MODL 1010 - The Language Phenomenon

Goals: To understand language, the uniquely human enterprise, and particularly the English language. To describe language – its sound patterns, its forms, its meanings, its structural patterns. To determine how languages are born, evolve, and die. To discern how both first and second languages are acquired.

Content: English phonetics, phonology, morphology, writing, syntax, semantics. Language both in its social context – dialects, slang, taboos, language acquisition—and in its historical context—philology and etymology. Class activities may include reading from Lewis Carroll, collecting of speech samples from sound tracks, media, and the street, creating a new language and analyzing word games.
Taught: Annually.