LINGUISTICS IN 20 HOURS OR LESS
R. David Zorc
Language Research Center, McNeil Inc.

This course is intended for self study by someone who would like an introduction to linguistics, but who may have neither the time nor the inclination to enroll in a course on the subject. It is written in simple terms, but aims to introduce technical linguistic terminology, but only after a simple introduction to each topic, drawing wherever possible from English examples.

There are several scenarios that may represent your own situation:
- You may be a student about to embark on the study of another language. However, you are intimidated by some of the jargon you see in the textbook or a description of that language.
- You may be an employee of a school or company involved in language research or language teaching, and you would like to know more about what your office mates do for a living.
- You may be a teacher who has discovered that language is the primary tool of your trade. With the exception of “show and tell” demonstrations (such as driving a car, basket-weaving, tying knots, or cooking), most instruction in any subject takes place via language. Knowing how language works, how people communicate, etc. may prove helpful in reaching your students in new ways.

Many years ago, after I finished a long series of aptitude and career placement tests, it was recommended that I consider a career in linguistics. I rejected this proposal and responded with some pretty unflattering words, for I could not see the relevance of such a profession. So, I joined the Peace Corps in order to defer any career decisions. After exposure to several Philippine languages, I was “bitten by the bug.” In effect, I became a linguist by trying to avoid linguistics.

There is a paradox between a linguist (who strives for abstractions, logic, scientific-systematication, elegance), and a speaker or language-learner (who strives for understanding, communication, rapport). Linguists have the frustrating job of looking for logic that just may not be there: true duality of patterning!

TOPICS TO BE COVERED

§01 WHAT IS A LINGUIST AND WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?
What is linguistics?
What is a linguist?
What does a linguist do for a living?
Overview of linguistics.
Overcoming some misconceptions: language is primarily speech, not writing.

§02 SOUNDS (PHONETICS)
Introduction to the IPA (the International Phonetic Alphabet)
Writing down (transcribing) every possible sound found in any language (i.e., capable of representing human speech).
Consonants: Places and manners of articulation; voiced vs. voiceless
Vowels: High – Mid – Low; Front – Central - Back
Exercise: reading a story transcribed in the IPA

§03 IMPORTANT SOUNDS (PHONOLOGY)
Finding out which sounds group together as important to a given language.
Emic vs. etic.
Minimal Pair
English phonology vs. English spelling

§04 SOUND CHANGES (MORPHOPHONEMICS)

§05 ROOTS (MORPHOLOGY Part 1)

§06 AFFIXATION OR WORD BUILDING (MORPHOLOGY Part 2)

§07 SENTENCE-BUILDING (GRAMMAR or SYNTAX)

§08 NOUNS

§09 VERBS

§10 OTHER PARTS OF SPEECH

§11 VOCABULARY AND A DICTIONARY

§12 MEANING (SEMANTICS #1)

§13 SPECIAL KINDS OF MEANING MEANING (SEMANTICS #2)

§14 LANGUAGE USE (COMMUNICATING, CONTEXT, PRAGMATICS)

§15 LANGUAGE AND CULTURE #1

§16 LANGUAGE AND CULTURE #2: PARALANGUAGE (THE SILENT LANGUAGE = KINESICS & BODY LANGUAGE

§17 LANGUAGE PEDAGOGY (TEACHING & LEARNING)

§18 LANGUAGE FAMILIES & ENDANGERED LANGUAGES

§19 LANGUAGE HISTORY

§20 WRITING SYSTEMS

§01 WHAT IS A LINGUIST AND WHAT IS LINGUISTICS?

Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It is not the study of any given language, but of what goes on in language in general. It may come as some surprise that linguistics was only recently considered a science. From the eighteen hundreds through the 1960’s, it was felt that linguistics simply catalogued facts about different languages. It was compared to botany (which many felt was also not a true science), which cataloged facts about the plant world. It was therefore not a science because it was not believed to have any predictive power. For that reason, if a university offered any aspect of linguistics in its program, the professors and their subject matter were placed within the department of philology (literally: the love of words), where such subjects as literature, poetry, and dictionary-making (lexicography) were being taught.

Linguistics is a science because it:
1.	describes (makes statements of facts about language and languages).
2.	classifies (puts sounds, words, even languages into groups or categories based on numerous criteria).
3.	predicts (suggests such things as what a word would mean if it were coined, how a word may have been pronounced hundreds or even thousands of years ago, what (within reason) a person might say in a given situation, etc.).
4.	states (gives the “rules” or “laws” of human language or those found in a particular language such as English, French, Swahili, or Hawaiian).

Sometimes when we meet someone who speaks several languages fluently or who can pick up a language easily, we may call him or her a linguist. This is certainly one of the primary meanings of the word. But anyone who studies facts about language (in general) can be called a linguist, much like a person who deals with physics is a physicist. In fact, there are (I am tempted to add the word “unfortunately”) many people who call themselves linguists who only know one language (their mother tongue). They have never either successfully or seriously undertaken the study of another language. Because they are specialists in linguistics -- be they students, teachers or theoreticians in that subject area -- they are linguists.

Whenever we begin to study something, we bring with us some ideas (or prejudices) about that subject, be it economics, physics, or massage. In other words, we carry with us a certain amount of baggage, some of which we may need to offload as we learn more about the topic. Not so surprisingly, most of our ideas about language are influenced by reading and writing (which we don’t do nearly as much as speaking and listening). If you don’t believe me, consider the following true or false questions.

LINGUISTIC ORIENTATION QUIZ
Oh no! not so soon! Don’t worry! No grades are assigned, but your answers to the following will help to show you your attitudes towards language and your aptitude for linguistic study.

Mark the appropriate line (True or False)	True	False
 1.	Spanish is a more phonetic language than English.	___	___
 2.	Spelling is a good guide to English pronunciation.	___	___
 3.	Great authors of the past are good models for
	English usage.	___	___
 4.	Primitive people speak dialects, not languages.	___	___
 5.	Writing systems show the cultural level of a people.	___	___
 6.	German is a perfect language for swearing.	___	___
 7.	The best way to understand English grammar is to 
	know Latin.	___	___
 8.	“Ain’t” is uneducated usage.	___	___
 9.	English has five vowels and two semi-vowels.	___	___
10.	A question mark means that the voice has to rise
	at the end of a sentence.	___	___
11.	Unless the rules of grammar are firmly commited
	to memory, a pupil cannot speak English properly.	___	___
12.	Language is a set of habits	___	___
13.	Unwritten languages have simpler grammars than
	written languages.	___	___
14.	Sanskrit is the oldest language in the world.	___	___
15.	Etymology tells you the real meaning of a word.	___	___
16.	Italian is a musical language.	___	___
17.	A word and a sentence can never be the same thing.	___	___
18.	Linguistic terminology is an unncessary means of
	showing off; simple words could explain the same
	things.	___	___
19.	Bilingual education is a waste of tax dollars.	___	___
20.	English has no gender.	___	___

Keep speaking and writing separate.

Linguists deal with and describe up to seven levels of abstraction for any particular language. These are presented just below from the “top down, ” i.e., in an order opposite that normally used in a linguistic study.

Any language can be described as having seven systems. For example, there is:
1. The cultural system within which a given language fits = Ethnology.
2. The discourse system, where appropriate words and patterns are selected for the specific situation at hand, and people understand based on the context of any given speech act. = Pragmatics or Discourse Analysis.
3. The meaning system, where words and expressions get both their basic meaning and special overtones = Semantics.
4. The lexical system, specific for each language, where words are made to conform with the daily needs of the speakers = Lexicon.
5. The grammatical system that determines the order and shape of words in any given sentence = Syntax.
6. The system involved with word building, e.g., un-friend-li-ness = Morphology.
7. The sound system which contains the various sounds used to build up words, anyone who has learned a different language knows how different this is: people who do not master the sound system speak with an accent and regional variations within a given language represent dialects that almost always have a different pronunciation that characterizes that region = Phonology.

Each of these will be discussed in some detail as we proceed through the remaining 19 topics.

In course development, we often go about building up a speaking competence from the “bottom up” (that is, in reverse order), starting out with SOUND DRILLS (at least on the more difficult sounds for English speakers) and hoping to achieve awareness of cultural niceties by the end of the period of study. Of course, we do a lot of mixing of these levels within the curriculum, so that grammar and vocabulary development occur on a lesson-by-lesson basis, as should be the case. Nevertheless, it is good to be aware of all of these, so that they can be covered overall.

	AIM / HOPE		PROBLEM STUDENTS ENCOUNTER
1.	ACCENTLESS SPEECH		Heavy accent (usual if older)
2.	WORD DERIVATION		Mixing of parts of speech
3.	CORRECT GRAMMAR		Errors with irregular forms; improper
 			 word order
4.	COMPLETE VOCABULARY		Circumlocution if word not known
5.	APPROPRIATE USE		Translations from mother-tongue
6.	CORRECT FLOW		Mixing speech levels; halting
7.	CULTURAL AWARENESS		Unintended offenses

A COMPRENSIVE LANGUAGE COURSE SHOULD INCLUDE:

1.	INTONATION as well as PRONUNCIATION DRILLS.
2.	PATTERN DRILLS focusing on inflections and derivations, sub-parts of speech, etc.
3.	FULL DISCUSSION OF ALL IRREGULAR PARADIGMS (child + -s  = children, good + -er = better, go + -ed = went, one + -st = first).
4.	BASIC VOCABULARY drawn from actual studies of word frequency; field-specific vocabulary for students with actual goals (e.g., translation of political texts, scientific usage, etc.).
5.	MEANING RELATIONSHIPS as defined within the culture (e.g., divisions of a day or season, male-female speech types, food-stuffs and their importance, etc.).
6.	DISCOURSE TYPES (imperatives and how one might command politely, questions and how or to whom they may be addressed, speech levels or dialects and how these may affect understanding, etc.).
7.	CULTURAL TRAITS (including greetings, forms of address, polite speech down through curses, body language and appropriate gestures, physical distance between speakers, etc.).