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This course introduces students to the study of the English language, its words, sounds and sentences. It also introduces the conceptual and analytical tools which linguists use to understand how languages are constructed.
This course is designed to introduce you to the study of LINGUISTICS, particularly the linguistics of the ENGLISH LANGUAGE. The aim of the course is to show you how the English language works. Throughout the course, we will be guided by the following over-arching question: when a baby learns English as its first language, what aspects of the linguistic system does he or she have to master in order to have a successful conversation? To answer this question, we start with single speech sounds, and then think about how they are combined to make words. Then we consider how words combine to make phrases, and finally we examine the structure of whole sentences. In the first half of the course, we focus on how English speech is pronounced. How do we move our speech articulators when we produce sounds? How is a Kiwi accent similar to and different from accents from elsewhere? What linguistic tools do you need to analyse accent variation properly? In the second half of the course, we focus on the structure of English sentences. As well as practicing how to identify different words types (nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc), you will examine how words are structured into phrases, clauses and sentences, and you will learn how we combine words in different ways to generate new and complex meanings.You do not need to have any previous experience of Linguistics to enrol in this course.This course is a prerequisite for 200 level Linguistics courses, so is an important foundation for more advanced linguistics work.The course will be of particular benefit to anyone who:1. has an interest in studying further courses in Linguistics2. wants to enhance their understanding of how the English language works 3. has an interest in foreign language teaching4. has an interest in teaching English5. has an interest in speech and language therapy
At the end of this course students will:1. be able to understand the main technical terms used by linguists to describe the various systems of which languages are composed: sounds, morphemes and words, phrases and clauses, and meaning. 2. be able to transcribe in broad phonetics a section of written English, 3. be able to understand how to analyse the structure of words into syllables and morphemes, 4. be able to understand how to analyse the structure of sentences into their grammatical constituents.
ENGL123, ENLA101
Kevin Watson and Lynn Clark
Kuiper, Koenraad , Allan, W. Scott; An introduction to English language : word, sound and sentence ; 3rd ed; Palgrave Macmillan, 2010.
Other reading materials will be recommended by course tutors. Electronic versions of these items will be placed on Learn, when available.
Structure of the course: The course runs over 6 weeks and has online lectures and face-to-face tutorials. Each week, there are 3 lectures, which you will watch online. You do not have to come to class for the lectures. There is also one tutorial per week (1 hour). The tutorial is a face-to-face class in which we will carry out linguistic analysis. These tasks will give you vital practice for the assessed work. Anyone who enrols on this course must attend the face-to-face tutorials (1 hour per week for 6 weeks) and must commit to watching the online lectures before each weekly face-to-face session. If you have any questions about this, email Kevin Watson (kevin.watson@canterbury.ac.nz)
Domestic fee $717.00
International fee $2,913.00
* All fees are inclusive of NZ GST or any equivalent overseas tax, and do not include any programme level discount or additional course-related expenses.
This course will not be offered if less than 1 person applies to enrol.
For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .