Linguistics 101, Spring 2014.

Discussion Sections on 1/27/2014

Today we mostly got to know a bit about each other. I talked a bit about my research and you also introduced yourselves.

Some other languages that are spoken by the students in the discussion sections (in addition to English) are French, Vietnamese, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese and Chinese.

I gave out a handout which had information about my office hours and where to find me and also highlighted points from the syllabus.

Then we had a short discussion on some of the material we learned in the last lecture on Friday 01/24/2014. Everything we went over can be found in the slides from the lecture on Moodle.

You can download the discussion handout here.

Discussion Sections on 2/3/2014
Today’s section was mostly dedicated to Essay #1, which is due on Monday 02/10 at 9AM. The essay is based on an article, a short video clip and the materials from the lectures. All the materials are available on Moodle.

We had a short discussion on the property of languages that make it distinct from other communication types (eg. animal communication).

Afterwards, we discussed the format which your essay should be in. I gave out the essay tips and also reminded of a grading rubric (available on Moodle as well), which you should check to make sure you won’t lose points.

Lastly, I gave out an example of two paragraphs, one of which was written according to our criteria and another wasn’t, and asked you to compare between them.

You can download the essay tips here and the exercise here.

I encourage you to email me with any questions if you encounter difficulties in writing the essay.

Discussion Sections on 2/10/2014

Today you got a chance to be linguists for an hour! I gave out data from various languages and you had to figure out their parts of speech and also the rules how their words and parts of speech are combined into bigger structures.

You can download the exercises here.

I also reminded you that you have an exam on Tuesday (which has Monday schedule). The exam is a multiple choice and covers the lecture materials only. I encourage you to come to my office hours if you would like a review/more explanation on any of the lectures or on the discussion section exercises.