Get out your device, use the access code on the board, and complete the quiz!
Quick Review
Linguistics is the scientific and systematic approach to understanding how language works
Not polyglots, not grammar police
Languages are “structured systems for making articulated thoughts fully explicit”
Language is a uniquely human ability
Descriptive vs. prescriptive
A platypus in the bathtub?
PERRY the platypus in the bathtub?!
Features of Language
So far, we’ve said that language is systematic, complex, communicative, non-primitive, always changing, arbitrary, etc.
Another feature of language is that it is productive , which means that humans have an ability to produce and understand messages that have never been expressed before
Basically, I can say the sentence, “Marge left tiny sneakers in the dishwasher last night, and even my dog thinks she has lost her mind,” and be fairly confident that 1) you understood it and 2) no one has ever said it before!
Point out that we’ll keep adding to the features of language this semester and go into more discussion of these things Can stop the video at 3:01; get their thoughts on it (if you can)
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Activity time!
Try it out! If you have your computer/phone, do the following (you can try it at home, too):
Write out one (1) fun and rather long sentence in English. Keep it clean!
Go to Google (or your favorite search engine) and search for your sentence. [Hint: Use quotes around the sentence.]
