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Introduction to Linguistics

Teacher: Simon Smith (史尚明 )– “Dr Smith”, “Simon” or “老師” : OK– “Smith” or “Teacher”: not OK

This semester’s course: – the basics of linguistic analysis

» the sounds of languages» the structure of sentences and individual words» the study of meaning.

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About me…

I first came to Taiwan in 1991 BA in Linguistics and Chinese, Leeds MSc in Machine Translation, Manchester PhD in Statistical Language Modeling, Bir

mingham Post-doctoral year at Academia Sinica This is my third year at Ming Chuan

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Why study Linguistics? Linguistics: related to your English studies But also a science

– The scientific study of language You will get a good grasp of linguistic principles You will understand more about how languages (including

English and Chinese) work. Linguistics asks such questions as

– How did language begin?– Why is it easy for kids to learn their first language, but difficult

for adults?– What exactly is language?

» That one, we begin to answer next week!

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Why take this course? It’s taught (mostly) in English

– Your English reading, writing, listening and speaking will all improve

It’s taught in a Western way: you will– think critically– discuss issues with classmates and teacher– question what classmates, teacher and even famous linguists say

You will learn to– describe your own ideas, and others’ ideas, in a logical way, by

giving a presentation to the class– write a medium-length essay, in the Western tradition (probably

not until next semester)

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Course grades In-class or homework

exercises every two weeks or so

Quizzes will be announced in advance: probably there will be two

Midterms and finals will take place in class time (if the university gives me permission!)

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Course grades Presentations

– you will research one language on the web or in the library, and give a short talk

– You cannot choose English, Mandarin or Taiwanese

– If you want to choose a language, tell me soon

– I will give more information later

Class performance– Attitude– Attendance– Contribution to discussion

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Class rules Attendance is mandatory

– Assistant class leader please take attendance at break time– More than 4 missed classes (whether for sickness, sports, laziness, 病假 , 公假 , or any reason) – 0%!

If you arrive late, you must apologize and explain the reason

Please don’t eat hot food Please switch off your phone Please don’t chatter while I’m speaking Work only on class material during class time

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Class website

http://mcu.edu.tw/~ssmith/ling.htm Here you will find

– These PowerPoint slides– Syllabus, recommended reading and websites– Your grades

» Check grades on-line after quizzes and exercises are returned to you

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Textbook

Yule, The Study of Language (Cambridge, 2003)

There should be enough copies in the store You must buy a copy You must bring it next week and every wee

k

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Course syllabusWeeks 1 - 2 Introduction, What is language?

Weeks 3 - 5 The sounds of language: Phonetics & Phonology

Weeks 6-8 The structure of words: Morphology

Week 9 Midterm exam in class

Week 10 University mid-terms: no class this week

Weeks 11-13 The structure of sentences: Syntax

Weeks 14-16 The study of meaning: Semantics

Week 17 Final exam in class

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Next semester:

We will look at some other topics– Psycholinguistics– Sociolinguistics– Computational linguistics– Corpus linguistics

There are a lot of flavors of linguistics!

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But this semester…

We’ll look at the different linguistic strata (layers)

Phonetics Phonology

Sounds of language

Linguistics

Grammar

Morphology Syntax

Meaning

Semantics Pragmatics