Teaching Delivery: This module is taught in 10 weekly lectures.

Content: This module is intended for first-year members of language departments and for anyone else interested in the two central themes of how languages work and how they change. The module covers: the basics of phonology (the sounds of a language) and morphology (analysis of the minimal meaningful elements in a language); the history of thought about language in the western tradition, from the ancient world to the 20th century; historical linguistics and the Indo-European languages; sociolinguistics: how and why languages change

Skills: At the end of the module students should  a) Understand the concept of the phoneme, and basic issues and problems in phonology; and be able to transcribe a piece of written English into the International Phonetic Alphabet.  b)  Have an understanding of the basics of morphological analysis, and its challenges; and will be able to give a morphological analysis of an English word, or to explain why  such an analysis is problematic.  c)  Understand the basic principles of how to diagram the structure of an English sentence using Immediate Constituent Analysis; and will be able to draw an ICA diagram of a simple English sentence.  d)  Be familiar with the basic principles of historical linguistics; including the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European and the ‘genetic metaphor’ in language relationships; will understand how this applies in principle to all human language.  e)  Be able to give an account of the start of sociolinguistic analysis in second half of the 20th century, and how this influenced understanding of language change; and be aware of the relationships between language and social context.  f)  Have an understanding of the broad intellectual currents in Western linguistics from the beginnings of historical grammar in the late 18th century until the end of the 20th century; and understand the role language plays in history, society and politics in all cultures. 

Module texts: Jean Aitchison, Teach Yourself Linguistics (London) -- available from Waterstones. Either the 2003 edition (green parrots on the cover) or the 2010 edition (telephones on the cover) may be used: the pagination is slightly different.

Other recommended preparatory readings:

EVERETT, Daniel, Don't Sleep, There are Snakes: Life and Language in the Amazonian Jungle (Profile 2009)