What is language? How does language change over time and vary across distances? How do we learn, teach, analyze, and use language? This course will examine these questions and more in our exploration of linguistics: the scientific study of language. Language is innately human; it is a part of everything we do and how we communicate, making it a seemingly infinite field of study. This course is designed to provide an overview of the main subfields of linguistics and how they work together to further our understanding of the nature of language.
We will learn about the mechanisms that underlie language--phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics—while learning how to conduct linguistic analysis. We will then explore how to apply this knowledge to the real world and to multiple disciplines, from education and medicine to gaming and the law. We will develop research skills through lectures, experiments, projects, quizzes and group work. For the final project, using what you have learned, you will be able to construct your own language!