Relevant linguistics : an introduction to the structure and use of English for teachers / Paul W. Justice.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Justice, Paul W., 1966-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

English language--Study and teaching.

English language.

English language--Grammar.

English language--Syntax.

English language--Usage.

Linguistics.

Physical Description:

xii, 217 pages : illustrations ; 28 cm

Place of Publication:

Stanford, Calif. : CSLI Publications, [2001]

Summary:

This book addresses the growing need to familiarize classroom teachers with the structure and use of language. Teacher training programs around the country are beginning to realize the importance of linguistics in their curricula, especially as linguistic diversity in schools continues to rise. The result is that most teacher trainees find themselves in a linguistics classroom at some point during their education. Unfortunately, the vast majority of introductory linguistics texts currently available do not adequately address the needs of this particular population. These students may find that such texts provide information beyond the material relevant to their teacher training, thereby making the texts inaccessible.

This book is written with teachers and future teachers in mind. It addresses the core areas they will find most relevant to their purposes, and does so in a way that they will find accessible. It introduces students to various types of linguistic analysis while covering the basics of phonetics, phonology, morphology and syntax. There is sufficient terminology to provide students with the vocabulary they will need for future study and professional growth, but not so much that they feel overwhelmed. Also appropriate for classroom teachers is the focus on English, their language of instruction.

The final chapter brings all the material together in a discussion of language variation that directly relates to classroom issues. Nonstandard dialects are analyzed at all levels -- phonetic, phonologic, morphologic and syntactic -- to illustrate their systematicity. The goal is to give students the knowledge needed to approach the teaching of standard forms from an informed perspective. This book is designed to provide teachers with a foundation of linguistic knowledge and, more importantly, the skills to respond to whatever linguistic situations might arise in their classrooms. Each chapter includes numerous exercises designed to help students practice the various types of analysis using a data-driven approach. Additionally, this text can serve as a basic reference tool for future use outside of the linguistics classroom.

Contents:

What is Linguistics? 1

What Do Linguists Do? 1

What is the Nature of Language? 2

Focus on Expressions: The Nature of Words 4

The Nature of Grammar Rules: Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism 5

Prescriptivism 5

Descriptivism 5

Descriptivism and the Language Arts Curriculum 7

Narrowing the Focus: English and other Languages 7

English: an Ideal Language? 8

Tying It All Together: The Relevance of Linguistics 9

English Homophones 11

Phonetics: The Sounds of English 13

Phonetics: Its Relevance to Classroom Teachers 13

Spelling and Sounds in English 13

The Smallest Units of Language: Phonemes 14

The Consonants of English 15

Describing the Features of Consonants: Place of Articulation 15

Describing the Features of Consonants: Manner of Articulation 17

Describing the Features of Consonants: Voicing 19

The Vowels of English 20

Describing English Vowels: Tongue Height 20

Describing English Vowels: Frontness 21

Describing English Vowels: Tenseness 22

A Final Feature of Vowels: Roundedness 23

Difficult Vowels to Describe: Diphthongs 23

Some Important Points about Vowels 24

Vowels as Approximations 24

The Importance of Schwa in English 25

Second Language Issues: Phonemic Inventories 25

Phonetics Practice: Description of Phonemes 27

Phonetics Practice: Phoneme Analogies 28

Transcription Exercises 29

Transcription Jokes 31

Strange but True Transcriptions 34

The Connection between English Spelling and Sounds 35

Phonology: The Sound System of English 37

Levels of Representation 37

Phonemes and Allophones 37

The Systematicity of Phonology 38

Determining the Relationship Between Sounds 39

Contrastive Sounds 39

Non-Contrastive Sounds 40

Environment and Contrast 41

Phonological Rules 41

Determining the Basic Form of a Phoneme 42

Rule Types 43

Modeling Phonological Analysis with Four Rules of English 43

Vowel Nasalization in English 43

Vowel Lengthening in English 45

Aspiration in English 46

Flapping in American English 47

Phonological Analysis Resource 49

Goals of the Analysis 49

Steps of the Analysis 50

English Spelling Revisited 50

English Phonotactics 51

The Syllable 51

Phonotactic Constraints on Syllable Structure 52

Syllable Stress in English 56

Minimal Pair Pratice 58

Contrastive and Non-Contrastive Sounds 59

Practice with Natural Classes 60

Determining Distribution 61

English Phonology Practice 63

Spanish Phonology Problems 67

Additional Phonology Problems 69

Practice with Phonotactics 73

Morphology: English Word Structure and Formation 75

Classification Criteria 75

Major Classes 75

Nouns 76

Verbs 77

Adjectives 79

Adverbs 81

Minor Classes 82

Pronouns 82

The Structure of Words 83

The Morpheme 83

Classification of Morphemes 84

Free Morphemes vs. Bound Morphemes 84

Lexical Morphemes vs. Grammatical Morphemes 85

Root Morphemes vs. Affix Morphemes 85

Inflectional Affixes vs. Derivational Affixes 86

The Hierarchical Structure of Words 87

Word Creation in English 89

Affixing 89

Functional Shift 90

Semantic Shift 90

Compounding 91

Blending 91

Borrowing 91

Acronyming 92

Root Creation 92

Derivational Morpheme Exercise (three pages) 95

Morpheme Practice 98

Morphology Trees Exercise 99

Bound Roots in English 100

English Word Creation Practice 101

Morphophonology: Where Morphology Meets 103

Phonology 103

Morphophonological Analysis 103

Root Allomorphy 104

Allomorphic Variation with Affixes 105

Morphophonological Analysis Resource 107

Some Rules of English Morphophonology 108

The Past Tense in English 108

The Plural in English 110

Relevance at Three Levels 113

Spelling and Morphophonology in English 113

English Morphophonology Practice 115

English Morphophonology Problems 116

Syntax: English Phrase and Sentence Structure 125

Determiners (Examples: a, the, this, my) 125

Quantifiers (Examples: one, two, many, few) 126

Prepositions (Examples: in, on, with, by) 126

Auxiliaries (Examples: might, should, will, be, have) 127

Conjunctions (Examples: and, or, but, if, because) 128

Nouns (Examples: student, linguistics, class, hair) 129

Verbs (Example: disgust, leak, approach) 130

Adjectives (Examples: leaky, serious, unfortunate, favorite, hungry) 131

Adverbs (Examples: unfortunately, very, quickly, extremely) 132

Pronouns (Examples: he, she, it) 133

Sentence Types 133

Simple Sentences 134

Coordinate sentences 134

Complex Sentences 134

Complex-Coordinate Sentences 135

Coordination vs. Subordination 135

A Different Kind of Subordination 137

The Purpose of Syntax 137

Constituents 138

The Importance of Hierarchical Structure 138

Determining and Representing Hierarchical Structure 140

Grammatical Relations 141

Constituent Structure of Complex and Coordinate Sentences 141

Diagramming Ambiguous Sentences 143

Constituent Tests 144

Phrase Structure 146

Subcategorization 151

Subcategories of English Verbs 152

Transitive Verbs 153

Intransitive Verbs 154

Ditransitive Verbs 154

Linking Verbs 155

Transformations 156

Deep and Surface Structures 158

Transformational Rules 158

Sub-Aux Inversion 158

Wh-Movement 160

Relative Clause Transformation 161

A Final Note Regarding Transformations 167

Tying It All Together 167

Word Class Exercise 168

Word Class/Sentence Type Exercise 169

Passivization 171

Beginning Syntax Trees 172

Advanced Syntax Trees 173

Grammatical Relation Practice 178

Phrase Structure Practice 181

Even More Syntax Tree Practice 182

Subcategorization Exercise 185

Transformation Exercise 186

That Word 188

Language Variation: English Dialects 191

The Language vs. Dialect Distinction 191

Dimensions of Language Variation 192

Correctness vs. Appropriateness 193

Levels of Language Variation 194

The Case of African-American English 197

Phonological Features of AAE 198

Morphological Features of AAE 199

Syntactic Features of AAE 200

An Additional Feature of AAE 201

Implications of Dialect Study 202

Expert Voices on Dialect Issues 203.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (page 213) and index.

ISBN:

1575863588

OCLC:

48222627