Introduction to Linguistics CLIL 1 3301-L1ILG-CLIL1

The course is meant as an introduction to the study of language, both as a theoretical discipline and an area of knowledge with potential practical applications. The topics under discussion include the issue of the origins and properties of human language, with special focus on comparing human language to other animal communication systems and viewing it from the perspective of the evolution theory. The discussion encompasses also the idea of language as a system of signs, focusing on a definition of the notion of ‘sign’, on a classification of signs, and on considering the phenomena of arbitrariness, iconicity, and indexicality in language. The next topic concerns language viewed as a psychological and neurological phenomenon, that is, issues pertaining to the nature of the human knowledge of a language “stored” in the mind, as well as to the neurological basis of human linguistic functioning. The discussion within the course encompasses also the phenomenon of first language acquisition and the phenomenon of second language acquisition/learning, with emphasis on the question of what theoretical knowledge about the human linguistic functioning may contribute to considerations pertaining to effective methods of foreign language teaching. The topics under consideration further include the issue of variation within a language, that is, the issue of historical language change, as well as the issue of geographical and social variation within a language. The last group of topics concerns selected issues in linguistic morphology, specifically including a discussion of processes of enriching the lexicon, of basic theoretical notions in linguistic morphology, of the main word-formation categories and types of English, and constituting an introduction to analyzing the hierarchical morphological structure of complex words. The whole course also involves extensive practice in the use of spoken and written English for academic purposes, introducing the technicalities of writing an academic text in English, of preparing a multimedia presentation for academic purposes, as well as of developing an academic argument based on empirical evidence and theoretical assumptions. In particular, the course involves in this respect the following issues: properties of academic text style; paragraph structure; introducing the distinction between empirical phenomena under investigation and theoretical tools used in a description an explanation of these phenomena; the use of bibliographical sources; bibliographical references; a bibliography for an academic text; quoting and paraphrasing.