Fall 2011: ENG 442 Course Description

We are planning on offering a section of ENG 442: Topics in Linguistics with the topic of Second Language Acquisition in the fall. It will most likely be offered during the TTh 9:30-10:45 time slot. For Linguistics minors, the course could satisfy the core requirement or an elective in Categories II or III. English majors and minors could use the course for their required linguistics course, and other students could count the course as an upper-division elective.

The course description is included below:

This course will focus on both former and contemporary approaches to how humans learn a second (or third) language. Discussions will include a range of languages (no knowledge of a second language assumed). We will examine the nature of language, multilingualism, heritage language acquisition, the roles of the first and second languages in second language acquisition, formal approaches, typological and functional approaches, language processing, socio-cultural views of second language learning, and the psychology of second language learning.

If you are interested in the course, please e-mail Chris at samsc@sfasu.edu in order for him to find out if the course topic has enough student support to run.

Linguistics of Invented Languages Poster

Comparative Romance Linguistics Poster

Spring 2011 Courses

Following are descriptions of the courses that will be offered Spring 2011:

ENG 344-001 Structures of English (MWF 9:00-9:50)

Linguistic study of English, including phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.  Includes an examination of several applied topics, focusing on topics such as English stylistics, language acquisition as it pertains to structures English, English dialects, and history of English.

ENG 341 Introduction to Linguistics

• 341-001 MWF 10:00-10:50
• 341-090 TR 9:30-10:45 (writing enhanced)

*Used to be ENG 441.

Introduction to the core concepts of linguistic study, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, and to the application of those concepts, such as language acquisition, language disorders, sociolinguistics, and language change.  Analyses of linguistic concepts and applications focus on data from languages spoken around the world (i.e., will not focus on or be limited to English).

Prerequisites: None

ENG 442-090: Topics in Linguistics: Linguistics of Invented Languages (TR 11:00-12:15)
(writing enhanced)

Examination of how language works and typical features of world languages in order to construct an invented language; also, examination of famous constructed languages (including Elvish, Na'vi, and Esperanto) in order to compare features of invented languages to those of natural languages. The final project of the course will involve students constructing their own languages to better understand the challenges of constructing a language and linguistic principles at work in natural languages.

ENG 442-002: Topics in Linguistics: Comparative Romance Linguistics (TR 9:30-10:45)

In this course we will begin with a look at the Latin language (no prior knowledge of Latin assumed) and its transformation into the Romance languages from a socio-historical perspective. We will then concentrate on selected linguistic phenomena of some of the Romance languages (mainly French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish) from a comparative standpoint. For example, how do French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish pluralize nouns? How does determiner, noun, and adjective agreement work? What options are available for past tense formation (e.g., simple (preterite), compound, or both)? How is negation accomplished? What are the sound correspondences between languages (e.g., the Latin ct in NOCTEM ‘night’ became tt  in Italian notte, ch in Spanish noche, and it in French ‘nuit < nueit’ and Portuguese noite)? How did the T/V (politeness) pronouns come about? One of the course assignments will deal with independently researching a less commonly researched Romance language (e.g., Romanian, Catalan, Occitan, Gascon, Corsican, or one of the so called “dialects” of Italian). Course materials will be provided by the instructor. There is no prerequisite; however, intermediate to advanced reading knowledge of a modern Romance language would be advantageous. The class will be taught in English. 

If you have any questions, let me or Chris know!

Why aren't 341 and 438 showing up on the Fall 2010 schedule?

In Fall 2009, I was ecstatic that my colleagues of the Department of English approved all the new linguistics courses I had proposed. Little did I know that the departmental approval would only be the first step in a long journey...

After the department approved the courses, the courses were passed up to the College Council; once they approved the courses, the courses were passed up to the College of Liberal and Applied Arts for approval. After getting approved three times, they got passed again, this time to the Provost and then again to the Board of Regents.

The courses have passed all those stages of approval, and yet they are not showing up on the fall schedule. Why? Because they still have to get a stamp of approval at the state level (and three different state levels, at that).

What does all this mean to you? It means that those linguistics courses with new course numbers (ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics and ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics) are not showing up on the official Fall 2010 course schedule. But are they going to be offered in the fall? YES!

While 341 and 438 will be offered in the fall, it will most likely be around summer before those courses get all the appropriate stamps and get put onto the schedule. That means you won't be able to register for those courses until then--you can't register for a course not showing up on the schedule.

The poster you'll see around the department to advertise the "missing" courses.

If you are interested in taking 341 and/or 438, please reserve a spot in your fall schedule for the course and register as soon as it appears on the schedule. I will post again (here on this blog) when the courses are officially up, so you can check back here for updated information.

ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics MWF 10:00-10:50

ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics TR 9:30-10:45

I realize this delay is a bit of a pain (okay, more than just a "bit" of a pain), but please don't disregard these courses because of the hiccup in getting them on the official registrar's schedule. We are really excited to be offering so many linguistics courses in the fall and appreciate all the student support we are getting. Please help spread the word about these "invisible" courses so that they will fill when they make their way to the schedule.

Note on Course Schedules

First, I'd like to thank everyone who participated in the poll on the choices for courses in Fall 2010. Every choice got at least one vote, so it's nice to know we're thinking of course options that students are actually interested in. I'm not all that optimistic in the poll counter's ability to compile statistics, though; if anyone else bothered to add up the percentages, you noticed that 170% of the votes were accounted for. Hmmm... I may not be a mathematician, but that sounds a little suspect.

The two more advanced linguistic courses being offered in the fall are Forensic Linguistics and Psycholinguistics (which is being run as a Topics in Linguistics course). You may have seen the posters floating around LAN and Ferguson to that effect (I'm including the poster images in this blog post--some people seem to like my posters and have been stealing them off walls... Please leave them up until after registration has ended!).

Second, some of you may have looked at the online version of the fall schedule and noticed that two linguistics courses are missing for the fall: ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics and ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics. Those courses are being offered under brand new numbers, so the numbers for those courses don't exist in the school's system quite yet. Our department chair is hard at work to fix the situation, so please don't worry if you don't see those two courses on the schedule. They are indeed on the departmental schedule of courses to offer in the fall--there are just extra steps the department has to take to get them recognized by the school's scheduling system since the course numbers are new ones.

Third, I am quite pleased with the amount of response I've been getting from students about the fall courses; however, I'd like to remind you all that the fall courses can only be offered if students actually register for them. As registration draws nearer, please remember that only courses that fill can run. If you're excited about a course offering, tell other students about the course; if you know a student who might be interested in a linguistics course, tell them what's being offered. In other words, please help spread the word around campus.

While I am only advertising Introduction to Linguistics, Forensic Linguistics, and Psycholinguistics through posters, there will also be three sections of ENG 344: Structures of English offered for those students who need that course.

And, finally, I don't want to forget to mention the summer courses being offered.

There will be a section of Structures offered for each Summer Session, and during Summer Session I, we will be offering our first ever (as far as I know) graduate-level linguistics course.

In the next few weeks, I'll be doing as much as possible to promote these courses to make sure they fill, and I'll also be promoting the new Linguistics Minor to make students aware of that option. I've even considered wearing one of those sandwich board signs with linguistics posters on them around campus... but I think that might be a tad too conspicuous (even for me).

New Look for SFALingBlog!

I've done a bit of an overhaul on the site to make it a bit more SFA-y.  As my students in 344 this semester will tell you, I just created a new adjective by added the adjectival -y suffix.  Ah, word creation early in the morning always puts a smile on my face.  Look carefully at the picture in the new heading, and you will see that the picture is an aerial view of our beautiful campus.  Thanks to my husband, who is a pilot in his spare time, I was able to snap some pretty nice shots of the campus from the air.

I've also added pages to the blog so that certain information is always easy to access: my homepage on the SFA server, the linguistics minor page on the departmental website, the rundown on the linguistics courses for Summer 2010, and the rundown on the linguistics courses for Fall 2010.  I'm trying to make it so the external links (my homepage and the departmental page) will open as soon as you click on the page title, but I haven't yet figured out how to do that.  If you know how, please tell me.  :)  In the meantime, you are taken to a page in Blogger that provides the link you have to click on to get the page.

You may have noticed that I've posted posters around the department and Ferguson advertising the linguistics courses for the fall and summer.  While I am excited that we have the opportunity to offer six sections of linguistics courses in the fall AND three sections in the summer, I am terrified that we won't be able to fill them.  If you'd like to see more linguistics offerings now and in the future, please help us out by using good old-fashioned word-of-mouth for advertising.  Over the next couple weeks, I will be sending out announcements about the courses via mySFA and putting up another wave of posters.  I am also working on designing bookmarks for the linguistics program as a promotional item.  If you can think of anything else that you and your fellow students might appreciate in the way of advertising/promoting the linguistics program, please let me know.

Tentative Summer 2010 Ling Courses

Our mailboxes have been busy this morning: We also received the proposed summer schedules (see the post below for the proposed fall schedule).  The linguistics offerings (again, contingent on enrollment numbers) for the summer are the following:

Summer I
ENG 540: Linguistic Analysis (MTWR 12:30-2:55)
ENG 344: Structures of English (MTWR 12:30-2:55)


Summer II
ENG 344: Structures of English (MTWR 10:15-12:10)


As far as I know, this will be the first time a graduate-level linguistics course has been offered through our department.  If you need--or know anyone who needs--graduate-level credit, pass the news along!

As always, please let me know if you have any questions about the courses or schedule or linguistics in general.

Tentative Fall 2010 Ling Courses

We received our tentative schedules for the fall today; please keep in mind that these are TENTATIVE schedules.  These courses cannot run without students, so the ability for these to be offered is dependent upon student enrollment.

ENG 344: Structures of English
Linguistic study of English, including phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics.  May include an examination of several applied topics, focusing on topics such as English stylistics, language acquisition as it pertains to structures of English, English dialects, and history of English.

• MWF  9:00-9:50
• MWF 11:00-11:50
• online section

ENG 341: Introduction to Linguistics
Introduction to the core concepts of linguistic study, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics, and to the application of those concepts, such as language acquisition, language disorders, sociolinguistics, and language change.  Analyses of linguistic concepts and applications focus on data from languages spoken around the world (i.e., will not focus on or be limited to English).

• MWF 10:00-10:50

ENG 438: Forensic Linguistics

Linguistic study of texts and recordings to determine authorship, evasion strategies, possible coercion in writings/recordings, stylistic changes, deception, and so on.  Linguistic tools include phonetic analysis, structural analysis, and word choice.  Texts analyzed include hate mail, suicide letters,  ransom notes, and confessions; recordings include interviews, interrogations, and confessions.

• TR 9:30-10:45

ENG 442: Topics in Linguistics
Advanced study of a topic within linguistics; topics will rotate.  Example topics include sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, language and literature, corpus linguistics, historical linguistics, typology and universals, and history of linguistic study.  Students may repeat the course under different topics.

• TR 11:00-12:15

The proposed study for Topics in Linguistics for the fall is psycholinguistics:
Examination of the facilities in the brain necessary for language comprehension and production, the process of first language acquisition, the mental processing of language, and the specific language disorders that result when language facilities (or the connections to them) are damaged.


The proposed schedule includes more linguistics courses in a single semester than have ever been offered at SFA.  Please help us get these courses solidified in the books by spreading the good word about linguistics and generating interest among your fellow students.

If you have any questions about the courses being offered or about the minor in Linguistics, please don't hesitate to ask.  You can ask questions through posting a comment on the blog (which I check regularly), visiting my homepage on SFA, e-mailing me (my contact info is on my homepage), or stopping by my office in the English Department.

Poll for Fall 2010 Courses

The poll featured in the sidebar is geared toward identifying student interest in more advanced topics (not toward guaranteeing the offering of said topics); the majority of the options would be run under ENG 442: Topics in Linguistics.  Since none of these courses have been run before, I'm including course descriptions of the listed options in this post.  Please note that not all options for Fall 2010 courses are included in the poll (e.g., Structures of English, History of the English Language, Introduction to Linguistics); again, the poll is dedicated to the more advanced courses to identify areas of interest.

While none of the courses would have linguistic prerequisites, prior linguistic knowledge would be beneficial (if not necessary) for the following three topics: Corpus Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, and Comparative Linguistics.

Forensic Linguistics
Linguistic study of texts and recordings to determine authorship, evasion strategies, possible coercion in writings/recordings, stylistic changes, deception, and so on.  Linguistic tools include phonetic analysis, structural analysis, and word choice.  Texts analyzed include hate mail, suicide letters, ransom notes, and confessions; recordings include interviews, interrogations, and confessions.

Advanced Grammar
Advanced investigation of the concepts of grammatical form and function, including the application of labels such as noun, adjective, verb, subject, object, phrase, clause.  Study will also include discussion of the use of grammar in written and spoken language, the teaching of grammar in classrooms, the debates about grammatical change in current language, and the notion of standard language.

Psycholinguistics
Examination of the facilities in the brain necessary for language comprehension and production, the process of first language acquisition, the mental processing of language, and the specific language disorders that result when language facilities (or the connections to them) are damaged.

Corpus Linguistics
Study of the tools available for collecting and analyzing data, and examination of current corpora available for research.  Students will learn to collect and create their own corpora, utilize existing corpora, and analyze data through corpus research.

Historical Linguistics (Diachronics)
Study of the types of regular language changes, the practice of internal and external language reconstructions, and socio-historical influences on language change.  Students will learn to identify types of language change through data from languages around the world and conduct research on socio-historical background of language change on a language other than English.

Language and Literature
Examination of linguistic tools and techniques and application of those linguistic devices to the study of literature, focusing on structural and semantic aspects.  Some examples include the representation of dialects in literature, stylistics, use of metaphor, verb selection, and genre differentiation.

Comparative Linguistics
Linguistic analysis of a set of languages or a language family, focusing on the differences and similarities in sounds and structures among the languages.  Examination of possible comparative methods and their application to data sets; analyses of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics within language change, including sociohistorical variables.  No prior knowledge of the languages in question is required.

Linguistics Braniacs

I've had several students ask about news on the proposed Linguistics Minor (and newly proposed linguistics courses); unfortunately, I don't have an update for you just yet.  If all goes well, the linguistics proposals will go up in front of the College Council this month.  I will post on the blog (and probably on the hallway walls outside my office) as soon as I know anything.  Keep your fingers crossed!

The spring course schedule is now online, so if you're interested in taking any of the linguistics courses that will be offered in the spring, check out that schedule.  Again, we have more linguistics courses than normal being offered all at once, so please register early if you are interested in the courses; otherwise, courses with no students (or few students) will be shut down.

Outside of the SFA Ling world, there are a couple studies that might interest you if you, like me, are fascinated by language and the brain.

The first deals with Broca's area, which is a vital part of your brain that deals with language production and perception.

The above image was taken from an article that focuses on how advertisers should work to target the different parts of their viewers' brains so that the ads will have maximum impact.  That, in and of itself, is interesting.  But the real article I wanted to draw attention to is "Study Sheds New Light on the Nature of Broca's Area in the Brain":

According to Sahin, the results help dispel a commonly taught notion that Broca's area handles expressive language (speaking) while another part of the cortex called Wernicke's area handles receptive language (reading and hearing).  This notion is still taught in many text books.

"Our task involved both reading and speaking, and we found that aspects of word identity, grammar and pronunciation are all computed within Broca's area.  Crucially, information about the identity of a printed word arrives in Broca's area very quickly after it is seen, in parallel with its arrival in Wernicke's ..." said Sahin.

If you have ever heard of or been around a person who has suffered a stroke or brain injury and was left with Broca's (or Wernicke's) aphasia, you may have heard these terms before.  One of the primary reasons Broca's area was associated with speaking (language production) is that the patients who suffered from Broca's aphasia are unable to express their thoughts with words.  They can draw pictures to show what they are thinking, but they cannot use words to coherently express their thoughts.

Another interesting article about language and the brain focuses on multilingualism.

The study under question in this article shows that your brain benefits from multilingualism; appropriately, the title of the article is "Brains benefit from multilingualism."  What that means is that now scientific findings are showing that there are measurable physiological advantages to being able to speak more than one language.  Studying other languages just got more interesting.

Speaking of multilingualism reminds me of a very funny video that proves linguists do have humor... when Ali G interviews Noam Chomsky.

Spring 2010 Linguistics Courses

I needed a bit of humor today.  I am having problems uploading updated blog entries to my faculty site, so I am moving our blog over to Blogger territory, which is more familiar for me.

While the final, official spring schedule has not yet been released, we do have a tentative schedule of linguistics courses for the spring:

ENG 344: Structures of English
  MWF  9:00-9:50        Sams, J
  MWF  11:00-11:50    Sams, J
  R         4:00-6:30 (?)  Sams, C

ENG 441: Linguistic Theory
  TR  11:00-12:15         Sams, J

Even though we will not be able to offer ALL the classes we had hoped for (notice Forensic Linguistics is missing...), we will be offering more sections of linguistics courses than have been offered in the past, which is very exciting.  But only if students sign up for the courses.  The R-night section of Structures will be a hybrid course, meaning that up to 50% of the course will take place online.

As a side note, both these courses would work for anyone interested in the proposed Linguistics Minor.  The minor could go up for approval with the College Council as soon as next month; I will update you as soon as I hear anything on that front.

In other news (yes, there is a world outside of SFA Linguistics), I came across a couple linguistic studies I thought you all might find interesting:

The Handwriting of Liars: a study finds that handwriting may be a better tool to find lies than gestures, vocal cues, and word choice.

Rethinking the Bee's Waggle Dance: a study shows that we may have been overestimating the importance of the bee's dance to indicate the location of food.