Introduction to Linguistics / Tagalog

[percival]

First things first: what with all the hoo-ha about the car (R.I.P.), visiting friends, going to Germany to celebrate Mum's birthday, I forgot to post that I have received a TON of BOOKS from the PHILIPPINES! YAY! Now all I have to do is learn Tagalog ... (huggles hellcatjelybean)

*** *** ***

Now, a user announcement:

It's very likely that I'm going to start teaching an Introduction to Linguistics course at Queen Margaret University College, Edinburgh, soon - i.e. in two weeks. Since quite a few of you seem to be interested in all matters linguistic, I plan to make my handouts available from my LJ. But since they will contain my RL name, I shall protect them - with a special Linguistics Friends filter. I may also add links to powerpoint slides and material on speech perception and sociolinguistics, if I get to teach that.

If you would like to be on that Linguistics filter, mail me (perceval@livejournal.com) or leave a note on this entry. I'm more than happy to provide support for the material I post - feel free to ask any questions you like. If you want to use some of the material for your own teaching, you're free to do so - just drop me a line to tell me you're using it!

Comments

[perceval.livejournal.com]

Language learning vs. Linguistics:
Linguistics is the study of how languages are structured, of how they are used to express meaning, and of how people use language to communicate. You can study a single language or dialect linguistically, or you can compare different languages or you can attempt to describe how languages in general work.

So you can study a language in the sense of learning it - or you can study a language in the sense of describing how it works.

A bit clearer now? ;)

French:
It depends on how you prefer to learn. Knowing some basic terminology of grammar will help you if you learn languages by understanding their structure. It will also make your teacher's task easier :)