Summary Details
| Query: |
Intro to Language Course
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| Author: | Richard Epstein | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
General Linguistics
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| Summary: |
A short time ago, I posted a query concerning the organization of
an Intro to *Language* course (rather than an Intro to *Linguistics* course), a course intended for an audience consisting mostly of undergraduate English majors who know little or nothing about Linguistics and who simply need to fulfill a requirement for graduation. I received many kind responses, which are summarized below. A number of people also wondered why there was no separate heading for Intro to Language syllabi at the Linguist List web site, especially in view of the fact that many linguists apparently offer this sort of course and feel that it is a particularly difficult course to teach (perhaps this category of syllabi could be set up?). Most of the respondents felt that there were few good textbooks available for an Intro to Language course. Here, in no particular order, are the books that people have used (with varying degrees of success). Many were cited by several people: Language files. Jackendoff's ''Patterns in the Mind'' (1994) for the intro. to the grammar of language, as well as an intro. to the UG-hypothesis. McWhorter's ''Word on the Street'' (1998) for the Sociolinguistic issues (including language change). Pinker's ''The Language Instinct'' and ''Words and Rules'' G. Sampson, Educating Eve Anthony Burgess, a mouthful of air Bryson, B. 1996. The Mother tongue: English and how it got that way. Fun book, though there are some errors in it. Bauer, L. and P. Trudgill. 1998. Language Myths. Students like this one. They use it to give presentations in class. Clark, V. P., P. A. Escholz, A. F. Rosa. 2000. Language: Readings in Language and Culture. Good discussions with study questions. Lederer, R. The Miracle of Language. David Crystal, Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language (2nd Ed, 1997, CUP) McCrum R., Cran W., MacNeil R., ''The Story of English'' (Penguin, 1992) Dick Leith's Social History of English Nancy Bonvillain, ''Language, Culture, and Communication: The Meaning of Messages,'' 3rd ed. Prentice-Hall, 2000. ISBN: 0-13-010429-9 Peter Farb's (1973) ''Word Play'' Aitchison, J. (1999) Teach Yourself Linguistics (5th edition). London: Hodder & Stoughton. Carter, R. et al. (1997) Working with Texts. London: Routledge. Cook, V. (1997) Inside Language. London: Arnold. Crystal, D. (1996) Rediscover Grammar. Harlow: Longman. Hudson, G. (2000) Essential Introductory Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell. Lyons, J. (1981) Language and Linguistics: An introduction. Cambridge: CUP. Trask, R.L. (1999) Language: The basics (2nd edition). London: Routledge. Traugott, E.C. and Pratt, M.L. (1980) Linguistics for Students of Literature. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Yule, G. (1996) The Study of Language (2nd edition). Cambridge: CUP Davis, B. (ed.) 1992. Dimensions of Language. New York: McMillan. Lederer, R. 1998. Crazy English. New York: Pocket Books. Mufwene, S., J. Rickford, G. Bailey and J. Baugh (eds.) 1998. African- American English. London: Routledge. Vesterman, W. (ed.) 1992. Discovering Language. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon. Here are some additional comments: Rachel Rebecca Reynolds: ''African Voices: An Introduction to the Languages and Linguistics of Africa.'' It opens with a broad section on language politics and then explains how learning about the structures of language, phonology, phonetics, graphology, syntax and semantics is actually relevant to language planning, workplace communications, ethnic studies, and classroom work. It is quite appreciable that they make linguistics relevant up front. The authors are Vic Webb and Kembo-Sure. Rusty Barrett: Robin Queen and I are currently teaching an Intro to Language course at the University of Michigan. There is a fairly extensive course website at http://www-personal.umich.edu/%7Erqueen/TEACHING/211/index.htm Paul Justice: There's no book in existence (as far as I know) that really works with this group, so I decided to write my own. It's due out in November (CSLI). note from RE: see Paul's website for details and a course syllabus: http://www.rohan.sdsu.edu/~pjustice/ Suzette Haden Elgin: there's a minicourse (''Real World Linguistics 101'') posted at my SFWA website: http://www.sfwa.org/members/elgin the course is on convenient links at the welcome page (comments welcome!) Barbara Bullock has a syllabus on her website: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/b/e/beb2/teaching.htm I would like to thank each of the following people for their very helpful responses (my apologies if I've left someone out): Rachel Rebecca Reynolds Rusty Barrett Harriet Taber Anna Szabolcsi Stuart Stewart Tess James Seran Dogancay-Aktuna Paul Justice Suzette Haden Elgin Jo Tyler John Reighard John Phillips Barbara Bullock Rudolph C Troike Ng E-Ching Margarita Balamakova Margaret E. Winters Szilvia Papp Geoffrey S. Nathan Cynthia McCollie-Lewis Shelley Tulloch And an extra special thanks to all the kind folks who very generously offered to share their course materials (syllabi, assignments, course notes, etc.) -- the products of a lot of hard work. Thanks again to everyone, Rich Epstein Assistant Professor (Linguistics) Dept. of English Rutgers University, Camden |
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| LL Issue: | 12.2590 | |
| Date Posted: | 17-Oct-2001 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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