Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences: Course Proposal Narrative
General Education Advisory Committee
Queens College, City University of New York
Course Title: LCD 100 – Language in Context
Primary Contact Name and Email: Cornelia de Jong, cornelia.dejong@qc.cuny.edu
Date course was approved by department:
Justification
Please describe how the course will address criteria for Perspectives on the Liberal Arts and Sciences courses.
Be sure to include an explanation of the course’s specific learning goals for students to make a connection between these
and the general criteria for Perspectives courses.
Overarching view of subject matter: Linguistics is the study of language: its use, structure, and development
over time and across cultures. Language is a core element of human culture, playing a vital role in social,
cultural, educational and work-related contexts.
Position within the liberal arts and society: This course introduces the students to the study of linguistics by
first presenting the social, educational, and work-related contexts in which language is used. Within these
contexts, linguistic concepts are introduced and explained. Thus, unlike standard introductory courses in
linguistics—which focus on concepts with little application and often do not sufficiently underscore the
relevance of linguistics to the liberal arts—this course will provide a thorough grounding in linguistic concepts
by providing students with real-world contexts and applications through which to understand them.
An example taken from a linguistics journal will illustrate this approach. In a study examining interrogation
techniques, participants—after viewing a short video—were found to be more likely to answer “yes” to the
question of “Did you see the bicycle” than to the question “Did you see a bicycle.” The linguistic interpretation
of this result is that the definite article ‘the’ expresses the assumption that there was indeed a bicycle, whereas
the indefinite article ‘a’ does not express such an assumption. It is clear to see how a similar use of language
may influence the responses given by a witness in a court case.
Understanding the discipline: Students learn how the discipline of linguistics asks and answers their research
questions in two ways. First, they read journal articles that represent a variety of approaches to the study of
linguistics. These articles discuss genuine research questions, exemplifying the research methodology used to
find answers. In the classroom concepts and relationships are brought out, examined, and reinforced in wholeclass discussions and student work groups. Then, the students apply some of the research methodologies
themselves by analyzing actual samples of linguistic data related to topics covered in these articles.
Area of Knowledge: This course will be situated within the area of knowledge Culture and Values. It will
demonstrate how language intersects with human values and ideals in the larger society, such as truth and
justice in judicial systems, communication and well-being in doctor-patient interactions. Issues in the realization
of such values in political, social, and educational contexts are also examined, for example, the status of
minority languages and dialects (such as those spoken in African-American and Hispanic communities) and the
teaching of English as a second language. In addition, interactions of language with literature and philosophy
are explored as in the debate between linguistics as a science and literature as the embodiment of values.
Through examination of these interactions students will learn to appreciate how language use reflects and
promotes different ethical and cultural perspectives, as in the controversial English Only movement.
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The proposed course meets other Perspective criteria as well. The course is global in nature, but not only
because it covers a range of sub-disciplines, like phonology, syntax, and pragmatics. More importantly, the
course also addresses a wide range applications to society, such as law, social policy, translation, and
instruction, which naturally bring up the issues of diversity (gender and race; bilingualism) and change over
time (historical linguistics). All texts read for this course are primary documents, mostly journal articles, but
also documents like Nunberg’s Testimony before the California legislature, regarding the decision over whether
or not to make English the official State language. Primary materials are also used to reinforce the concepts that
are introduced in the course, when students complete assignments like gathering and analyzing authentic data.
Such assignments would involve obtaining and analyzing machine-translated texts from Google Translate or
Yahoo Babel Fish (online translators).
Criteria Checklist
Please be sure that your justification addresses all three criteria 1-3, below. For criteria 4-8, please check all that apply
and discuss these in your justification.
A Perspectives course must:
1. Be designed to introduce students
to how a particular discipline creates
knowledge and understanding.
2. Position the discipline(s) within
the liberal arts and the larger society.
3. Address the goals defined for the
particular Area(s) of Knowledge the
course is designed to fulfill.
In addition, a Perspectives course will, where appropriate to its
discipline(s) and subject matter:
4. Be global or comparative in approach.
5. Consider diversity and the nature and construction of forms
of difference.
6. Engage students in active inquiry.
7. Reveal the existence and importance of change over time.
8. Use primary documents and materials.
Course Materials, Assignments, and Activities
Please provide an annotated list of course readings and descriptions of major assignments or exams for the course, as well
as distinctive student activities that will engage students in working toward the course goals discussed in the course
description and/or justification.
Please include the author and title for each reading or text, along with a short description providing information about how
the reading will contribute to course goals.
Readings: The course readings will consist of select linguistics journal articles published in Oaks, Dallin D.
(1999). Linguistics at work: A reader of applications. New York: Harcourt Brace College Publishers.
Overarching and unit-specific goals: This course introduces the students to the study of linguistics by first
presenting the social, educational, and work-related contexts in which language is used. Within these contexts,
linguistic concepts are introduced and explained. Specific language- and context-related goals pertaining to
each reading are indicated in reading list (please see below) in parentheses.
Assignments: These will include graded activities (in-class and homework; see reading list below) through
which students will become familiar with both the linguistic and context-related issues raised by each reading.
Exams: There will be a midterm exam and a final exam on the course material. Some exam test-tasks will
include fact-related or definitional issues, but most will comprise tasks requiring integration and application of
linguistic concepts and principles learned.
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Student activities: (See reading list, below)
Reading list (author and title), organized by specific work-related context (with suggested accompanying
activities/assignments)
Unit 1: Linguistics in medicine and therapy
Fisher, S. Doctor Talk/Patient Talk
(Goal: Understanding semantics and pragmatics, in the context of medicine and therapy)
ACTIVITY: In-class discussion comparing this paper to a more up-to-date paper TBD.
ACTIVITY: Small groups come up with potential research questions concerning doctor-patient
interactions.
Diaz-Duque, O. F. Communication barriers in medical settings
(Goal: Understanding language varieties and register, in the context of medicine and therapy.)
ACTIVITY: Do (and record) a role-play (in English) of a doctor’s visit. Translate the text into
another language. Do you find any difficulties? Are they similar to those described in the
chapter? Specify disease, culture (hispanic, middle eastern; if possible), etc.
‘POST-TEACHING’: Discuss more up-to-date research on this topic.
Unit 2: Linguistics and the law
Loftus, E.F. Language and memories in the judicial system
(Goal: Understanding psycholinguistics, language acquisition, morphology, semantics, pragmatics, in
the context of the law)
ACTIVITY: Interactive handout with pairs of structures, as in text.
ACTIVITY: Analyze excerpts of political speeches or TV advertisements.
Labov, W. The judicial testing of linguistic theory
(Focus: Phonetics and phonology, in the context of the law)
PRE-TEACHING: Pre-teach vowel features and relevant IPA symbols, also vowel triangles with
PowerPoint handouts on Blackboard.
ACTIVITY: Listen to speech archive samples; transcribe friends’ pronunciation of vowels from
word list we give them
Unit 3: Linguistics in business and the workplace
Cohen, B. There’s more to a name
(Goal: Understanding phonetics and phonology, in the context of business and the workplace)
PRE-TEACHING: Teach consonantal features and relevant IPA symbols
ACTIVITY: Evaluate brand names of actual products. Use linguistic terminology to explain the
names. (Transcribe vowels as well as consonants)
ACTIVITY: In pairs or groups, construct new brand names. Use linguistic description to
justify/explain choices. (Transcribe vowels as well as consonants)
Unit 4: Linguistics and gender, race, and culture
PRE-TEACHING: Discuss Sapir-Whorf hypothesis
Martin, L. Eskimo words for snow
(Goal: Understanding morphology in the context of race and culture)
ACTIVITY: Find five people outside of class who have heard about the “many Eskimo words for
snow” theory. How many words do they think there are? Where did they hear about this myth?
How did you try to convince them otherwise? Write a report on these interactions.
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Tannen, D. The power of talk
(Goal: Understanding the concept of language variety, in the context of gender issues)
ACTIVITY: Ask two friends out of class (one male, one female) for feedback on a text you’ve
written (perhaps for another class). Make notes of how they give feedback. For example, does
your female friend start with praise? Compare your findings with those on p. 250 of the textbook.
Raidt, E. H. The role of women in linguistic change
(Goal: Understanding historical linguistics, in the context of gender and culture issues)
ACTIVITY: Analyze some historical data (e.g., an excerpt from Shakespeare) and compare it to
modern English. What differences are there, e.g., in terms of vocabulary and morphology?
POST-TEACHING: Expand on topic, e.g., a brief history of English
Unit 5: Linguistics, education, and social policy
Nunberg, G. Testimony before CA legislature
(Goal: Understanding historical linguistics, in the context of education and social policy)
ACTIVITY: Have students in pairs or groups examine English-language texts containing loan
words and try to identify them.
ACTIVITY: Have students in groups come up with English loan words in their [parents’] L1.
Additional reading: Examine effect on Korean of Japanese colonial language policy. (Possibly
use Language Policy, v1 n3 p261-81 2000.)
Labov, W. Recognizing Black English in the Classroom
(Goal: Understanding social dialects, in the context of education)
ACTIVITY: Interactive handout with Black English Vernacular (BEV) and Standard English
(SE) sentences. Students use textbook (or other resource provided by the teacher) to translate
the forms from one dialect to another. They must also describe the grammatical forms being
addressed.
ACTIVITY: Give HO with an unlabeled mix of separate, numbered texts: Black English
stereotypes, genuine BEV forms, standard English, and some intermediate forms, and have
students categorize the structures (e.g., tense and aspect; plurals; loss of info).
ACTIVITY: Examine some features of other Englishes, e.g., British, Indian, Malaysian (use
online Speech Archive).
PRE-TEACHING: Some work with tense and aspect in SE may well be indicated.
Unit 6: Linguistics and literary analysis
Fowler, R. Studying literature as language
(Goal: Understanding semantics and pragmatics, in the context of literary analysis)
ACTIVITY: Examine the text of a Shakespeare sonnet (Neruda love poem? short story?) and a
rock-and-roll ballad and identify salient linguistic structures that foreground meaning –
phonology, syntax, discourse structure.
Unit 7: Linguistics and translation
Noss, P. A. Communicating the Scriptures across cultures
(Goal: Understanding aspects of lexis (vocabulary), pronouns, ideophones, and syntax, in the context of
language translation issues)
ACTIVITY: Translate some text, ask students what some problems were. (We assume a Queens
College student body with significant bi- or multi-lingual component.) Pair any monolingual
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students with bilingual students; pairs have to feed the text into Babel Fish or Google Translate
to check against the bilingual student’s translation).
Unit 8: Linguistics and language instruction
Wolfson, N. Compliments in cross-cultural perspective
(Goal: Understanding semantics and pragmatics, in the context of second-language instruction)
ACTIVITY: Collect at least five compliments and make notes of the age, gender, and setting.
Compare the structure of the compliments to those described in the chapter: are they similar or
different? If you speak a different language, collect compliments in that language. How do they
compare to the English structures discussed in the chapter?
POST-TEACHING: Discuss other speech acts.
POST-TEACHING: Time permitting, demonstrate limitations of speech act theory through
conversation analysis (CA) data, e.g., excerpts from Levinson, S. C. (1983). Pragmatics. CUP. If
feasible, also use excerpts from the Pomerantz (1978) article on compliment responses. Such a
critique of speech act theory, while brief, would serve to fulfill the PLAS requirement of
introducing students to" how particular disciplines" (in this case, the sub-areas of speech act theory and
CA) "create knowledge and understanding" of language.
Assessment [IMHO, this should be styled, "Evaluation"]
Perspectives courses must be recertified every five years, and we are seeking ideas for how to best carry out this
assessment. What forms of evidence that the course is meeting its goals as a Perspectives course would be appropriate to
collect for this course during the next five years? How would you prefer assessment to be conducted? How might
evidence of effective teaching and student learning be collected and evaluated?
Forms of assessment to be used for course evaluation would include: Samples of student work such as
mid-terms and final exams, and student worksheets (in-class and homework assignments) demonstrating
relative mastery of both linguistic concepts and their application in real-world settings; student feedback
forms on the course providing input on effectiveness of instruction, methodology, and course content.
Evaluation of the course should be done annually. Data gathered annually from the abovementioned
sources should be analyzed with reference to overarching course goals (see Justification section, and
Course Materials, Assignments, and Activities).
Administration
What process will your department develop to oversee this course, suggest and approve changes, and conduct assessment?
Who will be in charge of this process? Also indicate whether the course will be primarily taught by full-time or adjunct
faculty, or by a combination of the two types of instructor.
The department has a standing TESOL committee which will oversee the teaching and evaluation of the
course. The course will primarily be taught by a combinatino of full-time and adjunct instructors. They will
meet regularly with the TESOL committee.
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