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ENG122A: Introduction to Linguistics

Course Description

The course is an introduction to the field of linguistics. The objective of the course is to familiarize students with the internal structure of language and to sensitize them to the issues of language use.

Course Content

PART A- with Usha Udaar

  1. Introduction to Linguistics & areas of study, Verbal and non-verbal communication, Sign language, Human & non-human communication. [3 lectures]
  2. Design features of Language, Language Myths, Prescriptive and Descriptive Grammar, Language as a rule governed system.  [3 lectures]
  3. Introduction to phonetics, classification of sounds- vowels and consonants, phonemes and allophones, syllable structure.   [3 lectures]
  4. Introduction to morphology, concept of morphemes and allomorphs, word formation processes.     [4 lectures]
  5. Language at the level of sentence, phrases and its types, Word order, case and agreement, question formation and types of interrogation.  [3 lectures]
  6. Language at the level of meaning, concept of ambiguity, literal vs. non literal. [2 lectures]

PART B- with Achla Raina

  1. What it means to know a language: the languaging potential [1 Lecture]
  2. Understanding language: the problem of meaning making [1 Lecture]
  3. More on understanding language: reference, combinatoriality and cognitive underpinnings [2 Lectures] 
  4. Language in context: lists and procedures in context [1 Lecture]
  5. Linguistic Variation: linguistic prejudice and inequality, standardization and post-standardization, language disadvantage in education, atypical populations [4 Lectures]
  6. Language and identity: language choice and linguistic identities [1 Lecture]
  7. Language and culture: cross-linguistic choices, reference as re-naming, syntactic choices, and usage conventions, translatability across cultures [4 lectures] 
  8. Language and cognition: categorization; linguistic relativism, untranslatables, language reform, empirical issues in linguistic relativism; literary representation of linguistic determinism, post truth social order [5 lectures] 

Course Audience

IITK UG students