教案1_Chapter_I_Introduction.doc

Chapter 1 Introduction I. Teaching aims: Get the students to know what linguistics is and what language is through the discussion of some important distinctions. Help the students to get to know some famous linguists. II. Teaching methods: The class will be conducted by asking and answering some questions based on the chapter. Sometimes students’ participation in presentation and discussion will be involved. Group work and pair work are sometimes necessary. III. Questions: 1. What is linguistics? 2. What is a linguist? What are the main tasks for him? 3. What are the scopes of linguistics? 4. What are some important distinctions in linguistics? 5. What are the differences between Saussure’s and Chomsky’s distinction? 6. What are the differences between traditional grammar & modern linguistics? 7. What is language? Why is it so productive? 8. What are the main features of language? 9. What is the link between a linguistic sign & its meaning? 10 what are the functions of language? IV. Detailed discussion 1. What is linguistics? Linguistics is the systematic/scientific study of language. Study: investigate, examine, not learn Scientific: based on the systematic investigation of data, conducted with reference to some general theory of language structure, the way in which it is studied. language(zero article): It implies that it studies not any particular language, but languages in general. What is the relationship between data & theory? ?In linguistics, as in any other discipline, data and theory stand in a dialectical complementation; that is, a theory without the support of data is hardly valid; data without being explained by some theory remain a muddled mass of things. The process of study may be as follows: 1) Certain linguistics facts are found to display some similarities, so generalizations are made about them. 2) On the basis of these generalizations hypotheses are formulated to account for the facts. These hypotheses are tested by further observation