The Structure of American English

LNGN 220-01
Spring 2003

• Course Objectives:
  
  At the end of 15 weeks of instruction, the student will be able to:

• Recognize the impact of cultural, economic, political, and social environments upon language by carrying out linguistic research on social varieties of American English that reflect the influence of these factors;
• show an understanding of diversity in language use, patterns, and dialects by being able to morphologically, syntactically, and phonologically describe and analyze the speech of a regional or social variety of English;
• demonstrate an understanding of the essential concepts of the structure of American English and display this knowledge by being able to explain it to others and to speakers of languages other than English; demonstrate an understanding of semantics, syntax, morphology, and phonology by their performance on in-class timed exams and specific assignments;

• use grammatical conventions when writing reports or completing classroom assignments, such as the end-of-semester report describing and explaining the Interlanguage development of their language learning partners (to be arranged);

• explain morphological and syntactic behavior in a conscious and analytic way by their performance on in-class timed exams and specific assignments;

• understand and use rhetorical and linguistic choices by completing a series of exercises using corpus linguistics tools.

Location and Time:       T 0100PM 0215PM DI 122  
                                   F 0100PM 0215PM DI 280 (Computer Lab) 

Required Text:  Barry, Anita K. (1998).  English Grammar (Language as Human Behavior).  Upper Saddle River, NJ:  Prentice Hall.   See companion Website for exercises and tests.

Course Requirements:  Your grade will be calculated as follows: completion of classroom assignments (exercises), 30%; two exams, 50%; class participation, online discussions, and Web-based research, 20%.  Please note that late assignments are not accepted.  The instructor will deduct 10 points (or more) from your total score for excessive absences and lateness (4 is considered excessive). Any missing work or class requires written verification of medical/family necessity. 

Classroom Behavior:  Please do not bring food or beverages to class and turn off your beepers and cell phones.  If you must make a phone call, kindly leave the classroom.  

This schedule is subject to change.  Alterations to assignments or course schedule will be announced in class or via e-mail. Please keep in mind that Web-based documents are always under construction. You are responsible for completing and handing in all assignments.  You may also post your answers to the discussion forum or e-mail me your assignments.
Date	Topic	Readings
January 1 4, 2003	Why study the structure of American English? Quiz #1	Visit the Languages and Linguistics Web Site.
January 17	Assignment #1:  Answer the following questions based on this article.	Chapters 1 and 2; complete Reflections 4, 5 and 6.  Daily Words.
January 21	Video Presentation: Language (The Mind Series).  Join the Daily Grammar Discussion Group.	The SIL Web page.  Go over discussion exercises 2.1 and 2.3. Chapter 3:  Nouns and Noun Phrases.
January 24	Noun Phrases English Grammar Links	Discuss Assignment #1.  Reflections assignment, (p.42): Nos. 2, 3, 5, 8.
January 28	Quiz #1: Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases.	Overview of Chapter 3.  Start reading Chapter 4.
January 31	Verbs and Verb Phrases.  Subject-Verb Agreement Look up handouts 1 and 2.	Discussion exercises 4.5.  Modals and conditionals, 4.9.Verb tenses, 4.11, 4.14, 4.16.
February 4	Assignment #2 (due date: February 18). Subject-Verb Discussion	Reflections Nos. 2,3,5,8 and 10.
February 7	Clarification of questions regarding Assignment #2.	Do in class:  English Parts of Speech Exercises.
February 11	Video Presentation: The Human Language Series.   Pronouns	Class discussion.  Clarification of questions regarding Assignment #2.  Read  Chapter 5 and complete exercises.  Do Reflections 2,4,6,11, and 13.
February 14	Adjectives and Adverbs - Attributive vs. predicate adjectives. Adjective Phrases and Adverb Phrases.	Read Chapter 6 and complete exercises.  Do Reflections 1,6,9,10, and 11. Consult the OED or  Merriam-Webster online.
February 18	Prepositions and Particles -- Prepositional Phrases Test your knowledge.	Chapter 7: Discussion exercises 7.1, 7.2, 7.4.
February 21	First Exam	Exam will cover chapters one through six.
February 25	Labov's Article.	Discussion of Exam#1 and article assigned.
February 28	Prepositional phrases and rules for using prepositions.  Please visit Dave's ESL Cafe	Do the following exercises. Reflections: 2, 3, 6, 7.
March 4	Language Users at Work: Dialects in America.   A Web Site on Grammar.	Discussion exercises to be assigned.  Video Presentation.
March 7	Clause Type: Voice  Grammatical Relations in the Passive Voice.  Clause Type: Discourse and Function.  Assignment #3: due March 25.	Chapter 8: discussion exercises 8.1, 8.2.  Reflections 2,4, and 6.  Chapter 9: discussion exercises 9.6, 9.9, 9.10.  Reflections 2,4 and 5.  Word collocations: qualifiers, quantifiers, phrases.
March 10 -- 16     Spring Break
March 18	Clause Types:  Affirmative vs. Negative.	Concordances: The Hong Kong Concordance  MICASE Collins CoBuild Great Books Concordance
March 21	Combining Clauses into Sentences: Coordination and Subordination	Read Chapter 10:  exercises 10.3, 10.4 and 10.7.  Reflections 1,3,5 and 6.  Go over Chapter 11: do exercises 11.1, 11.2, and 11.3.
March 25	Teaching non-native speakers sentence combining.  Sentence building through coordination and subordination.	Chapter 12: do exercises 12.1, 12.2, 12.3.Relative Clauses: restrictive vs. nonrestrictive relative clauses.  Do Reflections 1,2,3, and 4.
March 28	Exam #2	Take home exam.
April 1	Exercise with Concordancers.	Compare MICASE concordance lines and collocations with those found in Collins CoBuild.
April 4	Power Point Presentation: Chomsky, UG, and TG.	Read Chapter Four (Williams). Overview of Transformational Grammar. (Tree diagrams)
April 8	The Human Language Series, Part III.	Biological Foundations of Language.
April 11	Using MonoConc to build database for linguistic analysis. Overview of Transformational Grammar.	Power Point Presentation: UG and Connectionism.  Please read handouts. Class discussion.
April 15	Word Construction, Pronunciation, and Spelling.  Investigating World Wide Words.	Please read handouts and complete exercises to be assigned.  Analyze the following learner language sample.
April 18-20       Easter Holiday
April 22	Cognitive Linguistics and Grammar.	Neurons, dendrites, and axons.  Read handouts.  Visit the Gallery of Neurons.
April 25	In-class exercise.	Power Point Presentation:  The Structure of American English.
April 29	Overview of Course Objectives.	Class Discussion of material to be included in the final examination
April 30 -- May 6  Final Examinations for Fall 2002 semester.	In-Class Exam, Tuesday, May 6th:  3:15  to 5:15 p.m.