[shleyaa]

Alright, so if you're like me and you find languages interesting, then you will probably enjoy this course. You cover phonetics, phonology and morphology so I'll just give you a quick review on each of these units.

Phonetics
Phonetics is the study and classification of speech sounds. In this unit, you learn how to transcribe/translate words using the IPA alphabet. I found this part of the course to be REALLY easy, and quite fun actually. You get to learn all the symbols that represent the different sounds of English, and other languages as well, so by the end, you'd be able to pronounce words in languages you've never even seen before! You can probably tell that this was my favourite unit.

Phonology
Okay, so this unit is a lot more abstract than the last. Phonology deals with the "system of sounds" in a particular language. One of my friend's TA said that if you enjoyed Phonetics, you probably won't enjoy this unit as much (and vice versa). I personally didn't like it at first because I didn't understand anything, but towards the end I finally grasped the important concepts.

Morphology
Morphology is the study of the form of words, another easy unit of this course, in my opinion. You deal with nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. so if you enjoy grammar and all that jazz, you'll probably find this unit as easy as the Phonetics one. It's really cool because you can identify the morphemes of a given set of data from another language and once you do, you're able to make up certain sentences by yourself!

So, overall its easiness really depends on your interest. Dr. Moro does a great job at explaining things and I find that she's very approachable and patient with the students. She posts SOME of her slides on WebCT, but not all so make sure you attend as many lectures as you can if you don't understand a specific concept. Oh, and about tutorials... you get either an assignment or quiz once a week (or both) which are pretty easy if you understand the basic concept of the lesson. And that's pretty much all I can say at the moment ... if you have any other questions just message me

So, I just finished this course this semester so it's fresh in my mind. =D

At first, Linguistics was a little daunting. We had to memorize a lot of phonetic symbols and places/manner of articulation in the mouth (where and how we produce sounds). However, once you got that down pat and understood it the rest of the course flows easily.

I really enjoyed this course. Dr. Moro is amazing, not because she was easy in her testing style or made things too simple during lecture, but because it was almost as if she could make anything interesting with the way she presents her lectures. You could also tell that she cared about how each student was doing, even if there was over 500 of us. She carries a smile a lot, and cracks a couple funny ones which wakes you up on a Friday afternoon (which is when we had class this semester ;P).

However, if you don't keep up with the homework and keep working at it, you'll fall behind in this course. My tutorial wasn't very productive because only two or three of us did the homework and knew what was going on so it was pretty lame. Go to all the lectures because what she says in lecture is important, and she adds onto her slides... like shleyaa said, not all of her slides are on webCT. And if you don't like readings, you're in luck, since the chapters are stretched out for a few weeks typically... but if you want an indepth understanding, it's always best to read!

And with all that said, this course rocks and I'm looking forward to taking the second part to the introduction to Linguistics, 1AA3. 9/10.

Does this course have alot of writing? Essays? What do the assignments and tests require you to do?

Originally Posted by tiger

Does this course have alot of writing? Essays? What do the assignments and tests require you to do?

No essays whatsoever actually.

The assignments and tests are... hmm, they require you to basically implement what you've learned in class into little assignments. We had a workbook that had various exercises focusing on Phonetics, Phonology and Morphology. They're usually very simple and easy to do once you have notes from lecture and/or the textbook. The tests are more or less the same. I actually had fun doing most of the assignments, it sounds nerdy but I guess that's why I've switched to Linguistics haha.

are the tutorials mandatory?

Originally Posted by CourtneyH

are the tutorials mandatory?

Yes, tutorials are mandatory if you want to get a good participation mark. This is where you get and hand in your assignments

Anyone selling Contemporary linguistics analysis

O'Grady
6th edition

pleaseeee tell me

Originally Posted by kwyhan91

Anyone selling Contemporary linguistics analysis

O'Grady
6th edition

pleaseeee tell me

Have you checked the Marketplace?

Also check out this article: http://www.macinsiders.com/showthread.php?t=2368 6

does anyone have the linguistics class visible on ELM yet?

Originally Posted by Lizliz

does anyone have the linguistics class visible on ELM yet?

not yet

Dr. Moro is a great prof; she cares about her students and she teaches well enough. Will (the IA) is also a good guy.

It's a super easy course...if you don't go to class or read the textbook but still go to the tutorials you should still be fine getting an 11 or 12 in the course, as long as your TA is competent.

The material is actually relatively interesting if you like that sort of thing.

Does anyone know who is teaching it this summer??

I thoroughly enjoyed this course and I actually looked forward to my Monday night classes. The assignments and quizzes aren't hard at all and my TA was very helpful for this course. Dr. Moro was a great prof and she made the material very clear and concise and all of the evaluations were extremely fair. If you keep up with the material, it's easy to get a double-digit grade in the course. However, I find that linguistics is one of those subjects where if you get it, you get it, and if you don't, you don't. New concepts build on top of old concepts, so don't fall behind!

The prof for next year isn't listed on the master course timetable. Do you guys think Dr. Moro won't be teaching anymore? If so, it is worth the risk?

Originally Posted by aliatehreem

The prof for next year isn't listed on the master course timetable. Do you guys think Dr. Moro won't be teaching anymore? If so, it is worth the risk?

Hmm... good question. According to this page, she is teaching it again this year. I'd be surprised if she wasn't.

http://www.humanities.mcmast er.ca/...%20201011.html