Introduction to Linguistics
Course facts
- Payment: Free, no certificate
- Credits: Non Credit
- Learning style: Self-paced, start anytime
- Resources: Lecture Notes; Lecture Videos; Problem Sets; Written Assignments
- Before you start: There are no prerequisites for this course.
MIT OpenCourseWare details
- As taught in: Spring 2022
- Department: Linguistics and Philosophy
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Human language as a mental system: morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics, plus dialects, language change and acquisition.
What do people know when they know a language? This course treats human language as a complex but law-governed mental system and studies its core parts in recorded lectures with slides: how words are built, how speech sounds are made and organized, how sentences are structured and how they carry meaning. Later sessions look at dialects, how languages change over time, endangered languages, how children acquire language, and signed languages.
What You Will Achieve
- Analyze the structure of words, sounds and sentences in real language data
- Describe how speech sounds are produced and patterned in phonetics and phonology
- Explain how syntax and semantics combine to give sentences their meaning
- Gather and analyze data from a speaker of an unfamiliar language
Program Overview
Words and Sounds
How words are built and how speech sounds work.
- Morphology
- Phonetics
- Phonology
Syntax and Semantics
The structure of sentences and how they mean what they do.
- Syntax
- Semantics
Language in the World
Variation, change and how language is learned.
- Dialects and historical linguistics
- Endangered languages
- Language acquisition
- Signed languages
Course Completion
Job Outlook
Linguistics is used in speech and language technology, language documentation, speech-language pathology, language teaching, lexicography and research in cognitive science.
Good for: Learners curious about how language works who want to analyze real language data, not just read about it.
Keep in mind: Some problem sets ask you to interview a speaker of a language you have never studied, and the problem sets come without published solutions.
Bottom line: A lively recorded introduction that covers every core area of linguistics and puts each one to work on data from real languages.
Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of exercises come with the course?
Weekly problem sets ask you to draw and justify conclusions from data drawn from real languages, and some include fieldwork with a speaker of a language you do not know.
Does the course follow a textbook?
No textbook is required. The lecture slides are the main source, and Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction by O'Grady and colleagues is suggested as an optional companion.
Which topics go beyond the core areas?
Individual sessions cover dialects, historical linguistics, endangered languages, language acquisition and signed languages, after the units on morphology, phonetics, phonology, syntax and semantics.
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