Understanding Linguistics: The Science of Language

Overview

Course No. 2270
Language is humanity’s most remarkable trait – a universal capacity shared across all cultures. These 36 lectures explore linguistics as a scientific discipline, revealing:

• How all languages follow fundamental rules hardwired in our brains
• The building blocks of language: sounds, words, and grammar
• Why children acquire language effortlessly while adults struggle
• How social factors like class and gender influence speech
• The evolution of languages and writing systems

Taught by renowned linguist Professor John McWhorter, this course provides fascinating insights into the machinery of human communication that underlies our daily lives.

Video Lessons

1. What Is Linguistics? (33 min)
   Introduction to linguistics as the scientific study of language.
2. Consonant Sounds (30 min)
   Learn to transcribe sounds using the International Phonetic Alphabet.
3. Vowel Sounds (29 min)
   Continue phonetic transcription with vowel sounds.
4. Phonemes vs. Phones (30 min)
   Distinguish meaningful sounds from phonetic variations.
5. Making Words (30 min)
   Explore morphemes – the units of meaning in language.
6. The Chomskyan Revolution (29 min)
   How Noam Chomsky transformed linguistics with innate language theory.
7. Deep & Surface Structure (29 min)
   Examine Chomsky’s transformational grammar concepts.
8. Grammar Parameters (30 min)
   How languages toggle between different syntactic rules.
9. Semantics (30 min)
   How languages express concepts of person, space, and time.
10. Pragmatics (28 min)
    Moving beyond literal meaning to real-world communication.
11. Language Change (28 min)
    Jacob Grimm’s laws of sound change in historical linguistics.
12. Reconstructing Languages (31 min)
    Comparative methods for uncovering ancestral tongues.
13. Origins of Grammar (30 min)
    How concrete words evolve into grammatical markers.
14. Old to Modern English (29 min)
    Tracing English language evolution through texts.
15. Impossible Languages (30 min)
    Understanding constraints on language change.
16. Child Language Acquisition (29 min)
    How children master language rules innately.
17. Adult Language Learning (31 min)
    Challenges of second language acquisition.
18. Sociolinguistics (30 min)
    How social factors shape speech patterns.
19. Class & Speech (30 min)
    Basil Bernstein’s controversial language codes theory.
20. Language Change Origins (30 min)
    How working-class speech drives linguistic evolution.
21. Language & Gender (29 min)
    Differences in male and female speech patterns.
22. Bilingualism (30 min)
    Cognitive and social aspects of multilingualism.
23. Code-Switching (28 min)
    Rules governing mixed-language conversations.
24. Conversation Analysis (29 min)
    The subconscious rules structuring dialogue.
25. Saussure’s Linguistics (30 min)
    Foundations of modern linguistic study.
26. Speech Acts (31 min)
    How utterances perform social actions.
27. Cross-Cultural Communication (32 min)
    Cultural norms in language use.
28. Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (29 min)
    Does language shape thought? Examining the evidence.
29. New Whorfian Findings (31 min)
    Recent research on language and cognition.
30. Language “Decline” Myths (31 min)
    Why complaints about deteriorating language persist.
31. Language Imperfection (30 min)
    Why no human language is logically perfect.
32. Writing Origins (30 min)
    From pictographs to alphabets.
33. Writing Systems (31 min)
    Chinese characters, Japanese kana, and decoding Linear B.
34. Field Linguistics (32 min)
    Analyzing Saramaccan creole language.
35. Kabardian Case Study (32 min)
    Investigating an obscure Caucasian language.
36. Language Evolution (32 min)
    New theories about how language emerged.