• Schaller-Schwaner Iris

Introduction

What is language? What is linguistics? What is English? And what is it like? All of these questions are relevant at the start of the semester, but in this second part of a combined very short introduction to Phonetics and Linguistics for English Language Teaching we will be focusing mostly on what English is (like). The course will provide individual glimpses into the linguistic study of English and the discipline of linguistics. These are relevant with a view to the subject matter of our teaching, the E in ELT, and its form, meaning and use.

Aims and rationale

The short-term aim of this course is to help students understand and apply metalanguage used to describe and analyse English and to reflect on some concepts of language and linguistic analysis that have informed ELT. The long-term aim of this course is to start a process of discovery of different approaches to the study of English that teachers (and other language professionals) can draw on as needed. This should help to make your choices more informed and your practice more principled and to develop your knowledge base and skills repertoire for promoting foreign language learning in the classroom. Another rationale for this course is that every (future) language teacher, consciously or unconsciously, already has an informal, implicit theory of language (i.e. ideas and conceptualisations of what language is, what it consists of, how it works etc.) and that every textbook or grammar is, more or less explicitly, based on linguistic intuitions/analyses and descriptions/prescriptions. Since ELT is thus never purely practical it is useful to acquire some basic ‘tools’ with which to examine our own and other people’s ideas and idealisations about English critically.

Evaluation

Will be based on homework, active contributions to class work, active observations of your linguistic landscape, an informal data-collection assignment and a successful written test.

Required textbook:

Bieswanger & Becker ⁵2021. Introduction to English linguistics. 5^th rev. ed. (UTB basics) Tübingen: Francke. ISBN 978-3-8252-5663-0 ISBN. With VPN on your computer, this is available via the BCU at https://elibrary.utb.de/doi/book/10.36198/9783838556635

Recommended:

Yule, George ⁷2020. The study of language. 7th ed. Cambridge etc. CUP Paperback ISBN: 9781108730709 Online ISBN: 9781108582889 doi:10.1017/9781108582889

Other readings and reference books:

Aitchison, Jean ⁴2012. Language change. Progress or decay. (Cambridge Approaches to Linguistics) 4^th ed. Cambridge: CUP

Aitchison, Jean ⁹2010. Aitchinson’s Linguistics. Teach yourself. 9^th ed. London: Hodder Educ.

Bauer, Laurie 2007. The linguistics student’s handbook. Edinburgh University Press.

Bauer, Laurie 2012. Beginning linguistics. Houndsmill, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Collins, Peter; Hollo, Carmella ³2016. English grammar: An introduction. 3rd ed. Palgrave.

Crystal, David. ³2018. The Cambridge encyclopaedia of the English language. Cambridge CUP.

Kortmann, Bernd 2005. English linguistics: Essentials (studium kompakt Anglistik. Amerikanistik) Cornelsen

Leech, G. & Svartvik, J. ³2002. A communicative grammar of English. 3rd ed. London etc. Longman.

Mair, Christian ³2015. English linguistics (Bachelor Basiswissen). 3^rd. ed. Tübingen:Narr

Plag, Ingo; Braun, Maria; Lappe, Sabine; Schramm, Mareile. ³2015. Introduction to English linguistics. 3^rd revised & enlarged ed. (Mouton Textbook). Berlin/New York: Mouton.