Introduction

The purpose of this course is to provide the awareness to the students about the origins of European languages, branches of Linguistics; their introduction and relationship of language with society and culture. This course is designed to introduce students to general concepts of language & linguistics. The course is organized in a ‘bottom up’ fashion from smallest to largest segments of language by starting with an Introductory to Language, moving through Sound, Word, and ending with Sentence. Aspects of language origin & design will be examined as well as cross-linguistic language typologies. This introductory language course is primarily designed to allow students to gain a sufficient amount of ‘Explicit’ (conscious) Knowledge of Language and Linguistics and to provide students with the tools necessary for understanding language structure and will also enable students to identify patterns and systems in language and develop tools of analysis with which to examine language.

Course Objectives

Upon the successful completion of this course, students should be able to:

1. Enable the student to understand the nature, structure, and use of language.
2. Provide skills and tools for the analysis of language structure
3. Understand the purpose of linguistic study, including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics.
4. Identify patterns and systems in language and develop tools of analysis with which to examine language.
5. Comprehend sentence structure and describe how words combine to make sentences.

       6. Comprehend grammatical systems and describe how language conveys meaning.

Assessment Criteria

Sessional: 20 (Presentation: 06, Participation: 05, Attendance: 05, Overall Conduct: 04)

Mid-term: 30

Final exam: 50