ENG512: Special Topic on Linguistics (section 1, class number 77213, 3 credit hours, meeting time MW 2:30-3:45, classroom K-G9)

Description: Language is an essential part of who we are as human beings. It has been described as a biological imperative, as a communicative tool, and as an art. We all have extensive and subtle language skills and, indeed, we all have opinions about what is good or bad language. Few of us, however, have carefully questioned the very nature of language. This course is a broad survey of the theoretical, the historical, the psychological, the biological, and the sociocultural issues related to human language in general and to English in particular. Objectives for this course include the following: for students to become aware of how important the study of human language is to understanding human cognition, behavior, and society; for students to understand both that knowing the structure or "grammar" of a language requires much more than just knowing a set of rules and that the study of language is more than just the study of grammar; for students to recognize some general types of variation in different human languages; for students to recognize syntax, semantics, phonetics, language acquisition, sociolinguistics, and other subfields of linguistics and to understand central concepts and issues in these subfields; for students to gain some perpective both on how much has been learned about language and on how many more questions there still are to be answered; for students to be able to apply general linguistic concepts and vocabulary to particular examples and to related fields of research; and for students to have gained a targeted ability to find, understand, and evaluate linguistic scholarship and other related materials relevant to an applied or theoretical question of their own.

Required Materials: Fromkin, Victoria, Robert Rodman, and Nina Hyams (2013). An Introduction to Language, Tenth Edition. Some additional readings will be made available on Blackboard, and some short readings may be distributed.

Work, Grading, and Attendance:
"Ungraded" Assignments (5%), Critical Summaries (14%), Midterm (27%), Project/Paper (27%), Final Exam (27%). Graduate students in ENG512, must fulfill all the requirements for the undergraduate course, ENG308, with the same deadlines except as specified below but with different grade distributions. (See the link at the bottom of this page for additional information from ENG308.) All work, other than exams, must be completed BEFORE class time on the day it is due and must be submitted on time and in-class except in cases where permission for early or late submission or for an alternative submission method is given in advance. (In rare, well-justified circumstances that make it impossible to contact me beforehand, I may consider requests after a due date.) Similarly, exams must be taken as scheduled unless permission is granted for an alternative. All graded work most be completed to pass the course. Graded work (except a group project, if arranged with me in advance) must be done independently.
Assignments described as "ungraded" require an acceptable effort on all parts of the assignment for credit, but assignments with incorrect answers can still get full credit. In fact, you may sometimes be asked to consider questions about new material to see what you can figure out by looking at this material yourself before we discuss it. If you wish, you are free to work on ungraded assignments in discussion with other students, but each student should still do all parts. On occasion, there may be an unscheduled assignment in class. You may skip or miss one "ungraded" assignment without affecting your overall grade for assignments at all. After that, each additional missed assignment will reduce your assignment grade by 20 points. (For graduate students, after the first missed assignment, the penalty is twice as much for missed assignments.
Attendance at regular classes is strongly recommended but not absolutely required, except for exam dates and, if applicable, student presentation dates (missing the latter could affect your grade on related work). Note, however, that assignments may be due on days you miss.
In addition, students in ENG512 are expected to develop more advanced research skills and to demonstrate an ability to relate the material in the Introduction to Linguistics course to their own area(s) of academic and/or professional interest. The grading is modified to reflect these goals. THE RESEARCH PROJECT: The research project for this course is larger than that for the undergraduate course with which it is co-meeting, and it requires a higher minimum number of scholarly sources resulting from careful searches for the most relevant and reputable research. This project will include an annotated bibliography of these sources. Students in this course should meet with me no later than the fourth week of the semester to start thinking about their research project topics, and they should meet with me as needed throughout the remainder of the semester to discuss their ongoing research. The annotated bibliography must be submitted at least 10 days before the research paper is due. Assessment of the bibliography submitted at that time will be part of a the research project grade. The critical summaries written for this course and all aspects of the research project will be evaluated on a graduate level.
Of course, all your work for this course is subject to the JMU Honor Code. If you have any questions about what constitutes plagiarism or about other aspects of the honor code,see me for clarification.

Other Course Policies:
Please read the full course policies page for additional details about grading, attendance, and other issues.

Daily Schedule, Assignments, and Other Information:
All other details of the course, including class meeting times and topics, exam schedules, links to assignments, etc. are the same as those for ENG308 and are available on these additional syllabus pages:
Additional Information (Also, look to the ENG308 syllabus regularly for links to assignments.)

ENG308, FALL 2015, © JMU