Tentative syllabus for:
Introduction to Linguistics 英語語言學概論
Fall 2007 and Spring 2008
Winter vacation homework
Professor Karen Chung 史嘉琳老師
Wednesday, periods 3, 4, and @, 10:20am to 1:10pm, in 視 202
(with one five-minute break and one 15-minute lunch break;
try to bring your own lunch to eat outside the classroom)

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Spring 2008

     Note: As part of every week's routine assignments, write two questions, significant points you learned, or comments/critiques based on each file that does not include exercises. This is not required if the file has exercises, including files that are only exercises.
     Note that this syllabus is tentative and subject to change. New links will be added as the semester progresses.

The Language Files Website: Lots of useful links
Khinalug: Digital portrait of an endangered language (20-minute video)
More language videos

February 20: Discussion of language observations collected over Winter break.
      Prepare for next week: Language Files Chapter 14, Language and Computers, file 14.1 "Introduction to Language and Computers", file 14.2, "Corpus Linguistics" – do the exercises; and file 14.3, "Machine Translation" (no need to do the exercises for 14.3 – we already did something similar last semester), p. 465-476, as preparation for Prof. Gao's lecture on computational linguistics next week, February 27.
     Assignment: Choose one of your three observations, or a new topic, as a research topic, as though for a term paper, and begin collecting references on it. Follow MLA bibliographic format (MLA Citation Style Sheet – use italics instead of underlining!). Also outline the steps you would need to follow to collect the data needed for your topic. Due March 12.
     You will have the option to develop this into a full 10-page term paper. This is not required, but you may do it for extra credit, i.e. up to 10 points added on to your final grade for the course. Those of you considering graduate work in linguistics may want to pursue this option so you have a paper ready when you apply.

Local link:
NLP (Natural Language Processing) vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) Wikipedia: Plattdeutsch
(2) Plattdeutsch singer Knut Kiesewetter

February 27: Introduction to computational linguistics by Prof. Gao Zhaoming.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 14, files 14.4 "Speech Synthesis", 14.5 "Communicating with Computers" – do exercise 1 only, dialog with ELIZA, and Chapter 15, file 15.3 "The Whorf Hypothesis", p. 477-487; 505-508.

External links:
(1) Samite of Uganda
(2) Wikipedia: Luganda

Local links:
(1) Professor Gao's PowerPoint slides on resources in computational linguistics
(2) NLP (Natural Language Processing) vocabulary in Chinese
(3) Chinese corpus resources
(4) English corpus resources
(5) Chinese passage for IPA practice

March 5: Finish sharing observations on language. Chapter 14, file 14.4 "Speech Synthesis", file 14.5 "Communicating with Computers", and Chapter 15, file 15.3 "The Whorf Hypothesis", p. 477-487; 505-508; discussion of articles on Pirahã and learning Arabic.  
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 9, Psycholinguistics, file 9.1 "What is Psycholinguistics?", file 9.2 "Language and the Brain" – do the exercises, and file 9.3 "Theories of Language Acquisition"– do the exercises; p. 269-289.

Local links:
(1) NLP (Natural Language Processing) vocabulary in Chinese
(2) Psycholinguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) Benjamin Whorf (1897 - 1941) bio
(2) The Benjamin Whorf Website
(3) Dan Moonhawk Alford on Whorf
(4) Scientific American: A Way with Words. Do languages help mold the way we think? A controversial idea from the 1930s is getting a second look.
(5) Wikipedia: Austro-Asiatic languages
(6) Overview on Khmer language
(7) Khmer pop music MP3s of Cambodia 柬埔寨 (optional Khmer fonts here)
(8) Japan Times: Translation of Record of Cambodia: The Land and Its People, by Zhou Daguan
(9) Brain lateralization

March 12: Chapter 9, Psycholinguistics, file 9.1 "What is Psycholinguistics?", file 9.2 "Language and the Brain" with exercises, and file 9.3 "Theories of Language Acquisition" with exercises; p. 269-289.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 9, Psycholinguistics, file 9.4 "First Language Acquisition: Acquisition of Speech Sounds and Phonology" – do the exercises, file 9.5 "First Language Acquisition: Acquisition of Morphology, Syntax and Word Meaning", and file 9.6 "Milestones in Motor and Language Development", p. 290-307.
     Hand in your research topic with references you have found on it and outline of your research procedure.

Local links:
(1) Psycholinguistics vocabulary in Chinese
(2) Language acquisition vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) Brain lateralization
(2) LSA videos on language acquisition
(3) Functional areas of the brain
(4) TED: Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight Amazing firsthand account of a stroke by a brain scientist
(5) Scientific American: Girl Talk: Are Women Really Better at Language? New research shows that young girls may learn language more completely than their male peers

March 19: Chapter 9, Psycholinguistics, file 9.4 "First Language Acquisition: Acquisition of Speech Sounds and Phonology" with exercises, file 9.5 "First Language Acquisition: Acquisition of Morphology, Syntax and Word Meaning", and file 9.6 "Milestones in Motor and Language Development", p. 290-307.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 9, Psycholinguistics, file 9.7 "How Adults Talk to Young Children", file 9.8 "Adult Language Processing", do exercise 2 only, file 9.9 "Errors in Speech Production and Perception", do exercise 1a as described in textbook; for exercise 2, choose your own short phrase in English, Mandarin or Southern Min (if your partner is good at Southern Min), p. 308-325.

Local link:
Psycholinguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) TED: Jill Bolte Taylor: My stroke of insight Amazing firsthand account of a stroke by a brain scientist
(2) Scientific American: Self Experimenters: Can 200,000 Hours of Baby Talk Untie a Robot's Tongue?
Deb Roy wants to make robots smarter by getting them to imitate his kid
(3) Scientific American: What Explains Toddlers' Linguistic Leap? Math Simple math may explain why toddlers experience a sudden burst of words—and why some talk earlier and more than others
(4) BBC: Monkeys challenge language theory: Researchers have found that monkeys combine calls to make them meaningful in the same way that humans do
(5) NYT: Medvedev. Mehd-V(y)EHD-yehf. Whatever. First language interference, cultural attitudes and habits
(6) a. NYT: A Boy Named Sue, and a Theory of Names A child with an awful name might grow up to be a relatively normal adult.
      b. YouTube: Johnny Cash singing "A Boy Named Sue"
(7) The Seattle Times: EWU prof.: Obama wins presidential name game
(8) Amazon: Putumayo Presents: South Pacific Islands Songs in Tokelau (Samoa/New Zealand), Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Tolai (Papua New Guinea), Nengone (New Caledonia)
(9) YouTube: Papua New Guinea pop: Dumen Medley - K-Dumen

March 26: Chapter 9, Psycholinguistics, file 9.7 "How Adults Talk to Young Children", file 9.8 "Adult Language Processing", exercise 2 only, file 9.9 "Errors in Speech Production and Perception", exercise 1a as described in textbook; for exercise 1b, choose your own short phrase in English, Mandarin or Southern Min (if your partner is good at Southern Min), p. 308-325.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 10, Language Variation, file 10.1 "Introduction to Language Variation", file 10.2 "Variation at Different Levels of Linguistic Structure" – do the exercises, and file 10.3 "Language and Socioeconomic Status" – do the exercises, p. 327-339.

Local links:
(1) Psycholinguistics vocabulary in Chinese
(2) Sociolinguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) The Sun (UK): Bad Chinglish literature binned Thousands of dodgy translations are being scrapped in Beijing in the run-up to this summer’s Olympic Games in the Chinese capital.
(2) Highlands oral epics in danger of being lost Vietnamese reseachers have found an unexpected treasure in the form of epics handed down from generation to generation.
(3) AP: Recruiting Arabic translators still tough for US Army
(4) Timesleader.com: Judge orders four to learn English or go to jail
(5) Wikipedia: Portuguese; Geographic distribution of Portuguese
(6) Amazon: Portugal: Music from the Edge of Europe
(7) Amazon: Great Voices of Fado

April 2: Chapter 10, Language Variation, file 10.1 "Introduction to Language Variation", file 10.2 "Variation at Different Levels of Linguistic Structure" with exercises, file 10.3 "Language and Socioeconomic Status" with exercises, p. 327-339.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 10, Language Variation, file 10.4 "Language and Region", file 10.5 "Language and Ethnicity: The Case of African-American English", and file 10.6 "An Official Language for the United States?", p. 340-355.

Local link:
Sociolinguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) Sample narrative in African-American English from the Language Files site (.wav)
(2) Mystery dialect: What variety of what language is this??? Do you recognize any words? (Listen before reading the label on the recording.) Description here.
(3) Dear Abby: Being one of the guys is insulting to many gals
(4) Boston.com: Hawaiian language making strong comeback
(5) Wikipedia: Shona language
(6) mbira.org: Forward Kwenda (Mbira camp information available on this site)
(7) Amazon: Svikiro: Meditations from a Mbira Master, with samples
(8) Mbira Music Samples; some by Forward Kwenda, also Erica Azim of mbira.org

April 9: Chapter 10, Language Variation, file 10.4 "Language and Region", file 10.5 "Language and Ethnicity: The Case of African-American English", and file 10.6 "An Official Language for the United States?", p. 340-355.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 10, Language Variation, file 10.7 "Language and Gender", file 10.8 "Variation in Speech Style" – do exercises 2-5 (not 1), and give your answers in Chinese for exercise 2; file 10.9 "Case Studies", and do the exercises in file 10.10 "Language Variation Exercises" p. 356-375.

Local link:
Sociolinguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) Wikipedia: Gullah language   Appalachian English
(2) Gullah Net: Explore Gullah culture in South Carolina with Aunt Pearlie-Sue Introduction to Gullah culture for children – music, tales, events, listen to Gullah
(3) NYT: Clarence Thomas and Gullah English
(4) Dictionary: Southern Appalachian English
(5) African American Vernacular English
(7) Sample narrative in African-American English from the Language Files site (.wav)
(8) Tulsa Today: English Language Bill Advances In Oklahoma House Under the provisions of the bill, private individuals and businesses would still be allowed to use whatever language they choose. The bill also contains exemptions for the languages of Oklahoma's 39 federally recognized Native American tribes and allows the use of both Braille and sign language in government services.
(9) Washington Post: Study: Dyslexia Differs by Language Dyslexia affects different parts of children's brains depending on whether they are raised reading English or Chinese.
(10) Wikipedia: the Ukrainian language
(12) Mila Vocal Ensemble: The Girl was Planting (This group sings in many languages besides Ukrainian)
(13) Real Black Radio Listen to AAE online   More Black radio stations
(14) LSA videos on language variation

April 16: Chapter 10, Language Variation, file 10.7 "Language and Gender", file 10.8 "Variation in Speech Style" with exercises 2-5 (not 1), and give your answer in Chinese for exercise 2; file 10.9 "Case Studies", and file 10.10 "Language Variation Exercise" p. 356-375.

     Psycholinguistics/neurolinguistics talk by Dr. Shiaohui Chan 詹曉蕙博士 Title: Mind/Brain and Language 12:10pm to 1:10pm in the Mini-Theatre of the Audio-Visual Center; our class and Prof. Gao's class will move to the Mini-Theatre at 12:10pm to hear the talk. Please have your lunch either during the first break at 11:10 or after the talk.

Abstract:
     This talk is mainly for students who are interested in language but only have minimal background in linguistics. I will discuss why understanding the biological foundations of language can help answer questions that interest linguists, and will give an introduction to the use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related brain potential (ERP) techniques in language research. Two language experiments will be presented to illustrate how these two techniques can be used.

     Dr. Shiaohui Chan received her PhD degree from the Linguistics Department of the University of Arizona in 2007. She is a postdoctoral scholar and is affiliated with the Center for Mind and Brain and the Neurology Department at UC Davis. She is interested in the biological foundations of language and semantic memory.

     Next week: Mid-term exam. Material covered in mid-term: Chapters 9, 10, 14, and Chapter 15, file 15.3.
     Also prepare: Chapter 11, Language Contact, file 11.1 "Language Contact", p. 377-382.

     Begin writing research paper.
     Hints on paper writing: How to Write a Research Paper;    How to Write a Term Paper;    The Research Process;    How to Write an A+ Research Paper;    Writing a Research Paper.    Use MLA bibliograpahic citation style.    Sample first page of a term paper.    Online Pinyin converter.    Pinyin tone tool.

Local links:
(1) Sociolinguistics vocabulary in Chinese
(2) Centralized diphthongs are more commonly called "Canadian raising"; explanation and links to audio samples here

External links:
(1) Washington Post: If They're Lost, Who Are We? An essay by author David Treuer, Ojibwe, expressing his feelings about the loss of Native American languages and cultures.
(2) The Globe and Mail: A 10,000-year-old word puzzle A linguistic adventurer chases down an ancient language in Siberia and discovers a surprising connection to modern languages in North America
(3) The Casper Star-Tribune: Shoshone woman devotes her life to preserving native language
(4) NYT Opinion: Ving, Vang, Vong. Or, the Pleasures of a New Vocabulary. "It brings me back to that childhood feeling of being happily encumbered with new words and trying them out tentatively, watching to see, on the faces around me, whether I’d misused them."
(5) NYT: Names That Match Forge a Bond on the Internet Now that the telephone book has been all but replaced by the minutiae-rich Web, searching out, even stalking, the people who share one’s name has become a common pastime. Bloggers muse about their multiple digital selves, known as Google twins or Googlegängers.
(6) YouTube: Sort Of Dunno Nothin' - Peter Denahy Hilarious music video that gives new meaning to the word "laconic". Fun Australian accents.
(7) The Guardian (UK): Scientists find secret ingredient for making (and losing) lots of money - testosterone Study links male hormone with earning power, but too much can lead to irrational risk-taking.
(8) This American Life: Testosterone What would life be like without testosterone? Or with lots and lots of it?
(9) Wikipedia: Latvian language
(10) Ingrid Karklins: A Darker Passion
(11) Yahoo: 英婦無法自聲音分辨人 科學家無解 (Thanks to Eleanor for this link!) Here is the original report:
New Scientist: Making the Science The first known case of someone who has never been able to recognise voices.
(12) Slate Explainer: Why did William Buckley talk like that? Wikipedia: "Buckley came late to formal instruction in the English language, not learning it until he was seven years old (his first language was Spanish, learned in Mexico, and his second French, learned in Paris). As a consequence, he spoke English with an idiosyncratic accent: something between an old-fashioned, upper class Mid-Atlantic accent and British Received Pronunciation."
       b. NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross: William F. Buckley, Irrepressible Conservative Includes the 1989 interview held with Buckley, so you can judge his accent for yourself; in this interview he has some southern features
(13) a. Listen to Archie Bunker's (from the TV sitcom "All in the Family") New York City accent; note how he hypercorrectively adds /r/ to the word "point" b. Sample of Brooklyn English
(14) To hear more /r/-less New York City English, try online talk radio; you may be able to find more "authentic" New York City accents in the listener call-ins or commercials; many DJs speak more standard American English 1010WINS.com  More New York talk stations (this will require time and persistence) You may hear some good, representative black English and New York City accents over WBAI (Thanks to Prof. David Branner of New York City for his suggested links)
(15) Gothamist: New York City Accents Changing with the Times Is New York City losing its distinctive accents?
(16) Listen to an "r-less" Rhode Island accent: Monologue by the late Spalding Gray on "This American Life"
(17) NYT: He Wrote 200,000 Books (but Computers Did Some of the Work) Would you notice it if the book you're reading was written by a computer? What one man does with artificial intelligence
(18) NYT: Eugene Ehrlich, 85, Word Connoisseur, Dies Author of You’ve Got Ketchup on Your Muumuu: An A-to-Z Guide to English Words From Around the World among many other works on language

April 23: Mid-term exam. Material covered in mid-term: Chapters 9, 10, 14, and Chapter 15, file 15.3.
     Chapter 11, Language Contact, file 11.1 "Language Contact", p. 377-382.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 11, Language Contact, file 11.2 "Pidgin Languages"; homework: translate passage below from Tok Pisin into standard English; file 11.3 "Creole Languages", and file 11.4 "Borrowings into English"; homework: find more examples of Chinese loan words in English; there is a list for your reference here; p. 383-394.
     
Local link:
Sociolinguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) a. Colorado University News: Saving dying languages: CU researchers help native speakers save history The Wichita language, once spoken by thousands, has one remaining voice. Doris Jean Lamar McLemore, 80, considers it a happenstance that she – the daughter of an Indian mother and white father – has become the guardian of her tribe's language that is precariously close to extinction.
     b. Newswise.com: Preserving a Language and Culture: Teaching Choctaw in the Public Schools Headquartered at the tribe’s Oklahoma School of Choctaw Language and Culture in Durant, classes go out to schools in southeastern Oklahoma via Interactive Educational Television, a system that allows a teacher in a studio to teach classes at several schools at once.
     c. Santa Barbara Independent: Chumash Dictionary Breathes Life into Moribund Language Richard Applegate, a linguist hired by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash, has been working with tribal elders and five apprentices to teach them the language that he unearthed while completing his doctoral thesis at Berkeley in the late 1960s.
(2) a. NYT: At 60, He Learned to Sing So He Could Learn to Talk ...doctors diagnosed an ischemic stroke, caused by a blockage in blood flow to part of the left half of his brain. As a result...he had trouble coming up with the right words and stringing them into sentences — a condition called aphasia..."The combination of melodic intonation and hand-tapping activates a system of the right side of the brain that is always there, but is not typically used for speech"
      b. BBC: How Singing Unlocks the Brain As Bill Bundock's Alzheimer's progressed he became more and more locked into his own world...but all this changed when the couple started attending a local sing-song group, aimed especially for people with dementia...Singing for the Brain had unlocked Bill's communication block.
     Related quote: "Music education is imperative for anyone to grow up complete...Without the arts – including music – we risk graduating young people who are 'right brain damaged'"  - Paul Harvey
(3) a. The Spelling Society: Poems showing the absurdities of English spelling
      b. A.Word.A.Day: Travails of English: A collection of poems and essays
      c. Vasta.org: Just Desserts
(4) Wikipedia: Turkish language
(5) Wikipedia: Turkish singer Zülfü Livaneli
(6) YouTube: Zülfü Livaneli singing "Gözlerin" ('Your lights')
(7) Turkish dictionary
(8) The Turkish Suffix Dictionary
(9) Geek2Geek: "I Didn’t Say You Stole My Money" and We Don’t Write, We Speak With Our Fingers
(10) Discovery News: Barking Dogs Have Something to Say The emotion conveyed by a dog's bark often seems obvious to its human companions, but new research shows just how clear the message can be -- at least, to other dogs.
(11) Listen to Tok Pisin online from Radio Australia. Choose a program and click on "Harim Progrem". Click on "Ritim Progrem" to see part of the written text being read. How much can you understand? What kinds of recent direct loans from contemporary English do you hear/see? What are the differences between the original English vocabulary of Tok Pisin and recent loans? Click on "Mipela Husat" (what does this mean?) to see a picture of some of the Tok Pisin broadcasters.

     Try to translate this short news report into standard English. You may need to take compounds apart, check related stories online, and do a bit of deduction and guessing.

Australia: PM Rudd i tok aut long nupla sanis long ol has-ples pipol      13/02/2008 8:46:43 PM

     Praim Minista blong Australia, Kevin Rudd i mekim wanpela singaut long nupela wok-bung insait long ol wok kamap blong ol has-ples pipol blong Australia bihainim tok sori igo long ol ol lain pipol ol i kolim 'Stolen Generations'.
     Dispela hap tok i makim planti tausen ol Aborigine pikinini, em ol ibin rausim ol long femili na ples blong ol long planti yar.
     Louise Yaxley i ripot i ripot Kevin Rudd na Brendan Nelson i tok sori long ol pipol, em ol i kisim ol long femili na karim ol igo long narapela lain.
     Dr Nelson na Mr Rudd i sikan na i promis long wok bungwantaim insait long wanpela nupela bung policy commission.
     Na nambawan wok ol bai mekim, em long kirapim wanpela housing plen blong ol lain komuniti i stap longwe tru bihainim dispela nupela wok poro blong olgeta politikal pati.
     Man, husait ibin halvim long raitim ripot "Bringing Them Home" blong ol Stolen Generations, Mick Dodson, i tok dispela Tok Sori tede, em i wanpela dei blong bikpela hamamas.
     Source: http://www.abc.net.au/ra/tokpisin/news/s2162112.htm

Tok Pisin-English dictionary
Pidgin-English dictionary (use the "control-F" "Find" method to look up words)
Freelang Tok Pisin-English dictionary
Tok Pisin, Motu, English Dictionary
Tok Pisin resource page by Nils R. Bull Young

April 30: Chapter 11, Language Contact, file 11.2 "Pidgin Languages", file 11.3 "Creole Languages", and file 11.4 "Borrowings into English"; discuss homework: Tok Pisin-standard English translation exercise, and Chinese loan words in English, p.383-394.
     Prepare for next week: Chapter 11, Language Contact, file 11.5 "Case Studies", Chapter 12, Language Change, file 12.1 "Language Change", file 12.2 "The Family Tree and Wave Models", p. 395-409.

Local links:
(1) Sociolinguistics vocabulary in Chinese
(2) Historical linguistics vocabulary in Chinese

External links:
(1) NYT: Walking the Talk Review of Derek Bickerton's new book, Bastard Tongues In this book "Bickerton... explains how he arrived at his own solution, the language bioprogram hypothesis... a pidgin becomes a Creole when children learn it, filling in the grammatical gaps with patterns and words that come not from any specific language but from some universal language template they all carry in their heads.
(2) Sample narrative in Belize Creole from the Language Files site (.wav file)
(3) Listen to Jamaican creole over the radio 2
(3) NYT: In Babel of Tongues, Suriname Seeks Itself Surinamese speak more than 10 other languages, including variants of Chinese, Hindi, Javanese and half a dozen original Creoles.
(4) McGill Reporter: The language that wasn't: Lise Winer’s passionate quest for the language of Trinidad
Example of Trinidad Creole: She real have broughtupcy. = 'She has very good manners.'
(5) (a) The Papiamentu Language   (b) Papiamentu Lessons   (c) Papiamentu translator
(6) Oxford University Press: The World Atlas of Language Structures Online WALS is a large database of structural (phonological, grammatical, lexical) properties of languages gathered from descriptive materials by a team of more than 40 authors