ENGL 306A
Course Schedule
|
Week |
Module |
Readings and Other Assigned Material |
Activities and Assignments |
Begin Date |
End/Due Date |
Weight (%) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Week 1 |
Read the information contained in the Course Syllabus |
Introduce Yourself |
Ungraded |
|||
|
Week 2 |
Module 01 - Introduction: Humans and Language |
The Cognitive Basis of Language |
Interactive Exercise - Exploritorium Try This! Become a Word Historian |
Ungraded |
||
|
Week 3 |
Module 02 - History of Language Module 03 -Nature of Language and Linguistics |
The Cognitive Basis of Language |
Interactive Exercise - Exploritorium Try This! Which Languages are Related? |
Ungraded |
||
|
Week 4 |
Module 04 - Words/Lexicology |
What's in a Word? |
Task - Compounding |
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 9:00 AM |
4% |
|
|
Week 5 |
Module 05 - Morphology |
Meaningful Building Blocks |
Assignment 1 (Online Test) |
Monday, May 27, 2019 at 11:55 PM |
Wednesday, June 5, 2019 at 11:55 PM |
10% |
|
Task - Morphological Analysis |
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 9:00 AM |
4% |
||||
|
Week 6 |
Module 06 - Syntax |
Putting Concepts Together |
Assignment 2 |
Wednesday, June 12, 2019 at 11:55 PM |
10% |
|
|
Task - Syntactic Analysis |
Sunday, May 19, 2019 at 9:00 AM |
4% |
||||
|
Week 7 |
Module 07 - Phonetics |
Assignment 3 |
Wednesay, June 19, 2019 at 11:55 PM |
10% |
||
|
Week 8 |
Module 08 - Phonology |
The Sounds of Language |
Interactive Exercise - Phonetic Transcription Practice Exercises, Transcription Practice |
Ungraded |
||
|
Week 9 |
Module 09 - Semantics |
Language, Culture, and Meaning |
Assignment 4 |
Wednesday, July 3, 2019 at 11:55 PM |
10% |
|
|
Week 10 |
Module 10 - Pragmatics |
Doing Things with Words |
||||
|
Week 11 |
Module 11 - Text Linguistics |
Structuring Texts |
Assignment 5 (Online Test) |
Monday, July 8, 2019 at 11:55 PM |
Wednesday, July 17, 2019 at 11:55 |
10% |
|
Week 12 |
Module 12 - Language Acquisition |
|||||
|
Final Examination |
38% |
Final Examination Arrangements and Schedule
Please carefully review the information about writing exams for online courses, including dates, locations, how to make
examination arrangements, writing with a proctor, and deadlines.
If you are taking any on-campus courses, you will automatically be scheduled to write your exam on campus. No
action is required.
If you are taking only online courses, do one of the following:
- If your address in QUEST is within 100 km of an examination centre, you must choose an exam centre in Quest by Sunday, May 19, 2019. This must be done each term.
- If your address in Quest is more than 100 km from an exam centre, you must arrange for a proctor. Please review the guidelines and deadlines for writing with a proctor. This must be done each term.
Your online course exam schedule will be available in Quest approximately four weeks before your exam date(s).
Instructions on how to find your schedule are posted on the Quest Help page.
University of Waterloo Senate-approved academic regulations related to assignments, tests, and final exams can be
found on the Registrar's website.
Official Grades and Course Access
Official Grades and Academic Standings are available through Quest.
Your access to this course will continue for the duration of the current term. You will not have access to this course
once the next term begins.
Contact Information
Announcements
Your instructor uses the Announcements section of the Course Home page to make announcements during the term to
communicate new or changing information regarding due dates, instructor absence, etc. as needed.
To ensure you are viewing the complete list of announcements, you may need to click Show All Announcements.
Discussions
A General Discussion topic* has also been made available to allow students to communicate with peers in the course.
Your instructor may drop in at this discussion topic.
Contact Us
| Who and Why | Contact Details |
|---|---|
Instructor
Technical Support,
Learner Support Services,
|
Post your course-related questions to the Ask the Instructor discussion topic*. This Instructor: Jenn Rickert jenn.rickert@uwaterloo.ca Your instructor checks email and the Ask the Instructor discussion topic* frequently and Include your full name, WatIAM user ID, student number, and course name and number. Technical support is available during regular business hours, Monday to Friday, 8:30 AM to LEARN Help Student Documentation Student Resources extendedlearning@uwaterloo.ca Include your full name, WatIAM user ID, student number, and course name and number. |
About the Course Author
Randy Harris — Course Author
© University of Waterloo
Randy Harris was born in the new hospital in Kitimat, B.C., in 1956. After some time there, and some more time in Campbell River, B.C., he spent an inexcusably long time moving around the continent, from university to university, getting an education. He attended the University of Lethbridge, in Southern Alberta, mostly studying philosophy. He transferred to Queen's University, in Southern Ontario, where he earned an Honours B.A. in English Literature. He went to Dalhousie University, in Halifax, where he earned an M.A. in English Literature, specializing in Henry Fielding. Next came the University of Alberta, where he earned an M.Sc. in Experimental Linguistics, specializing in aphasia. To round things off, he went to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, in upstate New York, where he earned an M.Sc. in Technical Communication, specializing in graphics, and a Ph.D. in Communication and Rhetoric, specializing in scientific argumentation and Chomskyan linguistics. Whew! Upon escaping university, he worked for several years at Bell-Northern Research, in Ottawa, but somehow ended up back in university: he now teaches linguistics, rhetoric, and professional writing in the English department at the University of Waterloo. For more information, please visit Professor Harris' Website.
Course Instructor — George Lamont
My love affair with the linguistic structures of English and its diverse sources began in my undergraduate English studies with a course much like this one. It was called “English 329: The Structure of Modern English” back then at UBC. Something clicked very sharply as I began to see language as a wonderfully and beautifully complex set of discrete units, large structures, and frames. English 329 changed everything for me, and I hope it will change everything for you. Among the many outcomes that I hope you can take away from this course, you may find that this course gives you a sense of conscious control over the choices you make when you use English or learn a new language. In fact, you may find that this course opens a door to a much larger world for you — a world of language. Perhaps you already speak or understand several languages, but this course changed the way I thought about language, culture, and diversity. I had studied the requisite French in school and not appreciated its value. I had picked up some German while I lived in Germany before university. But my “Intro to Linguistics” textbook fatefully warned me, “You cannot truly understand English unless you understand Latin.” I thought about that. English had come together as a larger system of thought for me, and sure enough I was at the bookstore the next day buying “Latin Made Simple.” That soon snowballed into more linguistics courses, as well as Latin. When my Latin professor said in class, “You can’t truly understand Latin until you study Greek,” you can guess what happened. I also took German, and French, and Old English, and Old Norse, and off I launched into a study of translation in my Ph.D. Learning languages became so much more interesting and fun when I understand the structures of what I was learning. When my wife came into my life, Mandarin became a necessity, and I was amazed that my linguistics training helped me sort through Mandarin structures with surprisingly little pain. I won’t claim to be fluent, but after 4 years of really trying to learn Mandarin, I still find myself calling up the material I learned in my “Introduction to Linguistics” class. It was a class that really did change my life. As I find myself in the position of educator in this course now, I’m touched by the chance to help you on your new journey. I hope that you find it as delightful as I did.
Course Description and Objectives
Introduction and Overview
English 306A, Introduction to Linguistics, covers the core areas of linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics. Linguistics is a very diverse field, and the course brushes onmany other topics, but it is organized around these central areas, exploring the units and the structures that make up human languages. Phonology studies the units and structures of sound in language; morphology, the units and structures of words; syntax, of sentences; semantics, of meaning. Linguistics is a science, very different in its approach to language from the literary and rhetorical approaches with which you may be familiar. You will have to learn to see language abstractly, like a geologist looks at rocks, an astronomer at stars. We study what it means for a native speaker to know and use a language: they need to know the sounds, the words, the way words group together, and how those word groups fit into a web of meaning. That's a lot just to get someone to pass you the salt or agree that the Leafs sucked last night, but you deploy those systems effortlessly every day. What's more, you know them pretty much the way you know how to breathe or swallow or ride a bike: at a below-the-surface level. At the surface, you don't know which of your consonants resonate out your nose. But you know extremely well below the surface, because you always send the right ones (like [m] and [n]) out your nose. In this course, we're going to drag that knowledge to the surface, kicking and screaming.
We're also going to see how that knowledge interacts with other, nonlinguistic areas of cognition —in particular, perception, categorization, abstraction processes, and reasoning—to get some purchase on the way we express and exchange ideas and thoughts through weird little noises or marks on a page or lines and circles on a screen, like these ones.
Objectives
At the end of English 306A, you should know what linguistics is—how it analyzes and accounts for language. You should also know the basic building blocks of language—phones, phonemes, morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences. You should also know the general ways in which those elements combine—the types rules and processes that arrange the basic building blocks. Some of the tools you should acquire are the ability to analyze words and sentences at a general level, and to transcribe sounds broadly. You won't quite be ready to go into the jungles of Borneo and completely describe the grammar of an unknown language, but you should know in a basic way how someone who can perform that feat does it. You should also come to a fuller awareness of the rules in your own head: how it is that your brain stores and retrieves and decodes language.
This online course was developed by Randy Harris, with instructional design and multimedia development support
provided by the Centre for Extended Learning.
Materials and Resources
Textbooks
Required
- Dirven and Verspoor, Cognitive Exploration of Language and Linguistics. Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1998, 2004; Either edition is fine.
Recommended
- Dr. Seuss, The Sneetches and Other Stories. Random House, 1976.
For textbook ordering information, please contact the Waterloo Bookstore.
For your convenience, you can compile a list of required and optional course materials
through BookLook using your Quest userID and password. If you are having difficulties
ordering online and wish to call the Waterloo Bookstore, their phone number is +1 519-888-
4673 or toll-free at +1 866-330-7933. Please be aware that textbook orders CANNOT be
taken over the phone.
Resources
Library services for co-op students on work term and distance education students
Grade Breakdown
The following table represents the grade breakdown of this course.
| Activities and Assignments | Weight (%) |
|---|---|
| Interactive Exercises | Ungraded |
| Tasks | 12% |
| Assignments (5 x 10%) | 50% |
| Final Examination | 38% |
Course Policies
Late Assignment Submission
Assignments submitted beyond the deadlines noted in the Course Schedule and without prior arrangement with the
course instructor or TA will be subject to a 5% per business day penalty, to a maximum of 40%.
Intellectual Property
Students should be aware that this course contains the intellectual property of their instructor, TA, and/or the University
of Waterloo. Intellectual property includes items such as:
- Lecture content, spoken and written (and any audio/video recording thereof);
- Lecture handouts, presentations, and other materials prepared for the course (e.g., PowerPoint slides);
- Questions or solution sets from various types of assessments (e.g., assignments, quizzes, tests, final exams); and
- Work protected by copyright (e.g., any work authored by the instructor or TA or used by the instructor or TA with permission of the copyright owner).
Course materials and the intellectual property contained therein are used to enhance a student’s educational
experience. However, sharing this intellectual property without the intellectual property owner’s permission is a violation
of intellectual property rights. For this reason, it is necessary to ask the instructor, TA and/or the University of Waterloo
for permission before uploading and sharing the intellectual property of others online (e.g., to an online repository).
Permission from an instructor, TA or the University is also necessary before sharing the intellectual property of others
from completed courses with students taking the same/similar courses in subsequent terms/years. In many cases,
instructors might be happy to allow distribution of certain materials. However, doing so without expressed permission is
considered a violation of intellectual property rights.
Please alert the instructor if you become aware of intellectual property belonging to others (past or present) circulating,
either through the student body or online. The intellectual property rights owner deserves to know (and may have
already given their consent).
University Policies
Submission Times
Please be aware that the University of Waterloo is located in the Eastern Time Zone (GMT or
UTC-5 during standard time and UTC-4 during daylight saving time) and, as such, the time that
your activities and/or assignments are due is based on this zone. If you are outside the Eastern
Time Zone and require assistance with converting your time, please try the Ontario, Canada
Time Converter.
Accommodation Due to Illness
If your instructor has provided specific procedures for you to follow if you miss assignment due dates, term tests, or a final examination, adhere to those instructions.
Otherwise:
Missed Assignments/Tests/Quizzes
Contact the instructor as soon as you realize there will be a problem, and preferably within 48 hours, but no more than 72 hours, have a medical practitioner complete a Verification of Illness Form.
Email a scanned copy of the Verification of Illness Form to your instructor. In your email to the instructor, provide your name, student ID number, and exactly what course activity you missed.
Further information regarding Management of Requests for Accommodation Due to Illness can be found on the Accommodation due to illness page.
Missed Final Examinations
If this course has a final exam and if you are unable to write a final examination due to illness, seek medical treatment and have a medical practitioner complete a Verification of Illness Form.
Email a scanned copy to the Centre for Extended Learning (CEL) at extendedlearning@uwaterloo.ca within 48 hours of your missed exam. Make sure you include your name, student ID number, and the exam(s) missed. You will be REQUIRED to hand in the original completed form before you write the make-up examination.
After your completed Verification of Illness Form has been received and processed, you will be emailed your alternate exam date and time. This can take up to 2 business days. If you are within 150 km of Waterloo you should be prepared to write in Waterloo on the additional CEL exam dates. If you live outside the 150 km radius, CEL will work with you to make suitable arrangements.
Further information about Examination Accommodation Due to Illness regulations is available in the Undergraduate Calendar.
Academic Integrity
In order to maintain a culture of academic integrity, members of the University of Waterloo community are expected to promote honesty, trust, fairness, respect, and responsibility. If you have not already completed the online tutorial regarding academic integrity you should do so as soon as possible. Undergraduate students should see the Academic Integrity Tutorial and graduate students should see the Graduate Students and Academic Integrity website. Proper citations are part of academic integrity. Citations in CEL course materials usually follow CEL style, which is based on APA style. Your course may follow a different style. If you are uncertain which style to use for an assignment, please confirm with your instructor or TA. For further information on academic integrity, please visit the Office of Academic Integrity.
Turnitin
Turnitin.com: Text matching software (Turnitin®) may be used to screen assignments in this course. Turnitin® is used to verify that all materials and sources in assignments are documented. Students’ submissions are stored on a U.S. server, therefore students must be given an alternative (e.g., scaffolded assignment or annotated bibliography), if they are concerned about their privacy and/or security. Students will be given due notice, in the first week of the term and/or at the time assignment details are provided, about arrangements and alternatives for the use of Turnitin® in this course.
It is the responsibility of the student to notify the instructor if they, in the first week of term or at the time assignment details are provided, wish to submit the alternate assignment.
Discipline
A student is expected to know what constitutes academic integrity to avoid committing an academic offence, and to take responsibility for his/her actions. A student who is unsure whether an action constitutes an offence, or who needs help in learning how to avoid offences (e.g., plagiarism, cheating) or about “rules” for group work/collaboration, should seek guidance from the course instructor, academic advisor, or the undergraduate Associate Dean. For information on categories of offences and types of penalties, students should refer to Policy 71 - Student Discipline. For typical penalties, check Guidelines for the Assessment of Penalties.
Appeals
A decision made or penalty imposed under Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, (other than a petition) or Policy 71 - Student Discipline, may be appealed if there is a ground. A student who believes he/she has a ground for an appeal should refer to Policy 72 - Student Appeals.
Grievance
A student who believes that a decision affecting some aspect of his/her university life has been unfair or unreasonable may have grounds for initiating a grievance. Read Policy 70 - Student Petitions and Grievances, Section 4. When in doubt please be certain to contact the department’s administrative assistant who will provide further assistance.
Final Grades
In accordance with Policy 46 - Information Management, Appendix A - Access to and Release of Student Information, the Centre for Extended Learning does not release final examination grades or final course grades to students. Students must go to Quest to see all final grades. Any grades posted in Waterloo LEARN are unofficial.
AccessAbility Services
AccessAbility Services, located in Needles Hall, collaborates with all academic departments to arrange appropriate accommodations for students with disabilities without compromising the academic integrity of the curriculum. If you require academic accommodation to lessen the impact of your disability, please register with AccessAbility Services at the beginning of each academic term and for each course.
Accessibility Statement
The Centre for Extended Learning strives to meet the needs of all our online learners. Our ongoing efforts to become aligned with the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) are guided by University of Waterloo accessibility Legislation and policy and the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. The majority of our online courses are currently delivered via the Desire2Learn Learning Environment. Learn more about Desire2Learn’s Accessibility Standards Compliance.
Use of Computing and Network Resources
Please see the Guidelines on Use of Waterloo Computing and Network Resources.
Copyright Information
UWaterloo’s Web Pages
All rights, including copyright, images, slides, audio, and video components, of the content of this course are owned by the course author, unless otherwise stated. These web pages are owned or controlled by the University of Waterloo, Centre for Extended Learning. By accessing the web pages, you agree that you may only download the content for your own personal, noncommercial use. You are not permitted to copy, broadcast, download, store (in any medium), transmit, show or play in public, adapt, or change in any way the content of these web pages for any other purpose whatsoever without the prior written permission of the course author and the University of Waterloo, Centre for Extended Learning.
Other Sources
Respect the copyright of others and abide by all copyright notices and regulations when using the computing facilities provided for your course of study by the University of Waterloo. No material on the Internet or World Wide Web may be reproduced or distributed in any material form or in any medium, without permission from copyright holders or their assignees. To support your course of study, the University of Waterloo has provided hypertext links to relevant websites, resources, and services on the web. These resources must be used in accordance with any registration requirements or conditions which may be specified. You must be aware that in providing such hypertext links, the University of Waterloo has not authorized any acts (including reproduction or distribution) which, if undertaken without permission of copyright owners or their assignees, may be infringement of copyright. Permission for such acts can only be granted by copyright owners or their assignees.
If there are any questions about this notice, please contact the University of Waterloo, Centre for Extended Learning, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, N2L 3G1 or extendedlearning@uwaterloo.ca.
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