Embassy Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 My son adores Excavating English and would love to study more on linguistics. Is there something appropriate that isn't too heavy duty that is designed for middle school or high school? :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quark Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 There are some great suggestions in this thread: Linguistics? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momling Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 The problem with linguistics is that it just isn't very accessible to the non-linguist. My 9 yr old is doing Excavating English now and she loves it... Eventually we might delve deeper. Here are some possibilities: Stephen Pinker ("The Language Instinct" and "Words and Rules") does a good job of writing to a general audience. I'd start there. He mainly deals with syntax-semantics and acquisition. John McWhorter ("The Power of Babel") does easy-to-understand historical linguistics. "The Language Files" are materials for intro undergrad course in linguistics. They'd be my first choice for a high school level course. http://www.amazon.com/Language-Files-Materials-Introduction-Linguistics/dp/0814251633/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320817629&sr=1-1 "Semantics: A coursebook" is a *really* basic semantics workbook that would probably be appropriate for a high schooler. http://www.amazon.com/Semantics-Coursebook-James-R-Hurford/dp/0521671876/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320817610&sr=1-1 If I were teaching Syntax (generative) , I'd go for one of Carnie's books... like this one: http://www.amazon.com/Syntax-Generative-Introduction-Introducing-Linguistics/dp/1405133848/ref=pd_sim_b_2 or maybe... http://www.amazon.com/Modern-Syntax-Coursebook-Andrew-Carnie/dp/052186335X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1320817473&sr=1-2 I can't think of anything particularly easy for phonetics or phonology or morphology... But there's surely a lot out there for sociolinguistics that is pretty easy to read. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizabethB Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 I'm enjoying McWhorter's Understanding Linguistics, I think it is fairly easy to understand, the DVD format helps make things clearer. http://www.thegreatcourses.com/tgc/courses/course_detail.aspx?cid=2270 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Embassy Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 Thanks so much! I'll check these out. I think he would like to learn the IPA the most. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Momling Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 If he's interested in phonetics or phonology, start him with something like Ladefoged's "Vowels and Consonants". I think it wouldn't be too hard at all. Also, play around with an IPA chart like this one where you can click on the sounds and hear them http://www.phonetics.ucla.edu/course/chapter1/chapter1.html I've let my kids fool around with Praat which is a free download to record and analyze spectrograms. PM me if you want more ideas about what a kid can do with Praat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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