Understanding linguistics
Subtitle: the science of language
By: John H. McWhorter
Contributors: Teaching Company
Series: The Great courses, teaching that engages the mind; Great courses
Publisher: Teaching Company
Published: 2008
Place of publication: Chantilly, Va
Language: eng
ISBN-13: 9781598034783
Subjects: Linguistics; Study and teaching; Language and languages; History
Other titles: Science of language
Notes: "Lecture transcript and course guidebook"--cover.

Includes bibliographical references.
Table of contents: title: Part 1. What is linguistics? ; The sounds of language; title: consonants ; The other sounds; title: vowels ; In the head versus on the lips ; How to make a word ; The Chomskyan revolution ; Deep structure and surface structure ; The on-off switches of grammar ; Shades of meaning and semantic roles ; From sentence to storytelling ; Language on its way to becoming a new one ; Recovering languages of the past.; title: Part 2. Where grammar comes from ; Language change from Old English to now ; What is an impossible language? How children learn to speak ; How we learn languages as adults ; How you talk and how they talk ; How class defines speech ; Speaking differently, changing the language ; Language and gender ; Languages sharing the world; title: bilingualism ; Languages sharing a sentence; title: code switching ; The rules of conversation.; title: Part 3. What is this thing called language? Speech as action ; Uses of talk from culture to culture ; Does language channel thought? The evidence ; Does language channel thought? New findings ; Is language going to the dogs? Why languages are never perfect ; The evolution of writing ; Writing systems ; Doing linguistics; title: with a head start ; Doing linguistics; title: from the ground up ; The evolution of language.