This is the core package of introductory courses that most students start with. They don’t require any background in linguistics. They provide a solid foundation for people who want to live and work in another language community, whether as researchers, educators, community-development workers, missionaries, or business-people. They’re also a great preparation for advanced study in linguistics.
You have a choice of two phonetics courses, one for spoken languages (Ling 450) and one for signed languages (Ling 455). The other three courses in Package A (Ling 452, 470, and 480) deal with spoken and signed languages in the same class.
[Standard SIL name: Phonetics]
2 semester hours
This course introduces you to the sounds used in spoken languages—some you may never have imagined possible. It trains you to recognize them when you hear them, produce them yourself, write them down, and describe how they’re made. You’ll get intensive practice in using the full International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). (Available for graduate credit; graduate students will be expected to do graduate level work.)
Ling 455: Phonetics of Signed Languages every summer!
2 semester hours
To learn a sign language, you have to pay close attention to the handshapes, locations, movements, facial expressions, etc. This course introduces you to the variety of these elements that are used in sign languages around the world. It trains you to identify them in detail when you see them, reproduce them accurately, write them down, and describe them. We teach a notational system called SignWriting which is very useful for research, since it includes symbols for virtually every sign language, and introduce other useful systems.
[Standard SIL name: Morphology and Syntax]
3 semester hours
Syntax and Morphology gives you in-depth introduction to the structures used for building words (morphology) and sentences (syntax) in the world’s languages, with intensive practice so you can recognize and analyze them. It draws insights from many different theoretical approaches and thus lays a solid foundation for advanced study at many other schools as well as at UND.
Ling 470: Intro to Sociolinguistics and Language Development every summer!
[Standard SIL names: Language and Society, Introduction to Language Development]
2 semester hours
Sociolinguistics looks at how language is used in in society—topics like bilingualism, dialect variation, language attitudes, and endangered languages. Our course focuses especially on multilingual societies, language planning and language development programs, and gives the big picture of how all our other courses fit together on the field. (Available for graduate credit; graduate students will be expected to do graduate level work.)
Ling 480: Learner-Directed Second Language Acquisition every summer!
[Standard SIL name: Language and Culture Acquisition]
3 semester hours
Learning a language so you can interact easily with people in their language is crucial for linguists, community development workers, educators, missionaries, business people—practically anyone who interacts outside their own language. It’s especially challenging where regular classes, textbooks, etc. are unavailable. Then, you have to be in charge of your own learning, so you need to know how to learn a language. You’ll learn the principles that underlie the best methods, and one in particular that is designed for learning a language on your own. Plus, you get to experience it yourself with an unfamiliar language (usually one from Asia, Africa, or native America, and at least one signed language).
On this website, we’ve described some courses informally. If you want the official descriptions, see the UND academic catalog.
