Introduction
The goal of Linguistics 001 is to offer a broad, self-contained introduction to all aspects of language and linguistics, suitable for undergraduates with a wide range of backgrounds and interests. General information about course content is available from a brief description . Details can be gotten from the schedule and the lecture notes that are linked to it.
This course was first given in its current form in the fall of 1997. Enrollment grew from 35 in the fall of 1997 to 121 in the fall of 2000, with more than 200 students attempting to enroll in that term. Because of this increased demand, we now offer the course in both fall and spring terms.
Each year, we've tried to adjust the course's form and content to reflect what we've learned in teaching it. Your comments and suggestions about this fall's effort will be welcomed.
Although it is not currently a prerequisite for other courses in linguistics at Penn , Linguistics 001 will prepare you to get more out of other language-related courses you take in the future, and will give you a broader perspective on courses you may have taken in the past. Here is a link to available home pages of other Penn linguistics courses. Here is the complete list of Penn linguistics courses , and here is the list of undergraduate linguistics courses offered this fall.
In addition to formal course work in linguistics at Penn, there are often
opportunities for independent studies, research projects, and even paying
research-related jobs. Contact the instructors for further information
if you are interested
Course Structure
There are two lectures a week, Monday and Wednesday 12:00-1:00.
Each student should also participate in one recitation section each week. This term, there are six recitation sections. The purpose of the recitation sections is to provide students with a forum for discussion and an opportunity to ask questions about lectures, readings, homework and exams.
The instructor and TAs can be reached by email, either to answer questions directly or to set up individual appointments: Mark Liberman, Keelan Evans, Lucy Lee, Maya Ravindranath.
There will be eight homework assignments, a midterm, and a final project. There will be no final exam: the final project will be due on the last day of class.
Grading
The midterm and term project will each count for 25% of your grade. The ten homework exercises will count for 40% -- 4% each. The final 10% will depend on class participation (mainly in your recitation section).
Note that homework is a significant part of your grade. Each year, a few students fail to turn in some or all homework assignments, and are then taken aback by the effect.
Here is the distribution of raw numerical grades amoung the 55 students in the 1998 version of the course. These were turned into letter grades in a conventional fashion, so that 80-83.3 was B-, 83.3-86.7 was B, 86.7-90 was B+, and so on. Thus nine students got a B-, etc. Grades over 100 were possible because of extra credit on exams and some homework assignments.
There are no guarantees that this particular distribution of grades will obtain -- the course is not "graded on the curve" -- but a distribution like this one has been typical.
Extra Credit: During the course of the semester, there will be five "one minute gift" quizzes, given without notice in one of the lectures or recitations. Each will consist of a single question, which should be trivial to answer if you've been doing the reading and attending the lectures. If you get it right, you get one point of extra credit, for up to 5 points of extra credit during the course of the term.
The main purpose of these little quizzes is to let us see whether we're succeeding in getting the material to you. Any motivation that they may give you to keep up with the reading and course meetings will be an added benefit.
Readings
Although all readings for this course will be made available on line, there are many good introductory linguistics books, which you might want to borrow from the library or buy to have your own copy. A few that I can recommend are:
The
Science of Words, by George Miller
The
Power of Babel, by John McWhorter
The
Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
Introduction
to Language by Fromkin and Rodman
Contemporary
Linguistics by O'Grady et al.
Linguistics
by Akmajian, Demers, Farmer and Harnish
An Invitation
to Cognitive Science: Language by Gleitman and Liberman.
In addition, you may enjoy reading some of the language-oriented weblogs that have sprung up over the past few years, including one that I contribute to: Language Log.