Introductory description

Understanding how language works will provide you with insights that can be used not only in your academic course but also in your future professional and personal life. This module will introduce you to how language is structured (morphology and syntax) and how it is used to construct meaning (semantics and pragmatics), to its sounds and sound patterns (phonetics and phonology) and written form. You’ll have the chance to explore examples from different languages and to develop practical analytical skills.

Module web page

Module aims

Outline syllabus

This is an indicative module outline only to give an indication of the sort of topics that may be covered. Actual sessions held may differ.

Introduction to linguistics
phonetics
phonology
morphology
syntax
semantics
pragmatics
selected topics: e.g. language contact and multilingualism, language diversity and change

Learning outcomes

By the end of the module, students should be able to:

• Upon successful completion of this course, students should have an understanding of linguistics. Students should then be able to:• use disciplinary terminology to describe the sounds, sound patterns, morphology, syntax, and meaning of languages• describe and discuss similarities and differences among languages• apply their knowledge of linguistics to carry out practical analysis of language data, and justify this analysis with evidence • transcribe language data with the International Phonetic Alphabet• draw syntactic trees to capture different argument structures in the clausal architecture• apply their semantic and pragmatic knowledge (i.e., metaphorical language, entailment and presupposition, implicatures in everyday life, and speech acts, etc) in order to carry out a practical analysis of language data • critically evaluate alternative analyses and choose the one that best suits the data at hand • construct coherent lines of scientific argumentation

Indicative reading list

Ashby, P. (2013). Understanding phonetics. Routledge.
Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. & Hyams, N. (2017). An Introduction to Language. (7th Edition). Andover: Cengage Learning.
Genetti, C. (Ed.) (2019) How languages work: An introduction to language and linguistics. Cambridge: CUP
Gussenhoven, C., & Jacobs, H. (2013). Understanding phonology. Routledge.
Saeed, J. (2016). Semantics. Oxford: Blackwells.
Tallerman, M. (2020). Understanding Syntax. Routledge.
Yule, G. (2014). The study of language. Fifth Edition. Cambridge: CUP.

View reading list on Talis Aspire

Interdisciplinary

Students will learn to utilise the micro-analytic toolkit introduced in this module in all languages they get exposed to. The linguistic skills and knowledge that students acquire in this module will be applied in other applied linguistics modules such as sociolinguistics, qualitative research, and psycholinguistics, which are inherently interdisciplinary and encourage linguistic analysis. Furthermore, these linguistic skills and knowledge students acquire will assist them in learning foreign languages, but also enhanced by the study of foreign languages.

International

Understanding how language works goes hand-in-hand with understanding how language works in social contexts locally, nationally and internationally. Through the study of semantics (meaning) and pragmatics (meaning in context), you will develop a better understanding of intercultural communication and, along with the study of the sounds and structures of the world's languages, you will develop a better appreciation for the human capacity for language and how it interacts with our cultures.

Subject specific skills

Demonstrate familiarity with the main concepts and terminology of formal linguistics. Demonstrate an ability to describe the sounds, sound systems, syntactic and morphological structures and meaning of language(s). Demonstrate the ability to analyse language data and justify this analysis with evidence. Transcribe language data with the International Phonetic Alphabet, use rules to explain sound distributions, identify and classify different morphological processes, draw trees to capture different syntactic structures, analyse word and sentence meaning, and apply sentence meaning in different contexts.

Transferable skills

Exercise inferential thinking when analysing language data. Write up analyses in an informative and structured way. Communicate clearly in academic discussion and debates. Retrieve, critically evaluate, and select relevant information to construct and support coherent lines of scientific argumentation. Demonstrate independence of thought and attention to detail by exercising their micro-analytic linguistic skills.