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HG801 Course Outline
HG801 Course Outline
of human language: its origins, evolution, history, structure, and use. You will be taken on a tour of the world of language and shown what linguists, biologists, psychologists and sociologists have found out about the many fascinating aspects of language, and how they have attempted to unveil the mystery of human language. In this module, we will discuss such questions as: Where might human language have come from? In what ways is human language different from animal communication? Can animals be taught to use language? Why has language developed in the course of evolution? What is the relationship between language and culture? How do children learn to speak? What makes a language different from a dialect? Can we speak without language? Is English sexist? What is good English? Is Chinese a monosyllabic language?
4:30pm 7:30pm Tuesday (Lectures only) LT 1 Associate Professor Ng Bee Chin mbcng@ntu.edu.sg; Ph: 6790 4329 Office: HSS 03-52 Lim Ni Eng limnieng@ntu.edu.sg; Ph: 6592 7880 Office: HSS 03-40
Continuous Assessment (40%) 2 in-class multiple-choice quizzes Week 6 19th February Week 12 - 2th April
Assessment Exam (60%) Multiple-choice questions + short answers 30th April, 5pm
22th Jan
*Chapter 1 & **pdf *Chapter 8 & **pdf *Chapter 9 & **pdf *Chapter 4 Online exercises *Chapter 6 **pdf Quiz 1 *Chapter 5
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29th Jan
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5th Feb
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12th Feb
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19th Feb
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26th Feb
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19th Mar
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26th Mar
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2th Apr
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9th Apr
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*readings which will be examined in both the quizzes and the exams **about 30% of the assessment in the exam will be based on this category of readings 2
Prescribed Textbook: Rowe, Bruce M. and Levine, Diane P. 2012. A Concise Introduction to Linguistics, Pearson Education, 3rd Edition. Reference Texts: Akimoto, Minoji. 2001. How far has far from become grammaticalized? In Laurel Brinton (ed.) Historical linguistics 1999: selected papers from the 14th International Conference on Historical Linguistics, 1-11. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Baker, Mark. 2001. The atom of language: The minds hidden rules of grammar. New York: Basic Books. Blackmore, Susan. 2000. The Meme Machine. Oxford University Press. BF357.B629 Christopher, Lyons. 1999. Definiteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Crystal, David. 2002. The English Language. Penguin Books. PE1072.C957E Crystal, David. 2003. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. 2 Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. PE1072.C957 Crystal, David. 2006 How Language Works: How Babies babble, Words Change Meaning, and languages Live or Die. Woodstock, NY: Overlook Press. P121.C7C957 De Francis, John. 1986. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. PL1171.D316 Deacon, Terrence W. 1997. The Symbolic Species: the co-evolution of language and the brain. New York/London: W.W. Norton & Company. QP399.D278 Deutscher, Guy. 2005. The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankinds Greatest Invention. New York : Metropolitan Books. P116.D486 Dunbar, Robin. 2004. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language New ed. London: Faber and Faber. HM1206.D899 Ellis, Rod. 1994. The Study of Second Language Acquisition. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Haegeman, Liliane. 2006. Think Syntactically: A Guide to Argumentation and Analysis. Malden, Oxford and MA: Blackwell. Ng Bee Chin 1999. Writing" the Female Radical: The encoding of women in the Chinese writing system. In Antonia Finnane and Anne McLaren (eds) Female Matters: The Construction of the Chinese Woman. Melbourne: Asia Pacific Institute Press. (with Kate Burridge) OGrady, William. 2005. How Children Learn Language. Cambridge University Press. P118.G35 (Not on Reserve) Pinker, Steven. (2007, Sept. 30). How do we Come up with Words? The Los Angeles Times. Pinker, Steven. 1995. The Language Instinct: How the mind creates language. New York: HarperPerennial. P106.P655A Richards, Jack. 1974. A non-Contrastive Approach to Error Analysis. In Jack Richards (eds). Error Analysis: Perspectives on Second Language Acquisition, 172-188. London: Longman. Sampson, Geoffrey. 2005. The Language Instinct Debate. London/New York: Continuum. P37.5.I55S192 Yule, George 2006. The Study of Language, 3rd Edition, Cambridge University Press. P107.Y95
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