English 336: Introduction to Linguistics
Short Paper Assignments
Linguistics: Paper Assignment #2
Due Date: Wednesday, April 18. 2007
Note: There will not be time to revise these papers after they are graded at the
end of the semester. If you have any questions about your paper before it is
due, please see the professor or go to the Writing Center.
Length: One to two typed, double-spaced pages of discussion. (If you insert or attach any extended examples—such as a writing sample you analyze—it must be in addition to the one page minimum of general discussion in your own words.)
Purpose: This short paper will demonstrate your ability to explain in your own words a specific principle or concept of modern linguistics. Your information may come entirely from one or both of the course textbooks, but you should provide additional examples or comments of your own to illustrate the generalizations being discussed. Your short paper topic may overlap with your oral report topic—for example, by summarizing some background material you read for your project.
The paper must demonstrate mastery
of basic skills of composition and editing appropriate for a formal paper in
an upper-level undergraduate class. Papers with serious problems in editing,
proofreading or documentation will not be accepted. See the Foundation Standards
booklet for an outline of skills that are required in work submitted for credit
at Ferrum College.
Documentation: Research beyond the course textbooks is not
required, but you must document your source(s) of information. Include at the
end a list of Works Cited—or Work Cited, since you may have only one textbook
to cite. Use the MLA format for documentation, and for giving parenthetical
page references for quotations or citations within your paper.
If you choose to use examples that come from a small survey you conduct, people you interview, writing samples you analyze, or articles you have found, document those sources appropriately. Attach a copy of a survey or any sample passages or articles or exercises analyzed in the paper.
Since you are discussing language, you may have some special mechanical problems. The standard rule is to use underlining or italics to mark words when you refer to them as words. (The same would apply to parts of words.) If some of your examples are whole phrases, you might prefer to use quotation marks around your examples of words and phrases. If you need to use underlining or italics for special emphasis within words and phrases, be sure you use a system that is consistent in your paper; the reader should not be confused about why something is underlined or italicized.
Handbooks such as The Little, Brown Handbook contain guidelines for using and documenting sources in paper, and other aspects of composing and editing college essays. Dr. Hanlon and the library have various texts with more specialized guidelines for writing different types of papers. There are textbooks and tutors available in the ARC if you feel the need for further assistance of any kind before the essay is due.
Suggested Topics: Feel free to restrict or vary topic suggestions to suit this assignment. You may use a topic from the assignment for paper #1 if you wish as long as it is not too closely related to the topic you used for your first paper.
• Language Acquisition: Topic 1, p. 620 in reader. Or write a paper discussing your responses to exercises 1, 3, or 6 in Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, chap. 8. Or use any of the individual essays in the reader on language acquisition as the basis for a paper.
• Experiment with reforming the spelling of English, as discussed in the reader, pp. 380-81, ex. 6, and write a paper discussing your results.
• Use any of the exercises on pp. 496-97 to develop a paper based on Pfeiffer’s essay “Girl Talk—Boy Talk.”
• Develop a paper topic based on any of the exercises in the reader, Part Eight, Language Variety and Culture.” Some of the exercises after individual essays may be too narrow and some of the project topics at the end of the section would require too much research for this paper assignment. But almost any of the exercises in this section could be adapted for a short paper.
• Discuss several differences between the English language used in the works of Chaucer or Shakespeare, and twentieth-century American English. Be selective with your focus and examples.
• Discuss the jargon of a particular occupation or hobby, or the specialized language used by another group you are familiar with. For example, what special terms are used by people who work in fast-food restaurants or theaters, or people who ride horses? Does the jargon include primarily a list of specialized vocabulary items, or are other linguistic features involved (syntax, stress, etc.)?
• Alphabetic writing: Ex. 5, p. 722 in reader.
• Discuss examples you collect of slang terms used on this campus, or slang used by another group you are familiar with. Use a dictionary of slang to determine whether some of these terms have been used in the past.
• Write a brief report on sexist language, or some other type of taboo language. Discuss the treatment of that type of language in one or two textbooks (either linguistics textbooks or writing handbooks.)
• Select a passage from any book, or a short poem, in which a distinctive style or features of dialect are being used, and discuss the significant features of the language used in the passage. Are special features of dialect or style used to convey something about characters, cultural background, personal relationship?
• Discuss a poem or passage that violates the usual rules of the English language. (Almost any poem by e e cummings would fit this assignment.) What effects is the author creating by violating our normal expectations about how language is used? How do these effects contribute to the themes or message of the poem or passage?
• Since there are many other topics we won’t have time to discuss in class, you can focus on summarizing a section from either textbook that won’t be assigned in class (including chapters 2 and 9 in Fromkin, Rodman, and Hyams, and sections 3 and 8 in the reader), or another essay you that interests you or relates to your project topic. (Be sure the professor has a copy of the essay. She has several collections of essay you may wish to choose from.) Add your responses to the essay or some additional examples of your own to illustrate the concepts discussed in the essay.
• Examine one or more Internet sites that deal with language, and report on what you have found. Example: http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~brians/errors/index.html. "Common English Errors is a new Web site which simply and entertainingly explains a number of common spelling and usage errors in English. Created by Washington State University Professor of English Paul Brians."
• Examine some examples of student writing. Discuss problems you identify in an area relating to language usage, and methods for helping the students improve in those areas.
• You may use any of the topics below that you did not choose for paper 1.
Due Date: Mon., Mar. 19
Length: One to two typed, double-spaced
pages of discussion. (If you insert or attach any extended examples—such
as a writing sample you analyze—it must be in addition to the one page
minimum of general discussion in your own words.)
Purpose: This short paper will demonstrate your ability to
explain in your own words a specific principle or concept of modern linguistics.
Your information may come entirely from one or both of the course textbooks,
but you should provide additional examples of your own to illustrate the generalizations
being discussed. Either of your short paper topics may overlap with your oral
report topic, so you may write briefly now about a topic that you decide to
pursue further in your project.
The paper must demonstrate mastery of basic skills of composition and editing
appropriate for a formal paper in an upper-level undergraduate class. Papers
with serious problems in editing, proofreading or documentation will not be
accepted. See the
Foundation Standards for an outline of skills that
are required in work submitted for credit at Ferrum College.
Documentation: Research beyond the course textbooks is not
required, but you must document your source(s) of information. Include at the
end a list of Works Cited—or Work Cited, since you may have only one textbook
or article to cite. Use the MLA or APA format for documentation, and for giving
parenthetical page references to quotations or citations within your paper.
If you choose to use examples that come from a small survey you conduct, people
you interview, writing samples you analyze, or articles you have found, document
those sources appropriately. Attach a copy of a survey or any sample passages
or articles or exercises analyzed in the paper.
Since you are discussing language, you may have some special mechanical problems.
The standard rule is to use underlining or italics to mark words when you refer
to them as words. (The same would apply to parts of words.) If some of your
examples are whole phrases, you might prefer to use quotation marks around your
examples of words and phrases. If you need to use underlining or italics for
special emphasis within words and phrases, be sure you use a system that is
consistent in your paper; the reader should not be confused about why something
is underlined or italicized.
Handbooks such as The Little, Brown Handbook contain guidelines for
using and documenting sources in paper, and other aspects of composing and editing
college essays. Dr. Hanlon and the library have various texts with more specialized
guidelines for writing different types of papers. There are textbooks and tutors
available in the ARC if you feel the need for further assistance of any kind
before the essay is due. See also the
Writing
Center web site for online resources on writing and documentation.
Suggested Topics: Feel free to restrict or vary topic suggestions
to suit this assignment.
• Use exercise 6, 7, 8 or 9 in chap. 1 of Fromkin and Rodman (pp. 32-33)
to develop a topic.
• Collect one or more examples of exercises, from textbooks or classroom
teachers, which involve morphology or syntax in learning to read, or exercises
designed to help readers or writers improve their vocabulary or their sentence
structure. Explain the linguistic principles and competencies that are being
practiced in the exercise. If possible, give some discussion (from your own
observations or a teacher or student) of the usefulness of this exercise.
• If you are familiar with a foreign language, or with literature written
in Old English, Middle English, or Renaissance English, you could compare any
one feature of morphology or syntax in modern English and that language. Be
sure to give credit to any professor or native speaker of another language who
helps you with this. See no. 3 on p. 197 and nos. 3, 4 on p. 224 in reader.
• Summarize an essay from the reader that has not been assigned in class, or a magazine or journal article that discusses an important issue involving language. At the end give your own responses or evaluation of the article.
• Summarize and respond to some of the material in the PBS web site Do You Speak American? You can combine this with watching the video (Dr. Hanlon has a copy) or not (a transcript is available in the web site). Be specific about which parts of the web site you have reviewed.
• View and summarize one or more
episodes of The Story of English, an extensive PBS series on the English
language around the world. Our library has the videos and Dr. Hanlon has
the companion book if you want to look at it.
Other Topics from Reader:
pp. 72-73:
• No. 1. You could also consider productivity of morphemes (ways we create
new words). See also topic 1 on p. 105 for an idea about how to illustrate linguistic
productivity and creativity.
• No. 9—if this topic seems too broad, focus on selected applications
and examples.
• No. 10. You might want to look at other stanzas of “Jabberwocky”
as well.
• Pick any one of the nine ideas from Daniels’ “Nine Ideas about
Language.” Quote the basic idea from Daniels, and discuss how your understanding
of that idea is affected by other examples you can think of or collect. If you
write about no. 5, you could select just one or several of the styles or functions
Daniels lists from other theorists, and provide examples of your own to illustrate
it.
• Or adapt any of the topics on pp. 59-60 or no. 5 on p. 105 to a one-page
paper focus.
• Adapt topic no. 10 on p. 106 by asking some people (at least 5) whether
they believe the English language is deteriorating or not deteriorating. Then
ask them why they think it is or not. Record and classify or compare their answers
in your paper. What conclusions can you draw about attitudes toward language
in the general public? Do you have background information about your informants
(the people you interview) that you believe might help account for their answers?
Morphology:
• Pp. 142-3. Exercise 2. Lewis Carroll also coined “unbirthday party”
in Alice in Wonderland. You could write a paper about other word coinages in
advertising or brand names that do not follow the usual derivational rules of
word formation in English. (See also ex. 1 in F & R, p. 29.)
“Word-Making”
• Focus on any of the methods of word formation by discussing examples
of your own.
• No. 3 on p. 165. You could develop a different focus that involves compound
words. Collect as many examples as you can of compounds of various kinds. (e.g.,
noun + noun, noun + verb, adjective + noun—are there other possible combinations?)
What observations can you make about these types and which ones seem to occur
most frequently?
Syntax:
• Topics on p. 188. You might have to combine two questions or add more
examples.
• Pp. 257-58, no. 1, no. 2, 4, or 8
• Explain the difference between lexical ambiguity and structural ambiguity
and provide your own examples of both.
• Explain the difference between imperative and declarative sentences,
or between yes/no questions and Wh-word questions, or between active and passive
sentences, or between positive and negative forms of the same sentence (i.e.,
sentences with or without not). As you list examples to consider, do you run
into any complications that make your descriptions difficult? (For example,
what happens if a sentence is both a question and negative?)
04/09/2007