Course Syllabus
English 370: Introduction to Language
Independent Learning Course Syllabus #1477
5 credits
Professor Anne Lobeck
English Department, Humanities 359
Office phone: 360-650-3249 | Anne.Lobeck@wwu.edu
Full Course Syllabus: English 370 Syllabus Online Course.doc
English Major/Minor Credits:
WWU English majors/minors may apply up to 10 credits earned through distance learning to their major/minor course of study. Contact the English Department for guidelines.
Course Pre-Requisites:
English 101
Course Description:
This course is intended to help you develop a broad understanding of human language. It is not intended to teach you how to speak or write better, but the course should help you recognize an uninformed statement about language when you hear one. You will be learning some definitions and symbols to use during the course to help you understand some of the components of the system of language. The purpose of learning these is to help you develop a sharper ear for language, a better understanding of its nature, and a livelier interest in all its manifestations.
More immediately, the objectives of the course are:
- to lead you to examine your own linguistic beliefs and attitudes;
- to make you aware of the diversity of language systems and their fundamental similarities;
- to acquaint you with a few of the subfields of linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, neurolinguistics, sociolinguistics, language acquisition, and language history;
- to equip you with some tools and techniques for linguistic analysis in order to help you discover the organizing principles of English;
- to acquaint you with the basic concepts necessary to further pursue the study of the English language (and/or other languages) if you wish to.
DEPARTMENT INFORMATION:
Required text:
Linguistics for Everyone, by Kristin Denham and Anne Lobeck. Cengage, 2009
Grading and Evaluation:
a. Reading and Homework Assignments
There are 10 lessons. Each lesson is based on a chapter of the textbook, with a few exceptions, where you are asked to read part of another chapter as well. Homework assignments are primarily based on the Review, Practice and Explore exercises at the end of each chapter (referred to as RPEs). Additional assignments are posted with a variety of different links to web sites, audio files, and videos.
Please upload your assignments as Word files. You may scan handwritten pages with phonetic transcription and tree diagrams, but make sure these documents are readable!
Lesson grading:
Lessons are graded on a scale of 10 points and are worth 40% of the final grade.
- 10/10 = excellent, complete, well organized, beyond what is expected
- 9/10 = very good, complete
- 8/10 = good, mostly complete, shows good effort
- 7/10 = adequate but lacking effort
- 6/10 = inadequate/unsatisfactory
b. Midterm and Final Exam
Exams are a combination of short answer, multiple choice, matching, and essay questions. They are comprehensive. To request an exam, please refer to the "Important Information on Exams" section in the "Course Information" folder.
Exam Grading:
- Midterm – 30 % of final grade
- Final – 30%
Suggested Course Schedule:
-
Week One: Module 1
Chapter 1 What is Language? -
Week Two: Module 2
Chapter 2 The Human Capacity for Language -
Week Three: Module 3
Chapter 3 Phonetics: Describing Sounds -
Week Four: Module 4 (short)
Chapter 4 Phonology: The Sound Patterns of Language -
Week Five: Module 5 Chapter 5 Morphology: Words and Their Parts
Chapter 6: Morphological Typology and Word Formation
Midterm Exam
-
Week Six: Module 6
Chapter 7 Syntax: Heads and Phrases
Chapter 8 Syntax: Phrase Structure and Syntactic Rules -
Week Seven: Module 7
Chapter 9 Semantics: Making Meaning with Words
Chapter 10: Semantics and Pragmatics: Making Meaning with Sentences -
Week Eight: Module 8
Chapter 11 The Early Story of English (part 1) -
Week Nine: Module 9
Chapter 11 The Early Story of English (part 2)
Week Ten: Module 10 Chapter 12 English Goes Global
Final Exam
About the Instructor:
A linguist, Dr. Lobeck's area of expertise is syntactic theory and linguistics and education, and her courses include introductory linguistics, English grammar, syntactic theory, American dialects, the history of the English language, and linguistics and education.
Among her publications are the following books: Ellipsis: Functional Categories, Licensing and Identification, Oxford University Press 1995; Discovering Grammar: An Introduction to English Sentence Structure, Oxford University Press, 2000; Language in the Schools: Integrating Linguistic Knowledge into K-12 Teaching (co-editor with Kristin Denham), Lawrence Erlbaum Assoc. 2005; Linguistics for Everyone (co-authored with Kristin Denham) Cengage, 2009; Linguistics at School: Language Awareness in Primary and Secondary Education (co-editor with Kristin Denham), Cambridge University Press 2010; Navigating English Grammar, (with Kristin Denham), Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Course Summary:
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