Introduction to Linguistics

Introduction to Linguistics

English 1200

Introduction to Linguistics, English 1200, was my first formal introduction to one of my major subjects. I absolutely adore the subject and look forward to more classes in the field. English 1200 was a cursory course in a little bit of everything "linguistic". We studied the history of languages, phonetics, syntax, universal grammar, language acquisition, morphology and semantics. 

My signature assignment for the course is my final project. We were required to do first-hand linguistic research in one of the above-mentioned topics. I chose to study a phonetic variable I had encountered. I very much enjoyed doing the field research for the project. I identified the standard, and variable, phonetic combination to be studied, created test utterances for my subject and, much to my delight, got to follow my subject around with a voice recorder. 

This assignment was hugely successful. The phonetic variable studied turned out to be intrinsic of my subject's idiolect and occurred in very structured phonetic environments. Overall, this means that this variation is not a result of "sloppy" speech, but a result of the language acquisition my subject underwent. In linguistics, researchers seek to define, not prescribe, grammar, and this variation would in no way be deemed "incorrect."  It is simply a fascinating deviation from the norm.

Attached is both the academic paper reporting my findings and the accompanying outline of raw data.