Instructors Assignments Required Texts Assessment and Grading Course Description Course Outline
Mondays & Wednesdays, 11:00 to 11:50 a.m., 1111 Humanities
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| Instructors |
Assignments |
| Required Texts |
Assessment and Grading |
| Course Description |
Course Outline |
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Professor Richard F Young TA's: Manuel Herrero-Puertas and Erin Leary |
Use the class e-mail list as a public bulletin board for discussions about the class. You may send e-mail messages to me and to all students registered for this course through this e-mail list. Send your messages to engl214-1-s15 at lists dot wisc dot edu. In order for you to receive messages from the e-mail list, your e-mail address must be in the Registrar's database. You can update your preferred email address by accessing My UW-Madison, "Student Records" tab, "Preferred Address" module.
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Curzan, A., & Adams, M. (2011). How English works: A linguistic introduction (3rd ed.). New York: Pearson Longman. ISBN 9780321946270 |
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Bauer, L., & Trudgill, P. (Eds.). (1999). Language myths. London: Penguin. ISBN 9780140260236 |
Whether you have spoken English since you were a baby or you learned English as an adult, you probably have asked yourself questions about the English language. Do you feel good or do you feel well? Who wrote the dictionary? Is hip-hop poetry? How do children learn to speak? Will the Internet really change the English language? In this class we will ask many questions like these and attempt to answer them by using the techniques of modern linguistics (the systematic study of language in all its aspects). We will investigate how the English that we use today is organized into sounds, into small meaning-bearing units called morphemes, into words, and by groups of words into sentences — then sentences gather together to form discourse from which we derive meaning. Though most people have strong feelings about what is right and wrong about today’s English, we will see that there is no such thing as ONE English language. No, there is no single English language today, and when we look back over the past 50 years or over the past 500 years it is obvious that English has changed. What processes have brought about this change? And why do different native speakers today speak different Englishes?
This class is intended for anyone who is interested in how English works and how the English of today came to be what it is. By the end of the course you will have acquired skills in linguistics and have used them to understand the structure, uses, varieties, styles, and history of the English language.
Prerequisite: Sophomore standing
Attendance and Readings. You are expected to attend class regularly and to complete weekly readings assigned from the textbooks. Attendance will be taken at lectures and discussion sections.
Participation. You must attempt assigned weekly exercises from the textbook. Responses to each week's exercise should be brought to your discussion section.
Exams. Your knowledge and interpretation of the readings and lectures will be assessed by two exams. The midterm will focus on material covered in Weeks 1-7. Questions on the final exam will focus on material covered in Weeks 9-15. Questions on both exams will be taken from the exercises at the end of each chapter in How English works: A linguistic introduction. Each exam will have seven questions, from which you must choose to answer four.
Authorship. Some assignments involve integrating information from published sources into your own writing. This means that you need to be careful not to plagiarize: "to steal or pass off (the ideas and words of another) as one's own" or to "present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source" (Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 10th edition, p. 888). For advice on what sources you should document and how to document them, consult Quoting and Paraphrasing Sources on the Writing Center's web site, from which the preceding statement is taken.
These are the meanings and equivalencies of letter grades.
Grade name |
Percent cutoff |
Letter grade equivalent |
Narrative |
A+ |
100 |
100% |
Excellent. Work goes well beyond the requirements of the assignment. |
A |
93 |
96% |
Demonstrates full understanding of all concepts; creatively applies theories and methods to new problems in the field. |
AB |
85 |
88% |
Intermediate grade |
B |
77 |
80% |
Demonstrates understanding of all concepts; can correctly apply theories and methods to new problems in the field. |
BC |
69 |
72% |
Intermediate grade |
C |
61 |
64% |
Demonstrates understanding of some but not all concepts; some errors in applying theory and methods to new problems in the field. |
D |
53 |
56% |
Demonstrates understanding of a limited number of concepts; many errors in applying theory and methods to new problems in the field. |
F |
0 |
0% |
Lack of understanding of concepts; not capable of applying theories and methods to new problems in the field. Assignment not completed by deadline. |
Your final grade for the course will take into account grades awarded on all assignments in the following proportions.
| Assignment | Percentage of Final Grade |
| Participation | 15% |
| Exams | 70% (35% for each exam) |
| Attendance | 15% |
The grade of "Incomplete" will only be used if you have carried the course with a passing grade until near the end of the semester and then, because of illness or other unusual and substantial cause beyond your control, you are unable to complete the remaining assignments.
Dates |
Theme |
Readings | Topics |
Exercises |
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| January 21 | Introduction to the course |
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| January 26 & 28 | Do you speak English? |
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The story of aks – Language language everywhere – The power of language – The system of language – Human language versus animal communication – The process of language change |
Exercise 1.1 Sense and nonsense |
| February 2 & 4 | English rules! |
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Who is in control? – Defining Standard English – Descriptive versus prescriptive grammar rules – Spoken versus written language – Dictionaries of English – English grammar, usage, and style – Corpus linguistics |
Exercise 2.3 Dictionaries |
| February 9 & 11 | Say it like it is |
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English consonants – English vowels – Phonemes and allophones – Natural classes – Phonemes and allophones – Phonological rules – Syllables and phonotactic constraints – Perception of sound – History of English spelling Guest lecture by Prof. Eric Raimy |
Exercise 3.1 Transcription of English words |
| February 16 & 18 | Building words |
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Open and closed classes of morphemes – Bound and free morphemes – Inflectional and derivational bound morphemes – Affixes and combining forms – Ways of forming English words – Borrowing and multicultural vocabulary in English – Slang and creativity |
Exercise 4.5 Where do the Words of the Year come from? |
| February 23 & 25 | Making sense |
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Syntax and lexical categories – Open-class lexical categories – Closed-class lexical categories – Challenges to categorization – Descriptive syntax and prescriptive rules |
Exercise 5.2 Adjectives |
| March 2 & 4 | Making sentences |
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Generative grammar – Constituents and hierarchies – Phrase structure rules – Basic phrase structure trees – Complex phrase structure trees –Reduced subordinate clauses – Tenses and auxiliaries – Transformations – Does generative grammar succeed? – Syntax and prescriptive grammar Guest lecture by Prof. Anja Wanner |
Exercise 6.1 Identifying constituents |
| March 9 & 11 | The meaning of meaning |
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Semantics – The limits of reference – A brief history of theories of reference – Lexical fields – Hyponym to homonym (and other nyms) – Organization of the mental lexicon – Prototype semantics – The intersection of semantics, syntax, and discourse – Processes of semantic change – Linguistic relativity – Politically correct language |
Exercise 7.2 Construct your own hyponymic tree |
| March 16 | Take-home midterm exam available |
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| March 16 & 18 | How to do things with words |
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Speech act theory: Accomplishing things with words – The Cooperative Principle – Politeness and face: Negotiating relationships in speaking – Discourse markers: Signaling discourse organization – Conversation analysis: Taking turn and the conversational floor – Style shifting: Negotiating social meaning – Do men and women speak differently? |
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| March 20 | Take-home midterm exam due |
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| March 23 & 25 | A guide to quality, taste, and style |
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Stylistics – The world of texts: Genres and registers – Textual unity: Cohesion – Telling stories: The structure of narratives – Literature and speech acts – Investigating dialogue – Investigating word choice – Linguistics into poetics – What makes “good writing”? |
Exercise 9.5 Poetics |
Spring  Break |
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| April 6 & 8 | Baby talk |
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Theories about children’s language acquisition – Children learning sounds – Children learning words – Children learning grammar – The role of parents in language acquisition – Critical age hypothesis – When things go wrong – Children and bilingualism Guest lecture by Prof. Jacee Cho |
Exercise 10.3 Learning grammar |
| April 13 & 15 | You say ‘tomato’, I say ‘tomahto’ |
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Dialectology – Variationist sociolinguistics – Major factors in language variation within speech communities – Effects of language contact – Speaker attitudes and language variation – Code-switching Guest lecture by Prof. Tom Purnell |
Exercise 11.2 American dialects |
| April 20 & 22 | The flavors of American English |
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The politics of American dialects – Regional variation – The history of regional dialects in the United States – Two case studies of regional variation – Social variation – The Ebonics controversy Guest lecture by Dr. Joan Houston Hall |
Exercise 12.5 African American English and Appalachian English |
| April 27 & 29 | Ancient history (466-1776) |
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Old English (466-1066): History of its speakers – Old English lexicon – Old English grammar – Middle English (1066-1476): History of its speakers – Middle English dialects – The Middle English lexicon – Middle English grammar – Early Modern English (1476-1776): History of its speakers – Early Modern English lexicon – Early Modern English grammar Guest lecture by Prof. Martin Foys |
Exercise 13.1 Analyzing early texts |
| May 4 & 6 | To infinity and beyond (1776- ) |
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Modern English (1776-Present): Social forces at work – Modern English: Language change in progress – The status of English in the United States – The status of English around the world – What happens after Modern English? |
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May 14 |
Final exam due |
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This page was last revised on August 18, 2015 .
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