Assignments

For 15 May

Read chapter 49 in Rickerson & Hilton (pp. 214–217) and chapter 20 in David Crystal (pp. 125–130).

Submit Quiz #6 – your final quiz! – by 11:59pm on Sunday, 15 May.

You can also take an extra credit quiz. It’s optional, but can help to boost your overall grade by up to 5 points, so I strongly suggest submitting it. Due by 11:59pm on 19 May.

For 8 May

Please read chapters 4, 5, and 7 in Rickerson & Hilton and chapter 21 in Crystal. As always, the readings can be found on the Readings page with the password “linguist” (without the quotation marks).

The assignment, due by 11:59pm on Sunday, 8 May, is to make a discussion board post on the following topic:

The readings for this week deal with language change. What is made clear throughout is that all languages are constantly changing; this is, and has always been, the normal situation for every language. With that in mind, I’d like you to turn your focus on your own language – whether it be English or another language that you speak or grew up speaking. After doing the reading, I’d like you to talk to someone older than yourself – a parent, a grandparent, a mentor, anyone at least 10 years older than you – about changes they’ve noticed between the way that they grew up speaking your language, and the way that you speak your language. Is your accent different? Do you use different words? Did the spelling system change at all? Report your findings.

For April 17th

For the week of April 11th, read chapter 4 from Language Files, pp.155–162, available, as always, on our Readings page. Then, post on our Discussion Board in response to the following prompt:

In this week’s reading, you’re introduced to a number of terms that you’re probably unfamiliar with, including morpheme, affix, and lexical category, as well as familiar words being used in what may be novel ways, like derivation and bound vs. free. I’m curious to know how you were previously taught about these concepts, as best as you can remember, perhaps from an English class or a foreign language class. What were you taught about suffixes and affixes? Were you previously aware that some affixes, like –ness­, consistently attach to stems of one lexical category and create words of another lexical category? (For example, –ness always attaches to adjectives and creates nouns, thus happy → happiness, silly → silliness, etc.) Basically, I want to gauge what you knew before this reading, and how this reading changes your knowledge of this topic.

This week is a bit truncated, since spring break starts this Friday. Still, I am willing to accept this week’s discussion board post until Sunday, the 17th.

For 1 April

Read chapter 24 in Crystal (pp. 151–156) and John McWhorter’s “Is Slang as Swell as It Used to Be? Yas!” Both of these articles have to do with slang and how it is documented.

You’ll note that the two authors have a rather different perspective on slang and its place in the written language. There are many possible reasons for their different stances, but it’s worth pointing out that Crystal’s book was published in 2010, while McWhorter’s article is much more recent – it was published just last week!

David Crystal adopts the more traditional stance, saying that:

“When we learn a language, then, one of the things we need to do is learn which words are standard and which are slang. And we need to remember not to mix them up. It’s natural and normal to use slang when talking with our friends. […] But equally, we should avoid slang when we’re talking to a general audience. […] We won’t find slang words in print – unless, of course, the writer is deliberately trying to show how people talk, as in a crime novel.”

John McWhorter, on the other hand, points out that this practice has led to a lot of gaps in our knowledge: since slang often went unwritten, there are tons of slang words that were used in the past that we don’t know about today. He writes that “[t]he elusiveness of how so many people actually expressed themselves in the past is much of why I cherish the informalization of public language in our times.” In other words, since people today are more comfortable with writing slang down (and using it publicly), we’re creating a much more representative record of our language as it is actually used.

I’d like you all to contribute to a bit of data collection this week: What are some slang words that you use, or know, that are not super widespread? I’m especially interested in slang that hasn’t been robustly documented yet. Create a post on the discussion board and mention at least one slang word, explain what it means, and describe as best as you can who uses it (teenagers? fishermen? college professors?). In addition, comment on at least one other person’s post and mention whether you use or are familiar with the word or words they mentioned.

Note, though, that one rule is to absolutely not use any slang that is a slur. Slang that is insulting in general is acceptable, but nothing that is hateful of any particular group based on race, ethnicity, sex, gender identity, or sexuality.

For March 27th

Read pages 44–54 of David Wilton’s Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends, available on the Readings page.

The midterm is now available. It covers all of the material from the beginning of the semester up to and including this week. It must be submitted by 11:59pm this Sunday, March 27th. As with the quizzes, you can study together, but do not share your answers with one another.

For March 10th

Read pages 246–256 from chapter 6 of Language Files, which can be downloaded on the Readings page.

In the Discussion Board, create a thread sharing some of the topics from this chapter that you found the most surprising or novel. (For instance, were you surprised to find that you have a mental image for very many words, but probably not for others?) In addition to creating your own thread, respond to at least one other person’s thread. Make both of these posts by March 10th.