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 isolatesHow can infants learn a language?The problem of pronouns in machine translationThe treatment of language by people with aphasiaDeveloping dictionaries and thesauruses for artificial intelligenceEcolinguisticsDocumenting 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 playground2) A comparison of some Indo-European languages3) Semantic shifts in contemporary English: e.g. ‘gay – gay – gay’4) The manipulation of language by politicians5) Comparing politeness formulae across European standard language

communities6) How minority languages survive (e.g. Welsh)7) How to advertise to children8) Examples of ingrouping and outgrouping9) Language and silence used as discourse weapons10) Text messaging and the future of friendship building and maintaining

Planning an investigation

CHOOSE A TOPICGATHER DATASCRUTINISE THE DATAORGANISE THE DATACHOOSE A METHOD OF ANALYSISDO FOLLOW-UP RESEARCHCARRY OUT ANALYSISDRAW CONCLUSIONSVALIDATE THE RESULTSWRITE UP THE INVESTIGATION