LING212-24S1 (C) Semester One 2024

Sounds and Words

15 points

Details:
Start Date: Monday, 19 February 2024
End Date: Sunday, 23 June 2024
Withdrawal Dates
Last Day to withdraw from this course:
  • Without financial penalty (full fee refund): Sunday, 3 March 2024
  • Without academic penalty (including no fee refund): Sunday, 12 May 2024

Description

This course is an exploration in the structure of speech sounds. We will deal with with phonetics (how sounds are made or perceived by humans), phonology (how sounds are distributed across different languages) and morphology (how sounds combine to make meaningful units in a language). The goal of the course is to equip students with some of the basic tools necessary to conduct speech sound analysis of any language or linguistic variety.

We are linguistic animals and we communicate primarily using sound. Speech is our most common form of communication; speech plays a huge role in our everyday lives.

This course is about understanding speech. In the first part of the course, we think carefully about how we produce sound, how the various muscles we use combine in order to create different sounds and how these sounds combine in turn to form speech (phonetics).

In the second part of the course, we explore how speech sounds are distributed across different languages (phonology) and (how sounds combine to make meaningful units in a language (morphology).

Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course...

-         Students will learn analytical and critical thinking, as well as problem solving in diverse contexts, by performing phonetic, phonological and morphological analyses on varieties of English and other languages

-         Students will become proficient in the use of software (Praat) in order to perform acoustic measurements of speech sounds

-         Students will understand the phonetic, phonological and morphological features of NZ English, as well we the colonial context in which this variety emerged

-         Students will apply their knowledge of phonological and morphological structure to unfamiliar languages, especially those of the Pacific region of Papua New Guinea

-         Students will develop awareness of the systematicity of linguistic structures, of both English and of other languages, and how languages can be similar to and different from each other in this respect. They will get an appreciation of global linguistic diversity and what it means to “know” a language.

Prerequisites

Any 15 points at any level from LING

Restrictions

LING 215
LING 216

Timetable 2024

Students must attend one activity from each section.

Lecture A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Monday 13:00 - 14:00 Jack Erskine 242 (19/2)
Jack Erskine 443 (26/2-25/3, 22/4-27/5)
19 Feb - 31 Mar
22 Apr - 2 Jun
Computer Lab A
Activity Day Time Location Weeks
01 Friday 11:00 - 13:00 Jack Erskine 010 Computer Lab
19 Feb - 24 Mar
22 Apr - 2 Jun

Course Coordinator / Lecturer

Lynn Clark

Assessment

Assessment Due Date Percentage  Description
Quizzes assessing understanding of lecture content 30% Quizzes assessing understanding of lecture content
Phonetic transcription task 15% Phonetic transcription task
Praat analysis task 20% Praat analysis task
Phonology task 15% Phonology task
Morphology task 20% Morphology task

Indicative Fees

Domestic fee $844.00

International fee $3,950.00

* 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.

For further information see Language, Social and Political Sciences .

All LING212 Occurrences

  • LING212-24S1 (C) Semester One 2024
  • LING212-24S1 (D) Semester One 2024 (Distance)