LING 101: Introduction to Language
| Course Home Page | Instructor's E-mail | Course Overview |
| Course Goals | Required Materials | Assignments, Quizzes, and Exams |
| Grading | Study Suggestions | Communicating with Your Instructor |
| Course Mechanics | Honor Code | Lessons |
Course Overview
This course provides an introduction to the field of linguistics, the scientific study of language. Linguists are concerned with the analysis and description of various aspects of human language. These aspects include speech sounds and sound systems (phonetics and phonology); word formation (morphology); sentence structure (syntax); and lexical, phrasal, and clausal meaning (semantics), and how those meanings can be affected by context (pragmatics). Linguists also explore the relationships between languages and how languages change over time (historical linguistics) and how language influences and is influenced by society (sociolinguistics). We will examine each of these areas, learning not only what linguists posit about language, but also how to use the tools they have developed in furthering their study.
Course Goals
In this course, you will
- learn about the systematic nature of language
- study the morphology, syntax, and phonological systems of English and other languages
- learn how sounds are articulated and how they are represented in a phonetic alphabet
- study lexical and clausal semantics and how they interact in different contexts
- investigate the ways languages change and the causes of these changes
- learn what a dialect is, what causes dialectal variation, and why some dialects are considered more prestigious than others
- apply linguistic concepts by analyzing data in English and other languages.
Required Materials
Textbook
- Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams. An Introduction to Language, 8th edition, 2006.
You can purchase the text from the Higher Grounds bookstore at the Friday Center in person, online, or by using the book order form.
Software
Beginning with Lesson 8, when phonetics are introduced, you will need a special font installed on your computer in order to view the lesson pages and write your assignments. Go to the Charis font download page and download the Charis font for your operating system. There are instructions for installing the font on the same page. It is free, supported, and relatively easy to read on the Web.
Assignments, Quizzes, and Exams
You will be assigned exercises from the text for each lesson. In addition, there will be ten brief open-book quizzes based on the lectures and assigned readings. There will also be a midterm exam and a cumulative final exam based on the readings, the lectures, and the homework assignments. The exams are not open-book.
Submitting Your Assignments
Use Microsoft Word to complete your assignments. If you do not have Microsoft Word, save your files as Rich Text Format (.rtf). Click the submit button below the assignment to open an e-mail addressed to both me and Student Services in the Self-paced Courses office (they must get a copy in order to track your progress). Attach the Word document. In the subject line of the e-mail, enter “SPC LING 101 Assignment #” and your full name. Save a copy of your sent e-mail (you may want to CC: yourself as a check on submission).
You will need to download a free Unicode font in order to share phonetic information both on the Lesson Web pages and on your assignments. Information on this is in the Course Mechanics section.
Taking the Quizzes and the Midterm Exam
Course quizzes and the midterm exam are accessed through a software program called Blackboard. There is a link to the Blackboard site whenever a quiz (or the midterm) is assigned. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the "SPC LING 101" link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left taking you to the quizzes and the midterm exam. Information on getting help with Blackboard is in Course Mechanics.
The Final Exam
The final exam, similar in format to the midterm, must be scheduled and supervised. The final exam is closed-book and closed-note. You should schedule your exam with the Self-paced Courses office. Exams to be taken at the Friday Center should be scheduled at least one week prior to the exam date; requests for exams to be taken elsewhere should arrive at the Self-paced office at least two weeks prior to the exam date. You must pass the final exam in order to pass the course.
Grading
| Assignments | 35 percent |
| Quizzes | 15 percent |
| Midterm exam | 20 percent |
| Final exam | 30 percent |
Study Suggestions
The quizzes and assigned exercises should provide a basic study guide for the exams. The questions on the quizzes will cover the content that will be tested in the exams, and the assigned exercises will be the kinds of exercises that might appear on the exam. Words that appear in bold in the lectures and in the textbook are important concepts. For additional help, there is a glossary of these terms in the back of the textbook.
Communicating with the Instructor
I am available via e-mail (there is an e-mail link to me at the top of every course page) and I can also converse with you via Yahoo instant message—send me an e-mail to set up a time. I encourage you to contact me if you have any questions regarding the assigned reading, the lecture notes, or your assignments.
Course Mechanics
Fonts
Some of the assignments in this course require IPA symbols (phonetic symbols). To make sure we're able to read each others' work, we will use the same font. Go to the Charis font download page and download the Charis font for your operating system. We selected Charis for this course because it is free, supported, and easy to read.
Typing phonetic characters with Microsoft Word: Use the “Insert Symbol” dialogue box to display every character available in the Charis font. You can also use the “Insert Symbol” box to define keyboard shortcuts for frequently used symbols, as explained on this web page by Bruce Hayes, UCLA.
Blackboard
Course quizzes and the midterm exam are accessed through a software program called Blackboard. There is a link to the Blackboard site whenever a quiz (or the midterm exam) is assigned. Click on that link, and then use your Onyen to log in to Blackboard. Click on the "SPC LING 101" link, and you will see navigation buttons on the left taking you to the quizzes or the midterm.
If you experience problems accessing Blackboard, this is what you should do:
- If you do not already have a UNC Onyen, go to the Onyen Web site and follow the instructions for creating an Onyen.
- If you have an Onyen but have forgotten it (or the password), visit the Onyen Web site.
- If you have your Onyen but can't log in to Blackboard, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
- If you can log in to Blackboard but can't find this course listed, contact Janice Durham at the Friday Center.
- If you can't locate an exam or discussion forum in Blackboard, contact the Instructional Designer.
- If you have technical problems while using Blackboard, contact Blackboard Help (use the Help button in Blackboard, or call 919-962-HELP).
E-mails regarding the course will go to your UNC Onyen e-mail address. Off-campus users can access their UNC mail using Webmail. You can have your Onyen e-mail forwarded to a different e-mail address by clicking “Forward email” at the Onyen Web site. Please also notify Janice Durham at the Friday Center of the change.
If you use a spam filter on your e-mail account, you are responsible for ensuring that it does not prevent you from receiving messages from your instructor or Friday Center staff.
Saving your work: It is extremely important for you to save copies of any work you send to me via e-mail. If I don't receive your work, you must have a copy of the e-mail with the attached file, indicating the date sent, to prove that you submitted the assignment. It is your responsibility to maintain copies of your sent e-mails, as there is no way to guarantee that any e-mail message will be delivered.
Please check your e-mail software to see how it manages sent and saved messages. Some software automatically deletes messages one month after they have been sent; others only save messages if they are filed in folders; others save messages received but not those sent. You may need to send yourself a copy of your e-mailed assignment at the same time you send it to me, or you may need to print a copy of the e-mail message and any attachments to keep in your paper files. No matter how your system works, make sure you know how to save a copy of all work that you submit and that you save the copy for several months beyond the end of the course.
Contacts
Contact me with questions regarding the content of the course and your progress. (There is a link to my e-mail at the top of every lesson page.) Please include “SPC LING 101” in the subject line of your e-mail.
Contact the Instructional Designer at the Friday Center about problems with this Web site, including bad links.
If you have any logistical questions as you work through the course (enrollment, credits, extensions, withdrawal, and so on), contact the Student Services staff at the Friday Center for Continuing Education (phone 919-962-1134 or 800-862-5669).
Honor Code
Remember that as a student of UNC-Chapel Hill, you are bound by the University's Honor Code, which states that “It shall be the responsibility of every student at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill to obey and support the enforcement of the Honor Code, which prohibits lying, cheating, or stealing when these actions involve academic processes or University students or academic personnel acting in an official capacity.”
Lessons
How to Begin
The course schedule is up to you. You can complete the course in as few as twelve weeks or take as long as nine months. The important thing is to get a good start, then maintain your momentum.
Since this course is not held in a classroom, I will probably never meet you in person. Still, I would like to know something about you so that I can associate each e-mail message from you with something more than a screen name. Therefore, your first task is to send me a Personal Information Sheet: Save this Word Document to your hard drive (or copy and paste from this Web page into your word processing program), fill it out, and attach it to an e-mail to me. This also gives us a chance to make sure our communication lines are working.
Then go on to Lesson 1.
| Lesson 1 | Linguistic Knowledge, Animal Communication, and Language Universals |
| Lesson 2 | Language and the Brain |
| Lesson 3 | Morphology |
| Lesson 4 | Syntax I |
| Lesson 5 | Syntax II |
| Lesson 6 | Semantics |
| Lesson 7 | Pragmatics |
| Midterm Exam | Take the midterm exam on Blackboard. |
| Lesson 8 | Phonetics |
| Lesson 9 | Phonology I |
| Lesson 10 | Phonology II |
| Lesson 11 | Language Acquisition |
| Lesson 12 | Language Variation |
| Lesson 13 | Language Change I |
| Lesson 14 | Language Change II |
| Final Exam | Schedule your final exam. |
| Course Evaluation | Please take the time to complete the course evaluation. We want to know if this course met your needs and expectations. |