Reviewing 8-28-08

What existed before Linguistics? Why was language studied? What was its purpose? What varieties of language were seen as valid objects of academic pursuit? What variety of what language was an exception to the 'prestige' condition? Why? What's ironic about that in the way that original work was translated into languages all over the world for the next 20 centuries or so after it was written?

Who is called the father of modern linguistics? What country was he from? How did he come to teach this course? What did he propound were the neglected elements of language that a scientific approach would have to attend to? What is metalanguage? What terms did Saussure introduce? What is the relationship of anthropology to linguistics? (This could be a trick question).

What do these terms mean?
metalanguage
semiotics
prescriptive vs. descriptive
diachronic vs. synchronic
langue vs. parole
paradigmatic vs. syntagmatic, which is illustrated by and which is illustrated by ?

What is schema and how does it relate to semiotics?
Why do you have to teach a computer about the qualities of a room before it can 'understand' a story that involves a room?

What do linguistic, paralinguistic and extralinguistic mean?

How do linguists define GRAMMAR?? Why does ee insist that your grandma has perfect grammar in her native language?

What is the difference between 'good' English and 'standard' English, 'bad' English and 'nonstandard' English? Which should cause you to break out in hives?

How is semiotics related to intellectual curiosity as presented in class?

How did the French accidentally invent dialectology?
Why is American Sign Language more like spoken French than spoken English?

Why is narrative so important in the classroom according to mee?

How is the way you talk related to your identity?

Who is Wallace Chafe? What fruit is featured in the title of the important book comparing oral and written language within and between cultures? The ____ Stories. What animal will become the central artifact in the American Southern imagination in the 21st century? Wait, that wasn't my question. . . whose was it?

What is the irony of how the study of language progressed from written to spoken to gesture?

Bonus info: how not to make yourself America bait overseas, how to deflect the identity of an ugly monolingual American in Europe. . . how not to get chased by a band of angry protestors in Brussels, the truth about ugly babies, the virtues of naming your children after your siblings, the origin of madelina margarita, the significance of Sanskrit in East Asian languages, whether or not Chinese and Korean are related. . . who are Roger Shuy, Ralph Fasold and Walt Wolfram? What is the word for a line on a map that shows generally where one dialect ends and another begins regionally? What does learning two languages simultaneously as a baby do to your brain?

Motivation for Learning about Language

I like to talk about language in terms of loving people better, but I realize some people break out in hives when they talk about things like "love" and "science" in the same breath. So for you who would like to ixne the ovele component, let me put it another way.

Regardless of your sincerity, the way you use language has an effect on your hearer, your relationship with your hearer, and yourself. If you want to achieve your interactional goals with someone (e.g., get them to like you, to lend you money, to leave you alone, to introduce you to someone you really want to meet, etc.) , you need to know how your language affects other people. What's going to make them feel respected, what's going to make them feel dissed, what's going to make them feel big, what's going to make them feel small, what's going to draw them to you and what's going to drive them away. So you can look at this from purely utilitarian terms, if you so desire. (Although some would question the juxtaposition of 'pure' and 'utilitarian' there). Studying the basics of language also helps you understand yourself and how your brain works, which should be of interest to everyone, right?

Linguistics, Like Life and Rocks, Is Hard

Linguistics is not like any humanities course you've taken. It's more like a math or science class in many ways, maybe logic. It's definitely not one of those classes you can skate through on your natural ability to produce eloquent language on demand in an essay test or a paper that's due half an hour from when you started. . . I was an English major, too, I know how it works. (: There is a lot of memory work you have to do for this class and some of the concepts are a little mind bending at first, but once you get them figured out you'll have a hard time remembering why they were hard. Don't get me wrong, it's worth it, but don't have any illusions about coming to class and having someone regurgitate the text for you--I'm not a mama bird and you ain't no baby bird. You're a student at a world class university. I expect your performance to reflect that fact.

You Must Prepare for this class. You must read and you must commit some stuff to memory. If you don't, it doesn't matter what the heck I do in class, you won't get a lot of it. There may be one person in 35 who doesn't have to do some actual reading to do well on the exams and even that person has to spend some time memorizing terms, formulas, etc. I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to make information accessible and enjoyable for you and I spend more time with students than anyone I know (who isn't also a student), so I am available for office hours. What I can't do for you is your memory work. If you come to me with nothing in your head yet about it, I can't help you understand how it works. And even though it may suggest that I'm a little messed up in the head, I feel like a failure when you don't learn. So learn dammit. (I'm not going to type damnit and you can't make me; deal with it.)

Every semester I take a little more time to prepare students for what the semester will bring because amazingly, every semester there is a ridiculously high number of students who just flat out don't believe me. Here's a testimonial from a student e-mail I got mid semester last spring:

I think I grossly underestimated the difficulty of this class but I've been doing the tutorials for the IPA on the blog and it's really starting to make sense. It feels like it's a little late for it all to start coming to me now but I think I am starting to understand it and like it more :) I just wanted to thank you for. . . yada yada

I think this student ended up withdrawing from the class. I think she's the only one who did, and my grade spreads come out well, but she's not the only one who found it to require actual preparation to their shock and amazement. Most people are going to do well if they just follow the daily recommended allowance of linguistic prep. If you spent 10 minutes a day on reviewing terms and stuff you have to memorize, you'd probably be in very good shape (that plus the reading and thinking ahead of time). ((I know, thinking is such an extraordinary thing for a prof to expect of you, they are So Unreasonable. . . don't they know you don't have time to think because you're too busy being a college student?)

So, truth in advertising, full disclosure. Be not deceived about what can co-occur with humor. And remember, you're building a brain here. And paying a lot of money to do it. I'll preach more about that later. (: But only because I love you. (:

I Urge You to Check Pick a Prof To Make Sure I Am the Right Prof for You

I may add some direct quotes from there soon. In a nutshell, it says,
She may be funny, but linguistics is hard and her tests are serious.
This is because I believe that fun and excellence are not mutually exclusive.
(Radical I know)

About Your Textbooks for 209

Your main text for this class is going to be a course pack-ish resource which is basically a "Linguistics for Dummies" (i.e., a cut to the chase and make me laugh periodically along the way approach to linguistics). It is absolutely indispensable. In the past I have made these available to you electronically, chapter by chapter. I'm working on a printed, bound copy you can buy at the book store. I'll keep you apprised (and hopefully not up-rised, uprisen?)

However, I feel morally bound to require a substantive textbook that has the seal of approval of linguists worldwide, so your required text is Language Files which is published by The Ohio State University Press. If I were you, I'd get on Amazon marketplace forthwith and order an earlier edition (the newest is the 10th) for a couple of bucks before everyone else in the nation gets on there to do the same thing and snatches them all up.

I also recommend the Introduction to Language text by Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams. Any edition will probably meet your main needs. This book goes into more detail about every subject it covers and is very clear about everything. It also has nice summaries at the end of each chapter, a good glossary, and a lot of comic strips, which are pretty amusing. Some people complain that it is too wordy and otherwise redundant. This totally depends on what kind of reader and learner you are, so I'd look through the book rather critically before deciding to buy-- however, you can't really go wrong with a 2.00 copy of an earlier edition.