This course will introduce students to the field of linguistics.  Topics will include phonology, morphology, semantics, spoken discourse, language acquisition, dialects, and the history of the English language.  Students also will become acquainted with scholarship in the field and will design their own research project.

Upon successful completion of the course, each participant should be able to:

• Define linguistics and understand human language as a conventional system that allows for creative communication of meaning.
• Differentiate between descriptive and prescriptive linguistic rules, explain the concept of Standard English, and discuss the values and limitations of usage/style guides.
• Identify the phonetic features of consonants and vowels and describe phonological rules like assimilation, insertion, deletion, and metathesis.
• Transcribe English using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
• Explain and illustrate the morphological features of English and processes relevant to word formation.
• Define semantics and outline different linguistic theories of language and meaning.
• Outline the general stages in and hypotheses regarding children’s acquisition of language.
• Distinguish between regional and social dialects and describe the phonological, morphological, and lexical features of prominent dialects in American English.
• Understand the general history of the English language, including the development of Old, Middle, Early Modern, and Modern Englishes.
• Design an original research project that includes the collection and analysis of data.

Curzan, Anne and Michael Adams. How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction. 3rd edition. Pearson/Longman, 2012. ISBN: 9780205032280

Rickerson, E.M. and Barry Hilton. The 5-Minute Linguist: Bite-Sized Essays on Language and Languages. 2nd edition. Equinox, 2012. ISBN: 9781908049490

Winchester, Simon. The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary. Harper/Perennial, 2005. ISBN:97800608397