Lesson 1: Defining and Describing Language

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams Chapter 1, pp. 3-29 & Chapter 2 pp. 66-69.

In Lesson 1 we will look at the features of language in general and then move on to consider what the origins of language may have been.

Objectives:

• Define language
• Understand certain key features of the nature of language
• Contrast language with communication
• Contrast language with other types of communication
• Understand what makes language possible in humans and how it may have evolved

Lesson 2: The Brain and Language

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 1, p. 29-37 & Chapter 2 43-66

In Lesson 2 we will look at the brain and how it processes language. We will also learn how scientists study the brain.

Objectives:

• Become familiar with the general structure of the brain
• Become familiar with the various methods used to study the brain
• Learn the language centers in the brain
• Understand which aspects of language are associated with which language centers
• Become familiar with predominant theories of how thought and language interrelate

Lesson 3: First Language Acquisition

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 2 pp. 62-66, Chapter 8 pp. 324-361

In Lesson 3 we will look at how children learn or acquire their first or native language.

Objectives:

• Become familiar with the various stages of first language acquisition
• Learn the developments of physical characteristics that affect the language acquisition process
• Learn the developments related to the ability to produce language
• Learn the developments related to the ability to perceive language
• Consider how the development of thought and the development of language interrelate
• Understand the Critical Period Hypothesis

Lesson 4: Writing Systems

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 12

In Lesson 4 we will look at the various systems human societies have created to capture their native language in a more permanent form

Objectives:

• Learn to distinguish between preliterate, literate, and illiterate societies
• Learn the names of the major writing systems used in human societies
• Learn the distinguishing features of each type of writing system
• Learn examples of langauges that use each type of writing system
• Learn what is hard for students switching from one writing system to the English alphabetic system

Lesson 5: History of The English Language

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 11

In Lesson 5 we will look at how languages are related to each other and how they change over time, with a special focus on the place of English and the changes it has undergone through time.

Objectives:

• Learn the genetic classifications of languages
• Learn the linguistic family to which English belongs
• Learn the general causes of language change
• Learn the three periods of English and their major characteristics
• Learn the causes of the changes between the three periods of English
• Learn how the changes English has undergone present challenges for English Learners.

Lesson 6: Sociolinguistics

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 10

In Lesson 6 we will look at how languages differ within themselves depending upon the social characteristics of the users of the language

• Understand the terms that refer to various varieties of a language: language, dialect, pidgin, creole, idolect, sociolect, and ethnolect
• Understand the difference between standard and nonstandard langauge
• Understand the difference between prescriptive and descriptive rules and how grammatical language relates to standard language
• Understand the various terms for rules of word choice: jargon, slang, idiom, and taboo

Lesson 7: Phonetics

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 6

In Lesson 7 we will look at how sounds are produced in languages, with particular attention to the sounds of English.

Objectives:

• Understand the airstream mechanisms that produce langauge sounds
• Understand the difference between consonants and vowels
• Understand the places of articulation of speech sounds
• Understand the manners of articulation of speech sounds
• Understand the statuses of the vocal folds in the production of langauge sounds
• Become familiar with the symbols of the International Phonetic Alphabet

Lesson 8: Phonology

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 7

In Lesson 8 we will look at how sounds are combined together in languages, with particular attention to the sound combination rules of English.

Objectives:

• Understand the difference between phones and phonemes, and between phonemic transcription and phonetic transcription
• Understand the ways sounds are affected when combined in the speech stream: assimilation, dissimilation, epenthesis, deletion
• Understand syllable structure in general and the syllable structure of English in particular
• Develop the ability to identify which process is at work in the production of certain words in English.
• Learn how aspects of phonology create accents non-native speakers of English

Lesson 9: Morphology

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 3

In Lesson 9 we will look at how words are formed in languages, with a special focus on word formation in English.

Objectives:

• Learn the linguistic definition of word
• Learn the linguistic definition of morpheme
• Learn to identify the number of morphemes in English words
• Learn to distinguish between words, morphemes, roots, bases, and stems
• Learn various processes of word formation, including
• Affixation
• Compounding
• Cliticization
• Reduplication
• Internal mutation
• Suppletion
• Suprafixation
• Learn how word formation aspects of English show up in the ESL classroom

Lesson 10: Syntax

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 4

In Lesson 10 we will look at how sentences are formed in languages, with particular attention to the sentence formation rules of English.

Objectives:

• Understand the difference between grammatical and ungrammatical language
• Understand the difference between standard and nonstandard langauge
• Understand the difference between prescriptive and descriptive rules and how grammatical language relates to standard language
• Understand the role of the lexicon in sentence formation
• Understand the role of word order in sentence formation and its formal presentation in phrase structure rules
• Understand the concept of constituency
• Develop the ability to analyze sentences with tree diagrams.
• Learn how aspects of sentence formation show up in the ESL classroom

Lesson 11: Semantics

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 5

In Lesson 11 we will look at how meaning is attached to language.

Objectives:

• Understand the different types of signs with particular attention to symbols.
• Understand the relationships of words to each other within the same langauge system: synonyms, antonyms, hypomyms, homomyms, heteronyms, homographs, polysemes, synecdoche, metonyms.
• Understand the relationship of a word to its real world referents, especially prototype theory and metaphor theory
• Understand the relationship of a word to the user of a word, especially prototype theory and the concepts of denotation and connotation.

Lesson 12: Pragmatics

Reading Assignment: Fromkin, Rodman, & Hyams Chapter 5

In Lesson 12 we will look at how languages are connected to the context within which it is used, and how users of the language exploit the context for meaning.

Objectives:

• Understand the difference between pragmatics and sociolinguistics
• Understand deixis
• Understand the relationship between syntax and information flow.
• Understand Grice's cooperative principle
• Understand speech act theory