested in questions like these:
- In what ways do languages around the world differ?
- What characteristics do languages around the world share?
- What do these similarities and differences tell us about the nature of the human capacity for language?
- What it is that you need to know in order to "know a language"?
- How are young children able to learn the intricate details of their native language(s) so quickly and without explicitly being taught?
In this course, we will develop a set of linguistic tools for investigating the word structure, sentence structure, meaning, and sound structure of English and many other languages. We will also apply these tools to examine aspects of child language acquisition, language in society, and language change over time. Class discussion will extend to topics such as second language learning, language disorders, computer analysis and synthesis of language, manual (sign) languages, language and advertising, writing systems, and similarities and differences between human language and animal communication.
See the schedule of topics for more details.
Course requirements
Final grades for the course will be calculated as follows:
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