The Origins of Language

Hi Everyone,

This week we have studied the 3 approaches to the question of "the origins of language", "The Divine Theory", "The Evolution Theory" and "The Social Theory". Bearing these and the nature of language (last week's question) in mind, could you please foresee the future of the language? Try to picturize the future world in language context.

You might want to check these as well... http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/01origin/01origin.html
http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~rober/linguistics/origins.html#divine
http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock/virtual/lockfin.htm

Listen to the Conversation if you can... http://www.forbes.com/2005/10/19/cx_audio_comm05_noamchomsky.html

tuncer can

What is Language?

Hi All,

This week we made an introduction to the concept of "Language", your first week assignment:

Please answer the question "What is Language?", remembering our class discussion and Steven Pinker's article "An Instinct to Acquire an Art".

Good luck,

Tuncer Can

Our blog for Linguistics

Hi All,

This blog will serve as a tool for our weekly assignments and discussions, your contribution can be made in the "comment" section, down below to the right.

Tuncer Can

Welcome to the World of Linguistics

INTRODUCTION TO LINGUISTICS
In this lesson, starting from language phenomenon, scientific bases, terminology on linguistics, multi-relational aspect and the other related areas are discussed. First of all, developing a fair awareness on language is aimed. Language phenomenon is discussed by reference to domains that nurture it. Language origins, language-brain relationship, sound, word, syntactic, meaning and social systems, communication with all its contexts, discourse analysis and its approaches, language learning and teaching aspects are discussed throughout the course. Linguistics and language teaching methods is just another study area for us. Our main goals are providing our trainees with the necessary information on language and other domains related to language, and creating an intellectual background on language and language teaching. That language is a dynamic system and is nurtured by everything human is being strongly stressed. Thus, we believe that a scientific approach to language teaching can also be developed as in Linguistics. Furthermore, we strongly guesstimate the fact that once our trainees develop awareness on language, they can elaborate pleasure from literature pieces like poetry and theatre plays. By discussions on Communication and Discourse Analysis we assume that our trainees will improve their interpersonal relations and have more intuition in their professional lives. Weekly assignments contribute into personal development of our trainees by catering for improvement of their intellectual abilities. Poems, novels, movies, conversations and their contexts are analyzed. Their significance for Linguistics and teaching is emphasized so that it is presupposed that this enables personal creation and creativity in later stages of life. In addition, Course-books are analyzed according to practical outcomes of Linguistics. The main goal there is to enhance success in seeing the pragmatic results Linguistics study has brought in for language teaching and having a broader view on evaluating the foreign language teaching books and the activities they employ. It is so obvious that human beings have much deeper relation with the language. Seeing the world in Linguistics’ shoes would construe new perspectives for our trainees while perceiving and appreciating the world around them.

Welcome to the world of Linguistics, I wish you a pleasant stay around,

Tuncer Can