Transcript Practical Linguistics

Practical
Linguistics
Investigating language as it is
today in Britain and across Europe
The Course
Where we are
Pure vs. Applied Linguistics
Investigative skills
Aspects of contemporary linguistics
The studies
Where we are
Introduction to linguistics: language,
linguistics, phonetics, phonology,
morphology, syntax, semantics, the
English language, comparative
historical linguistics, pragmatics,
sociolinguistics, anthropological
linguistics, language acquisition
Script decipherment, cultural
linguistics and rongorongo
Pure vs. Applied Linguistics
Applied linguistics will provide the
fields of interest and will affect the
methodology used
Pure linguistics will enable us to break
down language into varieties and
variables for analysis
Investigative Skills
The Observer’s Paradox (Labov)
Aspects of Contemporary
Linguistics
What is the origin of language?
Classifying languages and the problem of
language isolates
How can infants learn a language?
The problem of pronouns in machine translation
The treatment of language by people with aphasia
Developing dictionaries and thesauruses for
artificial intelligence
Ecolinguistics
Documenting the 4 endangered indigenous
languages of Central Maluku (Indonesia)
Acquiring literacy in English
The Studies
There are numerous studies you will be
able to choose from to undertake this year.
Here are the fields available:
1) Teenspeak in the playground
2) A comparison of some Indo-European languages
3) Semantic shifts in contemporary English: e.g. ‘gay – gay – gay’
4) The manipulation of language by politicians
5) Comparing politeness formulae across European standard language
communities
6) How minority languages survive (e.g. Welsh)
7) How to advertise to children
8) Examples of ingrouping and outgrouping
9) Language and silence used as discourse weapons
10) Text messaging and the future of friendship building and maintaining
Planning an investigation
CHOOSE A TOPIC
GATHER DATA
SCRUTINISE THE DATA
ORGANISE THE DATA
CHOOSE A METHOD OF ANALYSIS
DO FOLLOW-UP RESEARCH
CARRY OUT ANALYSIS
DRAW CONCLUSIONS
VALIDATE THE RESULTS
WRITE UP THE INVESTIGATION