Session 1

The four academic disciplines of the study of (the English) language

Language structure, Language use, Language change, Language acquisition

The 1st person singular: subject case, object case, possessive determiner, possessive pronoun and reflexive pronoun

I, me, my, mine, myself

The three subcategories of Language structure

Phonetics and Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics

The two subcategories of Language use

Pragmatics and Sociolinguistics

The two subcategories of Language Change

Historical linguistics and The politics of language

The two subcategories of language acquisition

Child language acquisition and Second/Foreign language learning

Phonetics and Phonology

The study of the sounds of English

Morphology

The study of the structure of words

Syntax

The study of how words combine into sentences

Semantics

The study of the meaning of words

Pragmatics

The study of language use in its social and cultural context

Sociolinguistics

variation of language use across different social groups and regional dialects; identity construction through language use

Historical linguistics

the change of language over time

The politics of language

language policies, their motivations and effects

Child language acquisition

how children acquire their first language(s)

Second/Foreign language learning

how second and foreign languages are learnt and how they can be taught effectively

descriptive perspectives vs prescriptive perspectives

how is language used vs how should language be used

formal approaches to language

focus on competence over performance; language is seen as a complex cognitive system

functional approaches to language

focus on performance over competence, language seen as a tool for communicating meaning and social interaction

other words for competence and performance

langue and parole

synchronic approaches

analysis of language at a specific point in time

diachronic approaches

analysis of language over a period of time

empirical studies

research based on authentic language data

introspective studies

relying on intuition as a starting point for linguistic theorizing