- 2 August 2007
The nature of lexical semantics has changed markedly in the twenty-to-thirty years since classic texts like Lyons (1977) and Cruse (1986) were published. Such texts were written at a time when Structuralist lexical semantics essentially carried on separately from major [Generative] theories of grammar. During and since the 1980s, however, theories of grammar have become much more lexically-driven, necessitating much deeper attention to issues of lexical meaning. Unfortunately, there is a tendency in lexical semantics courses and in semantics textbooks to present lexical semantics essentially as it was 30 years ago, with the focus limited to polysemy/homonymy and the ‘nym’ relations (synonym, antonym, etc.). This guide examines ways to construct a modern classroom approach to lexical semantics, with a broader definition of the field.
- 8 March 2005
This article considers the expectations of students attending MA courses in Applied Linguistics, many of whom have a background in language teaching. It contrasts academic approaches to language with those widely adopted in the language classroom. It identifies four possible rationales when planning course content for Grammar and Linguistics modules at MA level. One treats linguistics as a body of knowledge; another aims to develop students language awareness. A third meets short-term goals by providing the linguistic knowledge necessary for the study of second language acquisition. A fourth aims for long-term goals by equipping students for new professional roles.
Andrew Linn - 18 October 2002
The history of linguistics is already being studied by a significant number of language and linguistics students, often unwittingly. Such students can enhance their understanding by calling on the full range of available materials. These include general overviews of the whole history of linguistics, as well as studies of particular periods, languages, subdisciplines, or geographical regions. Teaching will typically involve a lecture element, but is more likely to revolve around the study of texts, the choice of which depends on the background of the students. Internet resources are as yet sparse.
- 18 October 2002
The main elements which influence the design of a pedagogic grammar are the audience (first language background, level of existing knowledge, knowledge of terminology), linguistic theory and learning theory.
David Adger - 11 October 2002
Teaching syntax using a generative approach
Francis Katamba - 27 September 2002
English morphology is the branch of grammar that investigates the internal structure of English words.
William Croft - 27 September 2002
Construction grammar is a theory of syntax in which constructions are the central unit of grammatical representation. There is no textbook currently available for construction grammar, but there are many good case studies. Basic principles of construction grammar are outlined in the guide and references therein. The best learning technique is for a student to use one of the many freely available text corpora in various languages to select and analyze a single construction or family of constructions.
Jim Miller - 27 September 2002
The set of grammatical categories includes, among others, tense, aspect, mood, case. These are neglected in current Linguistics courses in the UK but are central in the grammars of natural languages. They connect grammar and semantics and play an essential role in the syntactic analysis of clauses and the semantic analysis of clauses and propositions. Their study leads to general issues such as the source of grammatical categories, the evolution of language, language and cognition, metaphor and first language acquisition.
- 27 September 2002
About a one-term introductory course on English Grammar which teaches BA students to analyse most of the syntactic structure of any sentence in any text; it uses Word Grammar analyses.
William Croft - 27 September 2002
Typology is the study of language universals by the empirical method of induction from a sample of diverse languages. Textbooks are available (Croft 2002, Comrie 1989). the most effective learning tool is for each student to "adopt" a reference grammar of an unfamiliar language; the languages used in a class should be genetically and geographically diverse. Descriptive exercises are based on the adopted grammars, and analytical exercises on data sets available on the Web.
Francis Katamba - 26 September 2002
Morphology is the branch of grammar that investigates the internal structure of words.
