Respond to this week’s discussion topic by 11:59pm EST Friday, February 2nd.
Read pp.7–14 and 62–66 (chapters 1, 2, and 14) in 5 Minute Linguist. There will be a quiz on these readings at the start of next week’s class on February 6th.
Make sure to go by the page numbers appearing on the actual pages, not overall page numbers in the PDF file, as that usually includes front matter like the cover, copyright page, etc.
I took this class because I’m interested in learning how we (humans) evolved from what I assume were hand gestures and grunts into a structured language. I’m not sure if it will answer all my questions but it will get my foot in the door to find some answers such as why/how the American colonists lost their British accent, why Spanish in Spain is different than Spanish in Latin America, and why/how a phrase like, “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears.” has progressed into, “Hey shut up, and listen to me!” (Ok, maybe not an exact interpretation lol.)
I am interested in class because I want to improve my writing and work on my critical thinking. I wanna learn how I can take all tools from this class and hopefully use them towards becoming a great SLP in the future. I want to learn the methods of linguistics and how to apply them to English.