Undergraduate Bulletin
Document Number 4.03.06(b)

[1] Courses in Linguistics (LING)

1310 LANGUAGE, CULTURE, AND SOCIETY Language, Culture, and Society provides students with a general understanding of human linguistic behavior and cognition. Students will explore language origins, diversity, mechanism for change, and the similarities and differences of speech across social groups, as well as compare their own linguistic culture to that of another. Lecture. Fall, spring.

2320 INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS This course will cover a variety of topics useful to any language-related course of study. Areas covered include sound structure, work structure, and sentence structure; meaning and function of language; language and culture; language and thought; linguistic variation; history of writing systems; and language acquisition. Prerequisite: WRTG 1320. Fall, spring.

2350 WORLD LANGUAGES An introduction to world languages from geographical, historical, social, and psychological perspectives. Emphasis on the diversity in the world’s verbal communication systems as well as the universal aspects underlying all human symbolic behavior. Basic introduction to language structure, phonetics/phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Fall, spring.

3315 SEMANTICS An upper-division elective for writing majors and minors and for speech and mass communications majors and minors. This course examines meaning in language–how we know what words and sentences mean. At the word level, students will examine such ideas as sense, connotation and extension. At the sentence level, students will examine propositions, truth conditions, scope, entailment and implicature. Metaphor, representation, speech acts and conversation will also be discussed. Discussion, lecture, essays, project. Prerequisite: WRTG 1320. Spring.

3325 SOCIOLINGUISTICS An upper-division elective course for writing majors and minors and for anthropological sociology majors and minors. This course examines the connections between language and society and language and culture, including such factors as region, gender, age, race, sexual orientation, and social standing; language varieties, registers and speech communities. Discussion, lecture, short essays and a student project. Prerequisite: WRTG 1320. Fall.

4320 GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURES OF ENGLISH This course focuses on the scientific study of grammar, including lexical categories, phrases, relative clauses, participles, grammatical relations and noncanonical sentences. Students will analyze the intricate set of principles and rules of English that determine possible sentences and disallow impossible sentences. Lecture, discussion. Prerequisite: LING 2320 or ENGL 3315. Fall.

4330 LINGUISTICS FOR EDUCATORS This course is designed for students interested in the teaching of writing. Areas covered include the history of grammar, literacy, the teaching of reading, writing and spelling through linguistic principles, the function of language in a class setting, and methods for teaching non-standard English speakers and writers. Discussion, workshop, lecture. Prerequisite: WRTG 1320. Spring.

4345 ANALYTICAL METHODS OF MORPHOLOGY AND SYNTAX A required course for majors in linguistics and an elective for linguistics minor and writing majors and minors. Students will be introduced to the major aspects of morphological and syntactic analysis, the history of grammatical study, and both formal and functional approaches to grammatical analysis. Students will learn the key concepts and terminology associated with grammatical description and apply them to the analysis of problem sets presented from a wide range of the world’s languages. Lecture, discussion. Prerequisite: WRTG 2320 or permission of instructor. Spring.

4350 PHONOLOGY A required course for linguistics major and an elective for linguistics minors and writing majors and minors. This course introduces students to phonological analysis, including the basics of phonetics and the skills needed to analyze phonological data. Discussion, lecture, workshop. Prerequisite: WRTG 2320 or permission of instructor. Fall.

4355 SPECIAL TOPICS IN LINGUISTICS An elective for majors and minors in linguistics or writing. This course will provide students with a more concentrated focus on specific areas or sub-genres within linguistic anthropology. Content varies according to interest and expertise of instructor. Course may be repeated up to three times for credit. Offered on demand. Lecture, discussion. Prerequisite: WRTG 2320 or permission of instructor. On demand.

4360 HISTORICAL LINGUISTICS AND LANGUAGE CHANGE An elective course for Linguistics majors and minors and Writing majors and minors. Students will learn the basic principles of language change, the nature and development of language families and the methods of comparative and internal reconstruction. Language change at the level of phonology, morphology, and syntax will be discussed from a typologically informed perspective. Students will apply basic methodologies used in reconstructing the history and development of languages from proto-languages and to write solutions to data-rich problem sets in clear, descriptive prose. Lecture, discussion. Prerequisite: LING 2320. Once every other year.

4370 FIELD METHODS IN LINGUISTICS An elective course for Linguistics majors and minors and Writing majors and minors. Students will explore the sound patterns and grammatical structure of an unfamiliar language by working directly with a native speaker. Students will learn and apply techniques in recording, transcription, and analysis used by professional linguists to document lesser-known languages that typically do not have a written tradition. Ethical issues in working with language consultants and responsibilities to the speech community will also figure prominently in this course. Students will also learn techniques for processing data, preparing for sessions with the language consultant, and writing research findings in clear, descriptive prose. Lecture, discussion. Prerequisite: LING 2320. Once every other year.